2014 BMW 5 Series

We evolve to adapt and when you adapt, it means you are making an effort to stay ahead in the game. It seems that BMW has taken this philosophy and applied it to its executive sedan the 5 Series in the face of evolving competition. The 2014 model is not a new car but rather one that has been adapted to the demands of its customers and various markets that it is sold in.

Launched for the Indian market in October 2013, this is the sixth generation 5 Series globally and is the first time that the car is only available for the Indian market with diesel power. Its major changes are cosmetic along with the ZF eight-speed gearbox. Of course, this being a BMW, even the diesel only option has not dampened its penchant to take corners and provide you with a mind blowing driving experience.

The front view is the most eye catching aspect of the 5 Series or for that matter any BMW. The Kidney grille has now been pushed out and sits ahead of the rest of the facia while the head lamps are now full LED double ring units that the give a car a truly ‘I’m all about business look’ especially when seen at night. The headlights now have an auto high beam function and work as cornering lamps as well.

The 530d with the M Sport package gets the same front bumper as the M5 so it’s got significant sporty credentials. The rather busy looking lines on the standard bumper and fog lamp housing have been replaced by an exposed mesh air intake and aerodynamically modified square shaped units in the case of the latter. The lines on the bonnet have been retained and further add to the car’s butch and rather sharp front view.

A view of the side profile reveals that BMW has continued with pretty much the same design as before and this includes the creases as well as the softly flared wheel arches which lend a squat stance to the overall look of the car. There is a very subtle line that runs just under the door handle that divides the side profile into two parts.

The side angle brings out the luxury feel of the car thanks to the steeply raked windscreen, chrome inserts in the body coloured door handles and rear roof line that flows into the boot. There is a slight lean towards the front in the stance when carefully observed, thanks to the grille, which is further forward at the top than it is at the bottom. The 5 Series is offered with a sun roof which isn’t a panoramic one, plus the M Sport package ensures that the car will stand out thanks to the 18-inch double spoke alloy wheels and prominently visible disc brakes behind them.

If the side of the 2014 5 Series looks bare, the rear is a more busy yet premium place. The huge wrap -around LED tail lamps dominate the overall appearance and have been a defining trait of the Bavarian automaker’s sedan.

There is minimal chrome except for the badging yet the premium appeal of the 5 Series has not been lost. While the standard design includes exhausts on both sides, this model has to make do with a double barrel setup on the left side. Working in conjunction with the flared wheel arches, the rear bumper further adds to the squat stance of the 5 Series.

The 5 Series much like the rest of the BMW range has sleeper looks and seems to convey a ‘Secret assassin’ like appearance. Its four direct rivals each have distinct design characteristics that let them stand out. The Audi A6 3.0-litre diesel much like what is there underneath looks all technical and business like while the Volvo S80 Summum D5 looks rounded and rather plain. The BMW 5 Series on the other hand looks all sporty and purposeful but in a subtle way.

The winner in the looks competition, however, is the Jaguar XF-S which has the most cohesive package when it comes to blending sportiness with luxury. Missing from this equation is the Mercedes-Benz E-Class which will soon be launched in a variant called the E350 CDI which should have similar performance figures and with an AMG kit look decently sporty.

The interiors is where BMW has appeared to have done most of its work in the 2014 5 Series range. The overall design and elements remain the same as before but with enough changes to make the car appealing to a new set of buyers.

Slip into the driver’s seat and the first two things that catch your attention are the fully digital instrument gauges and the heads up display. The gauges change according to the various drive modes with the dial on the right also acting as a secondary display for features like the navigation and the media system. I particularly like the design of the instrument console in the sport and Sport+ mode where the entire display changes to a devilish red and the numbers are in a much larger font, making it easy to read when you’re attacking your favourite stretch of road.

The heads up display is only visible from the driver’s seat and provides the driver with information like speed, navigation and door open warning. BMW has now fitted a larger display for the iDrive system and it can also be used in split screen mode also. An interesting feature we discovered nestled in the iDrive’s various functions was a screen that displays horsepower and torque, something that is sure to be useful when you are flooring the throttle with passengers in the car.

The rest of the interiors in the front, as you would expect on car costing above 45 lakh, is a river of leather, high quality plastics, a whole host of electronics like seats with memory function, electrically adjustable reach and rake function for the steering, chrome embellishments for various bits of the centre console and manually extended under thigh support for the front seats. We did however; find that the door pockets in the front seats are quite inaccessible and that it takes a lot of effort even to slot a bottle in. The music system is a Harman Kardon eight speaker system and is specific to this model for the Indian market.

While the 5 Series is a generally a passenger driven vehicle in Europe and America, it is very much a chauffeur driven car in India and the German automaker has added a few goodies to entice those who will primarily use the car from the rear seats. It is not like the rear seats are not comfortable but rather down to the fact that the Indian consumer is bound to go where he/she is given the best deal and so BMW has upped its game from the previous model.

