Dear BMW: howto perfect the 5-series...

davesf · 01-05-2012, 02:50 PM

Just a couple weeks into my 550xi, I love the car. Seems everyday I'm enjoying some new subtlety about it. Coming from a 2005 Audi S4 in Red with black nappa interior, my Deep Sea Blue 550, with black nappa and ceramic controls really has tangible wow-factor inside and out. It's been a major upgrade, and one that my wife loves as much as I do (after being subjected to my leadfoot S4 driving).

That said, no car is perfect, and I've been compiling my list of things BMW could do to improve the car. I'm post them here in the interest that either an excited BMW Engineer might stumble upon them and implement a couple of them... or that someone here will tell me to RTFM because one or two of them are already doable. First I'll start with some 'bigger' items:

Dampen Vibrations at highway speeds - Pretty much the only real criticism I have of the car is that the ride at highway speeds (70-80mph) turns subtle road wallow into a little more rhythmic vibration at the seat and steering-wheel than I would prefer. It happens in all suspension settings. It's reminiscent of the feeling of unbalanced tires, but it's much more subtle. My five-year-old S4 doesn't have any such sensation on the same patches of freeway, so clearly it could be improved. However, I felt the same thing in my friend's older 750 recently, so I don't think it's anything 'wrong'. Like most involved in the forums, I'm very tuned to every little sensation in the car. It's hard to say how much of it is caused by the Goodyear LS2 RFTs, vs RFTs in general, vs the car design (intending to transmit road-feel). Maybe someday I'll put some non-RFT Pilot Sports on it and find out.
retune comfort+ suspension settings - If I put it in comfort+ at more than 30mph, it doesn't take long for any road imperfection to get the car rhythmically bouncing like a 1950s caddy on nothing but springs. Seriously. It seems useless, which is fine, because normal-comfort and sport are plenty nice. However, it seems like comfort+ could be retuned to be useful. Perhaps it just needs to loosen the dampers up all the way below 20mph, and then tighten them up to comfort-level settings above 30mph... or maybe something else crafty the engineers can think of.
navigation should speak all streetnames - idrive already has a text-to-speech engine that can read text-messages and emails aloud. The nav should be able to speak all streetnames.
proper idrive screens with less constant fiddling - idrive has an amazing amount of screen configuration capability. However, I feel like I'm constantly fiddling with it to get what I want on the screen. One possibility is to make the screen-configuration context-sensitive, such as (nav-guidance, nav-map, entertainment, phone call). Another option might be to rethink the split-screen as less of a user-configurable item and more an automatic part of the current active function. If I had a way to get the "arrow display" on the split-screen only during navigation, without having to manually add and remove it each time I'd probably be happy.
more consistent and clear way to show "status" info in idrive - This is somewhat related to the above. The current means of showing the time, radio-channel, etc is pretty odd and inconsistent across screens. Even passengers like to be able to look and easily find the time in the car. IMO it would be nicer if there was a single idrive top-bar that always showed this information (like it does in menus). If you are split screen, perhaps it could display only over the small split portion. Either way, it would be nice if it was always in the same place on all screens.

Here are some more subtle, yet probably very easy software tweaks that would make my hit list, in rough order of my personal importance:

