2005 BMW 530 Preview

The New BMW 5 Series

The Ultimate Driving Machine handles even better, but what about its looks?

Driving

Before we explain what it's like to drive the new 5, we need to mention that we were only able to test the forthcoming 530i, which has the same displacement, 3.0-liter, in-line, six- cylinder engine as the outgoing 530i. Power output is also identical, with 225 hp at 4,900 rpm, and 214 foot-pounds of torque at 3,500 rpm. However, the car feels more powerful than that because 90% of peak torque is available at only 1,500 rpm, meaning that right off the line the car accelerates hard, whether you get the six-speed manual or the excellent six-speed automatic.

While the 530i becomes available in the U.S. next month, the 2.5-liter 525i and all-new V-8-powered 545i don't debut in the U.S. until September. (The 525i gets the 4.5-liter, 325-hp V-8 from the new 745i but is 600 pounds lighter, so expect it to accelerate to 60 mph in well under six seconds.)

One engine we won't get is the excellent 530 diesel. Even though this motor doesn't put out more horsepower than the 530i in-line six, it does crank out a whopping 369 foot-pounds of torque. That's way more than the 330 foot-pounds from the 4.5-liter V-8, and yet the diesel gets an astounding 40 mpg. Want one? Call your congressman. Until the U.S. legislates reformulated -- so-called "clean" -- diesel, our version of this fuel will continue to be too dirty to run these fantastic, powerful and yet efficient motors.

And the driving experience? Phenomenal. Truly, the combination of active steering, stability and traction control -- along with an extraordinary Active Roll Stabilization system (to counter the tendency of a moderately sprung car to heel over hard in aggressive turns) -- simply works magic. Drive the 530i casually, say, through traffic or on the highway, and it's a stately cruiser. Not a wallowing land yacht, of course, but an exceedingly smooth European sedan.

Throw it some tortured coastal twists, however, and the car will dance gracefully through them, handling like a machine 500 pounds lighter and 2 feet shorter. The steering helps the most here, bringing you back to center more quickly, helping you counter-steer slight skids with far less hand work -- and BMW smartly lets the tires chirp a little before traction control cuts out the fun. Turn traction control off (DTC, or Dynamic Traction Control, in BMW parlance) and you can "smear" the back tires around bends more readily, although stability control will still grab the random single brake to tighten your arc if it senses you steering wide of your next apex.

Turn off stability control as well and active steering still sharpens the wheel up nicely; just use more brake before the next bend to make sure you don't go flying off into the ether.

Which is an important point: All this electronic and mechanical trickery cannot defy physics. On one set of arcs I began by heading in purposefully faster than sanity might suggest feasible, and, sure enough, the car strode over the solid center line and I had to use steering and brakes to get the 530i righted. Our tester came with optional run-flat, 18-inch, 40-series tires, but even more rubber wouldn't hurt. You might expect that when an M-edition of this car comes out, it might get 19- or 20-inch tires -- and of course a stiffer suspension.

Also worthy of a mention is how well BMW mates its transmissions to its motors. Some carmakers seem to use the same tranny no matter the motor. But BMW truly sweats over the calibrations, especially of its automatics. In the case of the 530i six-speed auto, down- or upshifts come naturally and quickly, and a manual mode can increase their frequency. Power delivery is smooth as silk. This shouldn't overshadow the feel of the manual gearbox, of course, which we'd prefer if we had the liberty to commute on uncrowded roads.

Another option is to get BMW's Sequential Manual Gearbox (SMG), a clutchless six-speed where shifts are achieved via paddles that halo the steering wheel. It's an option on the Sport models of all three 5 series cars.