Dreams of Luxury and Leather – The BMW 5-series (F10) and it`s new suspension

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> 8th May 2017

If you buy a car from the upper middle-class you always get this „I finally made it“ feeling, especially if it`s your first one. The world of the rich and famous seems to be in close reach while suddenly the „my car brings me from A to B“ folks seem to be far away. Are there good reasons for this „good feelings“ you buy with the car? Well, we are about to find out and we have some good reasons to do so: 1. The successor of the F10 did just hit the market in spring, which means the prices will drop and 2. ap Sportfahrwerke just started to offer it`s brand new coilover-kit for the car.

BMW 5er F10

A little BMW 5-series story
Personally, I like the BMW 5-series forever and thats because we are both born in the same year. Born 1972 we both have seen some and we needed to change many times to keep up with our fast new world. The first 5-series BMW, called the E12, was sold with a base engine which offered not more than 90 horsepowers and it had pretty much the same length than the todays 3-series. And than of course, you could only buy the car as a sedan. This was long before the car-builders tried to fill every little tiny market niche with different models. Actually, back in that days a station wagon was not even planned. The first 5-series station wagen did hit the market almost 20 years later in 1991. My test-car of today, a F10 sedan, was built from 2010-2017 and it offered a lot of power, up to 575 horsepowers.

My test-car:
Talking about luxury, of course I had to test the sedan and than I needed one with an appropriate engine. The M5? No, still to expensive for most of us. A Hybrid? Not common enough. How about the 535 diesel? Yes! A 3.0 with 6-cylinder, 313 horsepowers and more than 600 nm should do it, right? In any case enough power for the next business trip to the north sea or for a shopping trip to Paris. The first owner payed almost 70.000 Euro for the car. And now, 2017, the 2015 built car with just 4000 km run was sold for not more than 37.000 Euro. Ouch! At least „ouch“ for the first owner, but good for the second owner.

First contact
Well, here it is, my 5-series of the day. It has a shiny black color, is almost 5 Meters long and almost 1,88 meters wide. It looks expensive and fancy. It would be perfect if it would not stand on 18 inch rims. Those are a little tiny for the car, at least when it comes to the looks. But those are winter wheels and we still had snow last week, so I suppose, thats ok. But I really wish the car 20 inch wheels for the upcoming summer. Time to open the door. I see sporty seats in brown leather and an upscale interior. To me, the car looks way better than my 4-series Gran Coupe test-car a couple weeks ago but maybe it`s just me? I polish my shoes, comb my side parting and enter the car.

The interior
You may like or dislike BMW but to me every BMW fits me perfect. Perfect for tall people my size, and even enough space for somebody behind me at the backseat. The gearstick of the automatic has a perfect feeling in the hand, the leather multifunktional steering wheel is made very well, the sunroof above me is a nice goodie for a sunny day like today and also the display is big and overseeable. Upscale trimming everywhere and no big secrets in the operation. I cant`t even badmouth anything and so I just push the start button. The Diesel awakes in silence and with the help of a camera-system it`s easy to drive backwards out of the fully packed parking lot.

On the street
You may have seen a test or two where the 5-serie BMW was a bit behind some of the premium competitors from Germany. I don`t know about that, thats at least whining on a very high level. To be honest, the car pushes forward very serious from the very beginning and as faster as you may think, you may be in trouble with the police. And it does all that so smooth that you don`t even notice it. The steering is also very ok, for a car this size – I mean it`s not a Lotus, right? Comfort, eco and sports-mode are your choices, depending on the kind of driver you are. Of course the car runs 250 km/h and a bit more surprising to me, it hits the 0-100 km/h marker in only 5.3 seconds. All in all a great ride.

BMW 5er F10

The suspension

If you like it a bit more sporty, it may be good news for you, that ap Sportfahrwerke offers it`s new coilover-kit for the car. It offers a lowering from 25-55 mm on the front axle and 20-50 mm on the rear axle. The ride comfort of the BMW 5-series benefits from the high quality of the ap coilover.  The BMW has a more direct handling, holds the road well and thanks to the ap engineering, there is a residual comfort available in the everyday-life. The new ap coilover for the BMW 5-series (F10) can now be purchased at a price of 879,00 EUR VAT included plus dispatch .

Text: Andreas Leffler
Pictures: Andreas Leffler

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