radio max-volume at poweron setting - My old audi standalone-bose car-radio had this great feature where you could set the maximum volume of the car radio upon starting the car. It is a small and subtle feature, but I **REALLY** liked it. No matter how much I was rocking out before, starting up the car didn't blast anyone out.
option to turn off radio with engine - I'm not a fan of the way the radio stays on when I turn off the engine. I normally leave my foot on the break until I actually get out of the car. I hit the button once to turn off the engine, and when the radio and nav is still on I feel like I have to hit it again. However, because my foot is on the brake, it starts the engine again. Then I pull my foot off the break and hit it again, and the radio is still on, and I have to hit it yet again. I'm sure I'll get used to it over time, but I really don't want to have to press the OFF button twice to turn everything off. If I really want accessory power to stay on, I'm fine turning off the car completely, then pressing the button while my foot is OFF the break to get just accessory power.
faster comfort access unlock - currently one must wait a 1-2 second count while touching the handle for the comfort access unlock to occur before pulling on the handle. It would be nice if this could be made faster, so one could just naturally open the door instead of having to wait. (The same feature is really fast on our Lexus)
fully custom back-up mirror tilt-down position - currently the back-up mirror tild-down is a fixed-adjustment from your normal mirror position. This does not work for all mirror settings. I use a no-blind-spot mirror setting, and the fixed tilt-down doesn't put it in the right spot to see the car and curb. I wish the car would remember my "custom" back-up tilt-down position so I could use the tilt-down feature effectively.
eliminate bluetooth audio-gap when starting the car while on a call - The bluetooth in my 2012 (with the latest update!) seems to work pretty well. I even got Office Messages for SMS partially-working with my Motorola droid-3 (it doesn't always update though). However, one thing that really could be fixed is the audio-gap when starting the car while on a call. As the car starts up, the bluetooth seems to connect with my phone and take-over audio for the call before the car is ready to give me speakerphone audio. This creates a 2-4 second gap in the call audio. If the bluetooth unit were setup to just wait until after the idrive/audio stuff was ready to connect with the phone it would fix this.
unlock on park - the car already has a setting to lock when beginning to drive. It's only natural to have the setting to unlock when put into park.
faster trunk opening with comfort access - I like the comfort access package. The soft-close doors, soft-close trunk, and the nifty "foot shimmy" to open the trunk are all really nice. However, I'm not a fan of the soft-open trunk. It's really-really slow and you can't just lift-through it to open it faster. I'd prefer either for the motorized opening to be 2x as fast, or for it to be dampened spring-up and motorized down. Our lexus does the spring-up motor-down thing and it works really well. You can manually lift and close it much more easily, yet the "auto open" happens at about the same speed as the BMW.
range estimate based on average mpg - My average MPG so far has only been about 14, which is a bit less than I expected, but I didn't buy the car for efficiency. However, when the 18.5 gallon tank is full, it says I have 350 mile range! 18.5*14 is 259, which a full HUNDRED MILES shorter than the 350 miles it predicts. Seems like just about every car I've had predicts range optimistically, but I've never had such a large discrepancy between their predicted number and actual.
source specific volume-equilization adjustment - again my old audi standalone-bose radio had this feature. You could set the equilization volume level of each source (sat, cd) relative to FM, so they were all close to the same output level at the same system-volume level. I know this is a bit of a crapshoot, since it really matters what you are listening to, and how the other side encodes the signal (FM stations are notorious for adding loudness), but it would still be nice.
add a way to send the "bluetooth multifunction button" signal - Phones have built-in voice search and voice activation features which are often usable by headsets. However, the bmw "phone" button doesn't seem to cause an activation the same way that a headset does. If there was simply a bluetooth phone menu option to trigger the headset multi-function button, I could bind it to a soft button and get my phone's Google Voice Search to work in the car! Granted, this may be not quite enough, as these features often expect you to be looking at the phone, which would require some kind of bluetooth phone UI projection onto the car-screen.
standard's based bluetooth phone UI projection - much like the iPhone BMWApps custom UI integration -- it would be great if there were a standard's based bluetooth way for phones to project some UI and do some minimal interaction with the user via the car's nav screen and controls. This would open the door for things like our phone's Google Voice Search (or Siri) to do work, talk to the internet, and project a set of options onto the screen. The "UI" projection could be really simple and rudamentary, even just a list of options and the ability to tell the carnav or car bluetooth to do something would be enough.
phone ringtone selection - the car can already play mp3s. Letting us choose and upload an mp3 as a phone ringtone (per phone?) would be a nice touch
some visual indicator of radio volume - currently there is none. Enough said.

Anyhow.. there is my list so far...As you can see, many of them are tiny little nitpicks. However, they are also mostly things that could be done with small software tweaks. I really wish the software for this car were open-source -- at least the non-safety related idrive-and-interior parts. I'd spend a couple weekends hacking and have an even more ultimate driving machine!

Love the community and my new 550xi!

rexus300 · 01-05-2012, 02:59 PM

davsf,

Dampen Vibrations at highway speeds - Pretty much the only real criticism I have of the car is that the ride at highway speeds (70-80mph) turns subtle road wallow into more rhythmic vibration at the seat and steering-wheel than I would prefer. It happens in all suspension settings. It's reminiscent of the feeling of unbalanced tires, but it's much more subtle. My five-year-old S5 doesn't have any such sensation on the same patches of freeway, so clearly it could be improved. However, I felt the same thing in my friend's older 750 recently, so I don't think it's anything 'wrong'. Like most involved in the forums, I'm very tuned to every little sensation in the car. It's hard to say how much of it is caused by the Goodyear LS2 RFTs, vs RFTs in general, vs the car design (intending to transmit road-feel). Maybe someday I'll put some non-RFT Pilot Sports on it and find out.

