[AP]

Review of 530D mport after 200 miles (plus pics!)

Ok had my new 530D msport now for a few days, covered 200 miles so here's my review of it so far.
Hope some of this information is useful to those you considering a purchase of one one of these.
I enclosed some pictures of parts of the car that may not have been seen before in much detail.


In no particular order

Suspension
Have Michelin RFT on 351m 19" wheels.
Compared to my previous E39 530i msport which had 18" wheels, the ride is certianl different.
Certianly not as hard , quitre smooth in fact until you come to the pot holed roads that we seem to have a lot of here in the UK.
If you encounter a pothole, you certianly seem to know about. I'm now making an effort to avoid them in the road if I see them in time.

Steering
Mentioned this previously, but steering no a patch on my E39. Its lighter and I don't feel I can feel what the tyres are doing.
that may be down to RFT to some extent. Getting used to and its not bad but just not tactile like the E39.
The F10 and E39 seem to be worlds apart , The F10 even in msport guise, seems more of a luxury car that 'sporty'.
calling it a 7 'lite' probably isn't far of the mark - not driven a 7 though.

Seats
have the sport seats with full electric control.
These feel better than the ones in my old e39, more supportive, better thigh support.Despite being touted as fully electric, the thigh
support is extended by hand. The E39 was electric.
Like the head restraints, adjusted so its just behind your head (to prevent whiplash)

Active cruise control.
Very impressed with it . it has its limitations and as the manual states , its really designed for motorways and dual carriage ways.
have driven on the M25 with it and it makes driving very easy. The steering wheel has to buttons so you can decide how close to the car
in front you want to be.Traffic in front stops , you stop, it starts off again, you follow.
If the road ahead is free of cars, your car travels at you selected speed. If tehre is a car in front blocking you, you are advised by a car symbol
and in the HUD it tells you what your desired speed is.
With acc on but without cruise control engaged, it will warn you if you approach a car too quickly. I've not got to the point where the car starts to brake though to lessen
the impending impact!
ACC can be identified externally buy what looks like thin rectangular gauze in front of the radiator below the number plate.

Limit button
very useful esepcially where there are lot of speed cameras in 30 mph zones. simply press the lim button and you current speed become its limit. press the gas pedal and you don't go any faster. you can change the limiting speed via the
toggle button on the steering wheel.


Head up display.
Very useful and i leav it on the while time. On my car its telling me the current speed limit. This appear to be accurate most of the time.
it can pick up speed limit signs on adjacent lanes on parallel roads anbd display that though. Common sense though so you obviously be aware of what the
speed limit is but it just acts as a good reminder.
Also shows you you current speed, sat nav directions, desired speed of the cruise control (if there is a car in front whilst you using acc), a car symbol if there is a car in front.
If you have set a speed warning, this is also displayed in the HUD as well.
The HUD is adjustable in terms of height , so for me as I like to sit as high as possible, it needed to be set to its lowest setting so I could see everthing.
The brightnes is also adjustable and the default works fine for. Visible at night and in the day , easily visibile at its default setting even with
non polarized sunglasses.

reflections on windscreen.
Weel again I've seen this reference in forums. There is a reflection of the speaker housing and the outline of the HUD.
Whether it bothers you ro not is down to you. AT least with your eyes focused at infinity, its not an issue but it does
catch my attention in some light conditions.Atgain comparing to the E39 where because there are not really any features on the dashboard, you don't see anything
(unless you look very hard)


Extended black panel.
Impressed with this, like the way it changes from white to red at night. (HUD display also changes from various colours to predominelty orangy as well
at night)
Changing radio stations , cd extra is also shown on here so you can see what the next of previous track is.


Alcantara headlining.
This really syhould be standard, it sets off the interiors so much better. My E39 had a sort of felt type material for the headlining
for the headlining, the F10 defaults to i think nylon(?) and I thought it looked worse. Hence my decision to go for alcantara.
its not cheap but it looks so classy.

Engine
Well as I'm running this in, I've not pushed it but it performance is more than adequate.it cruises at 70mph at 1500 rpm and with gentle driving
it doesn't need to really go above this much.
There has been mention in these forums about hesitation when pulling away. There certianly seem to be some delay and I've
been trying to work out whats going on, whether its just down to the way I take my foot off the brake and apply gas.
If i switch to sport mode, I don't seem to get this delay and the car seems so much quicker to pull away (guess thats why its called sport!)
The throttle sensitivity is different in sports mode with less movement of the foot to provoke action.
Fuel economy is very impressive coming form a E39 530i . With that on a very gentle drive I could get 35mpg with around 20 around town.
So far over 200 miles I've averaged 33mpg. A drive around London in stop start traffic produced around 33, again very impressive and a drive
along predominetly motorways at 70mph produced just over 50mpg although that was with what was already a warmed up engine.
Obviously will vary how you drive it but for a 3 litre, I'm impressed.

Hifi
Chose the professional version. On the whole, a great improvemnt over the E39 (whch had what at the time was the profession version)
the let down is the bass I found rather boomy. using the equializer I've reduced the bass which helps a lot. mid and treble are very good.
Now the car is not going to be the best place for any hifi as any audiophile will tell you, but given that, its enjoyable to listen to with
a good volume too.
For my source, I've used a 8Gb USB stick on the cubby hile in the centre console. using Windows 7, I ripped CDs as lossless WMA.
I don't see any album art so will look into that in more detail, not a showstopper for me though.
Why lossless WMA? well as siad previosuly, the environment is ideal, but I take the view, why make something worse (mp3)
when you have a format that doesn't take anything away?

8 Speed auto
Very smooth on the whole except when slowing down at slow speed when it feel like there is a lot of engine braking going on and so it can difficult to slow down smoothly.
My E39 was smoother in this respect.


universal Remote control
having trouble trying to program this , not got it work yet. Might be down to the gate I have not being compatible.
Found some instructions elsewhere but still struggling to get this this work.
The buttons are contained on the bottom left of the rear view mirror.

Climate comfort windscreen.
I ordered this as I was in the belief that it would offer a darked band at the top. The screen with the darkend band is how not compatible with the HUD.
The website states green strip climate comfort windscreen. Mine does not have this. Whether this is a UK version or whether this is soemthing they've stopped
So a minor dispointment there but at least the car should be cooler in the summer (all two weeks we have in the UK!)

Sat nav
have the professional version.
Find creating a new 'contact' not the most intiuitive. Seems you need a name in your phone book on your bluetooth phone.
memorising your current position is also hidden away. Sure its in the manual but in general , I find its going to me a while to get the hang of it.
My subscription for all of the BMW services hasn't come thought yet so I'm only getting TMC at the moment for traffix info, not RTTI.

Autostop start.
Don't like it, nuff said. I try to remember to switch off everytime I start the car.