The rear seat will seat two tall adults in great comfort and thanks to the massive transmission tunnel in between you will feel cocooned in your leather filled space. While 5 Series is in no way small when it comes to space at the back, the large 18-inch wheels means it does not have the most comfortable ride with that honour going to the Mercedes-Benz E-Class which has a much softer ride.The rear seat does, however, comes loaded with features like a CD player, dual zone vents, adjustable head rests and blinds for the windows. The floating centre arm rest pulls out to reveal two cup holders and a small slot to rest items.

One of the most noticeable new bits are the two tablet style screens attached to the headrests of front seats. They come with their own remote control (which must be enabled using the iDrive system) and can be used to access a variety of functions available in the car.

The boot space is claimed at 560 litres which is significantly bigger than its rivals as the XF-S has 500-litres; the A6 has 530 litres, Volvo S80 with 480 litres, and. the E-Class has 540-litres. While the run flat-tyres mean no spare wheel at the back, we must remember that the underfloor of the boot is occupied by the battery.

Compared to its rivals in the interior division, the 530d M Sport scores due to minor additions in terms of features. Active headrests, lumbar support for the driver, rear parking sensors with camera, GPS, DVD playback are some of the added features in this version of the 5 Series with its nearest rivals having only one of these features.

The BMW 5 Series in the 530d guise is a powerful and fun car to drive. When I first checked out the specs, I was not too impressed and expected the 530d to be more of a smooth, decently efficient and comfortable kilometre muncher…that is, until the point that I pressed the throttle for the first time. It gives you the jollies, courtesy a 3.0-litre six-cylinder diesel engine that produces 258bhp and a whopping 500Nm of torque and boy did I get mine! The 530d gets massive 275/45 R18 rear tyres but still struggles to grip the instant you floor the throttle but when it does, you shoot off the mark like a racing greyhound unleashed.

The German automaker’s twin scroll turbo system allows for linear power delivery right from low revs. The engine is mated to a ZF eight-speed automatic gearbox which sends power to the rear wheels.

There are four driving modes offered with the 5 Series- comfort, ECO PRO, Sport and Sport+ of which the last switches off the ESP a.k.a dynamic stability control giving you access to the car in its full mechanical madness. Oh be warned! In a BMW when you switch of the electronic aids, they stay off completely.

The standard mode is the comfort setting but to make the car appealing to the eco brigade, BMW has provided the ECO PRO which is basically a combination of a start-stop system and regenerative braking. This mode also runs the car in a more efficient manner by reducing the amount of power at various levels of throttle input as well as performs upshifts at a lower RPM.

This version has been fitted with paddle shifters to add to the sporty excitement but you can also do rally style shifts using the rather phallic-looking gear lever on the centre console. BMW says the 530d M Sport will do 0-100kmph in 5.8 seconds but in more real world conditions we expect this number to be closer to seven seconds and like all BMWs sold in India it is limited to a top speed of 250kmph. It almost seems obvious that since most owners will be chauffeured, we expect that the car will be driven either in Comfort or ECO PRO mode for a majority of the kilometres in its lifetime.

While the BMW has a good set of numbers to back it up in terms of performance, it is realistically the second car in the list. The Jaguar XF-S has a 3.0-litre diesel V6 engine that produces 275bhp and 600Nm of torque and is a far more powerful vehicle when it comes down to outright performance.

This being a German luxury sedan, it rides low on the road and that too after BMW has raised the ground clearance for the Indian market. The low ground clearance means that you have to slow down significantly for speed breakers.

The ride is a little hard even in the comfort or ECO PRO mode and tends to give you feedback even for the smallest imperfections on the road. This is down to the large 18-inch wheels and massive run-flat tyres which are tuned for fast driving but in turn make your ride much harder. However, the ride, despite being hard in the 530d, is much softer when compared to the previous generation car.

At high speeds the 530d is very stable. The electric power steering from BMW is the best I have ever used and it weighs up quite well at high speeds. However, it still does feel heavy even at lower speeds. The massive brakes are well suited to this car of this size and have ferocious stopping power.

We Indians are not brand loyalists and will go wherever we get a good deal and so it seems that BMW has upped the ante by offering more as standard equipment. The 530d is priced Rs 4 lakh more than its closest rivals but for this amount there seems to be a fair bit more in the offering and so seems like a value proposition for those who can afford a car that costs as much as a 1BHK in Navi Mumbai.

Each of the Beemer’s rivals is known for a certain trait. The Audi A6 is all about technology while the Volvo S80 is all about super high levels of safety. The Mercedes-Benz E-Class (for India) is not on the same ground in terms of this engine but has gained the reputation of a large luxurious tank. The Jaguar XF-S does the best job of combining sportiness with luxury but is down on the feature list not to mention interior space, and so allows the BMW 5 Series to crown itself the ‘sportiest diesel executive sedan’.