I have been battling this sensation for 1 year now on my 535i xdrive and I cannot understand why it still does it after trying 3 sets of different tire brands, rebalancing several times and settling with the Michelins Pilot Sport A/s which does have a very smooth ride but on most highways 70-80 there is back to forth subtle vibration sensation in the front seats and it annoys me a bit hat I have been trying to seek out the cause for it and drove other 5 series and they mostly all do it. However, the Michelins do make the car more smoother and comfortable other than that small vibration zone. My 335 xi coupe does not do this at all no matter what highways at all speed. So its baffling. My Audi A8L is much more planted also. it seems that this 5 series "soft" suspension develops a funky harmonic around this speed of 70-75 and gets bumpy no matter how perfect the tire/wheel balance is.

delvek · 01-05-2012, 03:01 PM

I appreciate the list, but it causes me to think that I am a cheap date!

I pinch myself each time I drive my 550i its a dream

davesf · 01-05-2012, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by baloo588

I have been battling this (highway vibration) sensation for 1 year now on my 535i xdrive and I cannot understand why it still does it after trying 3 sets of different tire brands, rebalancing several times and settling with the Michelins Pilot Sport A/s which does have a very smooth ride but on most highways 70-80 there is back to forth subtle vibration sensation in the front seats and it annoys me ...

As I said, I felt the same thing in my friend's older 7-series, so I wonder if it's part of the road-feel tradeoffs BMW is making in their suspensions and bodies themselves. Every car has it's 'personality', so if this is just part of the whole package I can accept that. My 550 has better overall ride-comfort, exterior, interior, and techno-gismos than my former S4.. It's just losing on ride-vibration.

I wonder if folks with aftermarket springs have an opinion about this... Do stiffer springs help take out the 70-80mph highway vibration?

rexus300 · 01-05-2012, 03:36 PM

IT could be possible that the stiffer springs help remove that vibration feel as my 335xi coupe with the standard suspension is stiffer than the 5 but more planted and zero zilch vibration in my seats on the same roads at 70-80 mph. I did not buy the 5 series to spend more money to fix the problem or try other solutions to remove the problem. Otherwise I love the car. I thought that having the Dynamic suspension system will help dampen the vibration over my standard suspension but I guess that is not the case and is due to the design of the car. I drove a new 2012 Audi A6 and it felt amazing and smooth yet sporty like the 5. So I am in a dilemma now.

delvek · 01-05-2012, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davesf

I wonder if folks with aftermarket springs have an opinion about this... Do stiffer springs help take out the 70-80mph highway vibration?

This very well could be the case. I had the AC Schnitzer springs and exhaust installed days within delivery. I notice no such vibration, ever. I also rarely drive under 80 mph, most of the time cruising at 120-140.

gatoman39 · 01-05-2012, 04:08 PM

While I agree with much of what's been written, I also can't help but chuckle at Delvek's post. I've learned to just accept the car for what it is. Believe me, I'm just as much of a car guy as the rest of you, but the list of problems in my life, the car is pretty far down the list.

BMW1 · 01-05-2012, 04:58 PM

custom back-up mirror position - currently the back-up mirror shifts down a fixed amount from your normal mirror position. I use a no-blind-spot mirror setting, and when it tilts down it's too far to the side for me to see anything useful in the mirror. I just wish it would remember the location I reposition it to while in the reverse-mirror-mode

You know this can be turned on or off from the button on the drivers door

BMW1 · 01-05-2012, 05:00 PM

custom back-up mirror position - currently the back-up mirror shifts down a fixed amount from your normal mirror position. I use a no-blind-spot mirror setting, and when it tilts down it's too far to the side for me to see anything useful in the mirror. I just wish it would remember the location I reposition it to while in the reverse-mirror-mode

You know this can be turned on or off from the button on the drivers door

davesf · 01-05-2012, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMW1

custom back-up mirror position - currently the back-up mirror shifts down a fixed amount from your normal mirror position. I use a no-blind-spot mirror setting, and when it tilts down it's too far to the side for me to see anything useful in the mirror. I just wish it would remember the location I reposition it to while in the reverse-mirror-mode

You know this can be turned on or off from the button on the drivers door

Yes, I know I can turn on or off the tilt-down, but what I want is to set a "custom" tilt-down position. Currently it uses a static tilt-down relative to your normal mirror location. This doesn't work so well if you use no-blind-spot mirror positions...

