[ARNiTECT]

Have done about 200 miles now. Just thought I'd put down my comments of my first impressions.

530i - quiet typically, beautiful noise at high revs, smoothly builds the power, which is double our old car, so taking it easy. Looks good under the hood.

M-Sport Touring - love the shape!

Sophisto Grey 2 - like the way it subtly changes in the light, a moody serious look, darker than I remember in the showroom, looks good in the rain, looks dirty after the rain. Glad we went for the gloss black trim, tempted to change the chrome front grills too.

Oyster/Black Dakota leather - 2 tone is growing on me, would have prefered all oyster, but I expect black footwells and boot will help hide the dirt.

ZGA - Visibility Pack - Not driven at night yet. Angel eyes look menacing!

ZGM - Comfort Pack w/seats - Unbeleavable! No need to remove key from pocket and for lifting in kids and carseats that is most useful, and with stuff under both arms, wave foot under rear bumper and click, rear boot opens. Hold finger on door handle and doors lock, windows close, roof closes, mirrors fold up. The seats are amazing, I have mine set for general about town use, there are like 10 different movable sections of the seat, so this took quiet some time. Comfy.

ZGP - Media Pack Pro Plus - Head up display is very cool, I no longer need to look away from the road, all I need is there. Sat Nav looks great, I have 3D on the left, north plan on the right, but coming from a very good tomtom, I do miss a few things. Not explored the media features yet, have saved a couple of CDs to the car quite simply.

223 - Variable Damper Control - more noticeable than I expected! Has mainly been in super smooth Comfort+ to get the kids to sleep or ECOpro with cruise control on for the motorway. Tried it in Sport on a short section of twisty road and it really stiffened up, feels more connected to the road. Having these as options is fantastic!

2NB - 19" 351M - alloys look great, and huge next to the 16" ones on our other car. Run flats are quite noisy, will look into what options I have when it comes to replacing them.

2TB - Sport Automatic - moving from 'D' to 'S' is an exciting switch! The noise of the higher revs is worth it alone! Not tried the manual paddles yet.

402 - Panoramic Glass Sunroof - its massive. It lets so much light in and the air from above is refreshing.

677 - Loudspeaker Pro - it's good, and I think better once I turned bass down and treble up, then noticed there is an equaliser too, so will be tweaking that soon. Quite a clear distinction between instruments.

654 - DAB - at last. 6music while driving. Not compared quality with other sources yet.

3AG - Reversing Camera - not figured out the green and red lines yet. Also, not had particularly challenging parallel parking spaces yet.

8TH - Speed limit display - when this refers to the sat nav info; it is often wrong, but seems to reliably correct itself when driving past signs. I miss the tomtom here. We'll see.

5AG - Lane Change Warning - useful on our first motorway trip. I looked out rear and side view mirror, indicated left and steering wheel vibrated before I turned as a ford focus was slowly overtaking me on the inside. I still, out of habit look over my shoulder before turning. While driving along, the triangle lights up as cars pass.

4CE - Fineline Anthracite - nice. Very thick lacquer over it looks great.

761 - Sun protection glass - darkens rear cabin subtly, looks appropriate on a dark car from the outside too.

417 - Sun blinds rear - doubly darkens rear cabin for the kid's lunch time car naps.

430 - Ext Mirrors folding - its only street parking round here. Many of us neighbours have had mirrors kicked off, now we all leave them folded in over night. But this and the keying has reduced a bit recently.

316 - Boot-lid powered - a nice delicate alternative, except when a bit of extra oomph is needed with a full boot.

418 - Extended storage - straps look useful for when there's not much in the boot, inclining rear seats should give an extra 100mm when packing in boxes. Can't use the Recaro kids seat when inclined, will try the Kiddy, I'm sure the maxicosis will be fine.

575 - 12 volt - its there for when I can think of a use for it.

441 - smokers pack deletion - comes with a little tray with a no smoking sign in it.

Connected Drive - have just set it up, preconditioning and address to satnav look useful. Light flashing worked, but a bit of a delay from activating it.


I just want to drive it more!