If you don't know what anti-blind spot mirror positions are..

The mirrors are winged out sideways. You no longer see the side of your car in the mirror, and as a result, cars move from a side-mirror to the rear-view to the other side mirror with no blind spot. It's the same way race-cars are setup. It's a little strange to get used to at first, because the side-mirrors are kind of facing "sideways and back" instead of "back". However, I find it really great having no mirror blind spot.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...id-blind-spots

When the mirrors are in this position, and the BMW "tilt-down" statically tilts them down (about 30 degrees), I can't see anything useful because they are still "winged out" to the side. I have to then angle them back in to see the side of my car and the curb. I want to be able to custom-set the "reverse-gear mirror tilt-down position" to be exactly where I want it, instead of a fixed delta from my normal mirror position. Currently I just rely more on surround view and manually re-adjust the tilt-down position when I really need it.

gsmith999 · 01-05-2012, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davesf

Yes, I know I can turn on or off the tilt-down, but what I want is to set a "custom" tilt-down position. Currently it uses a static tilt-down relative to your normal mirror location. This doesn't work so well if you use no-blind-spot mirror positions...

If you don't know what anti-blind spot mirror positions are..

The mirrors are winged out sideways. You no longer see the side of your car in the mirror, and as a result, cars move from a side-mirror to the rear-view to the other side mirror with no blind spot. It's the same way race-cars are setup. It's a little strange to get used to at first, because the side-mirrors are kind of facing "sideways and back" instead of "back". However, I find it really great having no mirror blind spot.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...id-blind-spots

When the mirrors are in this position, and the BMW "tilt-down" statically tilts them down (about 30 degrees), I can't see anything useful because they are still "winged out" to the side. I have to then angle them back in to see the side of my car and the curb. I want to be able to custom-set the "reverse-gear mirror tilt-down position" to be exactly where I want it, instead of a fixed delta from my normal mirror position. Currently I just rely more on surround view and manually re-adjust the tilt-down position when I really need it.

One thing you could do is use one of your seat memory buttons with the mirrors just like you like them for reverse.

Pimpsy · 01-05-2012, 08:35 PM

Is it just me, or does the zoom function on the navigation map work backwards? It seems to me that turning the knob clockwise should zoom in instead of out.

The throttle could also be more responsive off the line, but otherwise I'm really digging it.

davesf · 01-05-2012, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlanM

Is it just me, or does the zoom function on the navigation map work backwards? It seems to me that turning the knob clockwise should zoom in instead of out.

It's not just you. Perhaps the programmer was from the southern-hemisphere.

It's not too hard to get used to it if you just accept it, but it seems odd to me and I've noticed at least one other person here on the forums mention it.

ccboye · 01-06-2012, 02:31 AM

That's pretty good review...you should work for one those car magazines. I share some of your concerns, but you left out one physical aspect of the 5. It rides too high like a boat. This is one of my main issues with my car and I'm taking steps to correct...will be installing ACS springs very soon!

01-05-2012, 02:50 PM	#1
davesf Private 10 Rep 87 Posts Drives: 2012 550xi DSB, black nappa Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: San Francisco, CA iTrader: (0)	Dear BMW: howto perfect the 5-series... Just a couple weeks into my 550xi, I love the car. Seems everyday I'm enjoying some new subtlety about it. Coming from a 2005 Audi S4 in Red with black nappa interior, my Deep Sea Blue 550, with black nappa and ceramic controls really has tangible wow-factor inside and out. It's been a major upgrade, and one that my wife loves as much as I do (after being subjected to my leadfoot S4 driving). That said, no car is perfect, and I've been compiling my list of things BMW could do to improve the car. I'm post them here in the interest that either an excited BMW Engineer might stumble upon them and implement a couple of them... or that someone here will tell me to RTFM because one or two of them are already doable. First I'll start with some 'bigger' items: Dampen Vibrations at highway speeds - Pretty much the only real criticism I have of the car is that the ride at highway speeds (70-80mph) turns subtle road wallow into a little more rhythmic vibration at the seat and steering-wheel than I would prefer. It happens in all suspension settings. It's reminiscent of the feeling of unbalanced tires, but it's much more subtle. My five-year-old S4 doesn't have any such sensation on the same patches of freeway, so clearly it could be improved. However, I felt the same thing in my friend's older 750 recently, so I don't think it's anything 'wrong'. Like most involved in the forums, I'm very tuned to every little sensation in the car. It's hard to say how much of it is caused by the Goodyear LS2 RFTs, vs RFTs in general, vs the car design (intending to transmit road-feel). Maybe someday I'll put some non-RFT Pilot Sports on it and find out. retune comfort+ suspension settings - If I put it in comfort+ at more than 30mph, it doesn't take long for any road imperfection to get the car rhythmically bouncing like a 1950s caddy on nothing but springs. Seriously. It seems useless, which is fine, because normal-comfort and sport are plenty nice. However, it seems like comfort+ could be retuned to be useful. Perhaps it just needs to loosen the dampers up all the way below 20mph, and then tighten them up to comfort-level settings above 30mph... or maybe something else crafty the engineers can think of. navigation should speak all streetnames - idrive already has a text-to-speech engine that can read text-messages and emails aloud. The nav should be able to speak all streetnames. proper idrive screens with less constant fiddling - idrive has an amazing amount of screen configuration capability. However, I feel like I'm constantly fiddling with it to get what I want on the screen. One possibility is to make the screen-configuration context-sensitive, such as (nav-guidance, nav-map, entertainment, phone call). Another option might be to rethink the split-screen as less of a user-configurable item and more an automatic part of the current active function. If I had a way to get the "arrow display" on the split-screen only during navigation, without having to manually add and remove it each time I'd probably be happy. more consistent and clear way to show "status" info in idrive - This is somewhat related to the above. The current means of showing the time, radio-channel, etc is pretty odd and inconsistent across screens. Even passengers like to be able to look and easily find the time in the car. IMO it would be nicer if there was a single idrive top-bar that always showed this information (like it does in menus). If you are split screen, perhaps it could display only over the small split portion. Either way, it would be nice if it was always in the same place on all screens. Here are some more subtle, yet probably very easy software tweaks that would make my hit list, in rough order of my personal importance: radio max-volume at poweron setting - My old audi standalone-bose car-radio had this great feature where you could set the maximum volume of the car radio upon starting the car. It is a small and subtle feature, but I REALLY liked it. No matter how much I was rocking out before, starting up the car didn't blast anyone out. option to turn off radio with engine - I'm not a fan of the way the radio stays on when I turn off the engine. I normally leave my foot on the break until I actually get out of the car. I hit the button once to turn off the engine, and when the radio and nav is still on I feel like I have to hit it again. However, because my foot is on the brake, it starts the engine again. Then I pull my foot off the break and hit it again, and the radio is still on, and I have to hit it yet again. I'm sure I'll get used to it over time, but I really don't want to have to press the OFF button twice to turn everything off. If I really want accessory power to stay on, I'm fine turning off the car completely, then pressing the button while my foot is OFF the break to get just accessory power. faster comfort access unlock - currently one must wait a 1-2 second count while touching the handle for the comfort access unlock to occur before pulling on the handle. It would be nice if this could be made faster, so one could just naturally open the door instead of having to wait. (The same feature is really fast on our Lexus) fully custom back-up mirror tilt-down position - currently the back-up mirror tild-down is a fixed-adjustment from your normal mirror position. This does not work for all mirror settings. I use a no-blind-spot mirror setting, and the fixed tilt-down doesn't put it in the right spot to see the car and curb. I wish the car would remember my "custom" back-up tilt-down position so I could use the tilt-down feature effectively. eliminate bluetooth audio-gap when starting the car while on a call - The bluetooth in my 2012 (with the latest update!) seems to work pretty well. I even got Office Messages for SMS partially-working with my Motorola droid-3 (it doesn't always update though). However, one thing that really could be fixed is the audio-gap when starting the car while on a call. As the car starts up, the bluetooth seems to connect with my phone and take-over audio for the call before the car is ready to give me speakerphone audio. This creates a 2-4 second gap in the call audio. If the bluetooth unit were setup to just wait until after the idrive/audio stuff was ready to connect with the phone it would fix this. unlock on park - the car already has a setting to lock when beginning to drive. It's only natural to have the setting to unlock when put into park. faster trunk opening with comfort access - I like the comfort access package. The soft-close doors, soft-close trunk, and the nifty "foot shimmy" to open the trunk are all really nice. However, I'm not a fan of the soft-open trunk. It's really-really slow and you can't just lift-through it to open it faster. I'd prefer either for the motorized opening to be 2x as fast, or for it to be dampened spring-up and motorized down. Our lexus does the spring-up motor-down thing and it works really well. You can manually lift and close it much more easily, yet the "auto open" happens at about the same speed as the BMW. range estimate based on average mpg - My average MPG so far has only been about 14, which is a bit less than I expected, but I didn't buy the car for efficiency. However, when the 18.5 gallon tank is full, it says I have 350 mile range! 18.514 is 259, which a full HUNDRED MILES shorter than the 350 miles it predicts. Seems like just about every car I've had predicts range optimistically, but I've never had such a large discrepancy between their predicted number and actual. source specific volume-equilization adjustment* - again my old audi standalone-bose radio had this feature. You could set the equilization volume level of each source (sat, cd) relative to FM, so they were all close to the same output level at the same system-volume level. I know this is a bit of a crapshoot, since it really matters what you are listening to, and how the other side encodes the signal (FM stations are notorious for adding loudness), but it would still be nice. add a way to send the "bluetooth multifunction button" signal - Phones have built-in voice search and voice activation features which are often usable by headsets. However, the bmw "phone" button doesn't seem to cause an activation the same way that a headset does. If there was simply a bluetooth phone menu option to trigger the headset multi-function button, I could bind it to a soft button and get my phone's Google Voice Search to work in the car! Granted, this may be not quite enough, as these features often expect you to be looking at the phone, which would require some kind of bluetooth phone UI projection onto the car-screen. standard's based bluetooth phone UI projection - much like the iPhone BMWApps custom UI integration -- it would be great if there were a standard's based bluetooth way for phones to project some UI and do some minimal interaction with the user via the car's nav screen and controls. This would open the door for things like our phone's Google Voice Search (or Siri) to do work, talk to the internet, and project a set of options onto the screen. The "UI" projection could be really simple and rudamentary, even just a list of options and the ability to tell the carnav or car bluetooth to do something would be enough. phone ringtone selection - the car can already play mp3s. Letting us choose and upload an mp3 as a phone ringtone (per phone?) would be a nice touch some visual indicator of radio volume - currently there is none. Enough said. Anyhow.. there is my list so far...As you can see, many of them are tiny little nitpicks. However, they are also mostly things that could be done with small software tweaks. I really wish the software for this car were open-source -- at least the non-safety related idrive-and-interior parts. I'd spend a couple weekends hacking and have an even more ultimate driving machine! Love the community and my new 550xi! __________________ 2012 550xi Sport - Deep Sea Blue, black nappa, anthracite, ceramic, cold weather, ARS ... 2010 lexus 450h - cerulean blue / grey (wife's) Past [ 2005 Audi S4 ] [ 1998 Subaru Legacy GT ] Last edited by davesf; 01-06-2012 at 04:53 AM..
	Appreciate 0 Tweet Quote

01-05-2012, 02:59 PM	#2
rexus300 Lieutenant 154 Rep 440 Posts Drives: car Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan iTrader: (1)	davsf, Dampen Vibrations at highway speeds - Pretty much the only real criticism I have of the car is that the ride at highway speeds (70-80mph) turns subtle road wallow into more rhythmic vibration at the seat and steering-wheel than I would prefer. It happens in all suspension settings. It's reminiscent of the feeling of unbalanced tires, but it's much more subtle. My five-year-old S5 doesn't have any such sensation on the same patches of freeway, so clearly it could be improved. However, I felt the same thing in my friend's older 750 recently, so I don't think it's anything 'wrong'. Like most involved in the forums, I'm very tuned to every little sensation in the car. It's hard to say how much of it is caused by the Goodyear LS2 RFTs, vs RFTs in general, vs the car design (intending to transmit road-feel). Maybe someday I'll put some non-RFT Pilot Sports on it and find out. I have been battling this sensation for 1 year now on my 535i xdrive and I cannot understand why it still does it after trying 3 sets of different tire brands, rebalancing several times and settling with the Michelins Pilot Sport A/s which does have a very smooth ride but on most highways 70-80 there is back to forth subtle vibration sensation in the front seats and it annoys me a bit hat I have been trying to seek out the cause for it and drove other 5 series and they mostly all do it. However, the Michelins do make the car more smoother and comfortable other than that small vibration zone. My 335 xi coupe does not do this at all no matter what highways at all speed. So its baffling. My Audi A8L is much more planted also. it seems that this 5 series "soft" suspension develops a funky harmonic around this speed of 70-75 and gets bumpy no matter how perfect the tire/wheel balance is.
	Appreciate 0 Quote

01-05-2012, 03:01 PM	#3
delvek Major 33 Rep 1,134 Posts Drives: 2014 550i Msport Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Tampa, FL iTrader: (0)	I appreciate the list, but it causes me to think that I am a cheap date! I pinch myself each time I drive my 550i its a dream __________________ 2014 550i M-sport
	Appreciate 0 Quote

01-05-2012, 03:36 PM	#5
rexus300 Lieutenant 154 Rep 440 Posts Drives: car Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan iTrader: (1)	IT could be possible that the stiffer springs help remove that vibration feel as my 335xi coupe with the standard suspension is stiffer than the 5 but more planted and zero zilch vibration in my seats on the same roads at 70-80 mph. I did not buy the 5 series to spend more money to fix the problem or try other solutions to remove the problem. Otherwise I love the car. I thought that having the Dynamic suspension system will help dampen the vibration over my standard suspension but I guess that is not the case and is due to the design of the car. I drove a new 2012 Audi A6 and it felt amazing and smooth yet sporty like the 5. So I am in a dilemma now.
	Appreciate 0 Quote

01-05-2012, 04:08 PM	#7
gatoman39 Major 116 Rep 1,346 Posts Drives: 2011 E92 335 M-Sport Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: LA iTrader: (0) Garage List 2011 E92 335i M Sport [1.00]	While I agree with much of what's been written, I also can't help but chuckle at Delvek's post. I've learned to just accept the car for what it is. Believe me, I'm just as much of a car guy as the rest of you, but the list of problems in my life, the car is pretty far down the list. __________________
	Appreciate 0 Quote

01-05-2012, 04:58 PM	#8
BMW1 New Member 0 Rep 13 Posts Drives: 528i Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Florida iTrader: (0)	custom back-up mirror position - currently the back-up mirror shifts down a fixed amount from your normal mirror position. I use a no-blind-spot mirror setting, and when it tilts down it's too far to the side for me to see anything useful in the mirror. I just wish it would remember the location I reposition it to while in the reverse-mirror-mode You know this can be turned on or off from the button on the drivers door
	Appreciate 0 Quote

01-05-2012, 05:00 PM	#9
BMW1 New Member 0 Rep 13 Posts Drives: 528i Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Florida iTrader: (0)	custom back-up mirror position - currently the back-up mirror shifts down a fixed amount from your normal mirror position. I use a no-blind-spot mirror setting, and when it tilts down it's too far to the side for me to see anything useful in the mirror. I just wish it would remember the location I reposition it to while in the reverse-mirror-mode You know this can be turned on or off from the button on the drivers door
	Appreciate 0 Quote

01-05-2012, 08:35 PM	#12
Pimpsy Captain 420 Rep 862 Posts Drives: 2019 M5C Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: NJ iTrader: (0)	Is it just me, or does the zoom function on the navigation map work backwards? It seems to me that turning the knob clockwise should zoom in instead of out. The throttle could also be more responsive off the line, but otherwise I'm really digging it.
	Appreciate 0 Quote

01-06-2012, 02:31 AM	#14
ccboye Private 12 Rep 76 Posts Drives: 2011 550i Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Corona, CA iTrader: (0)	That's pretty good review...you should work for one those car magazines. I share some of your concerns, but you left out one physical aspect of the 5. It rides too high like a boat. This is one of my main issues with my car and I'm taking steps to correct...will be installing ACS springs very soon!
	Appreciate 0 Quote