Harry’s Garage

[Rich B]

I hate how the front of this looks, tiny headlights, massive grill and that piss poor integration of the radar unit - come on, a 10 year old VW Golf has its radar unit nicely hidden in the lower grill but this £100k BMW has that fucking rectangle of plastic right in the centre of the front grill

yeah, this was the most offensive part of the design for me too. Is there really no way to have it in the centre of one of the kidneys or something??

[Jobbo]

I’d love to know what the ICE engines versions of the new 5-series are like. At nearly 700kg lighter they really are going to be quite different to drive. Some of the interior I like, but I imagine a lot of what we saw is specific to a £100k+ top end version.

[V8Granite]

The i3 could be released today and be a success.

I still love how the i8 looks and it genuinely stands out amongst even pretty expensive and flashy cars.

The interiors of all the new stuff is just horrid imo. Although I think the days of a subdued and practical dash are long gone.

Dave!

[Brannen]

It was a pretty brutal review! It seemed entirely fair though. I can't believe that specific car was £115,000. The depreciation of that is probably going to be ridiculous as well. I just don't know why someone would want one of those...

[Holley]

I see it's about £46k more than a base 520i. That would make sense if you're getting a proper M car with trick suspension, a special engine etc. But when it's really only extra acceleration you're getting (okay air suspension but as Jobbo points out, will be interesting to see the real difference) and some sound synthesisers, I don't get it. Unless the lease deals are particularly cheap, I can't see many business owners going for it.

[Jobbo]

The i4 reviews were quite negative when it came out but it seems to have become pretty popular, so BMW may still have got their product right for the market. I don't think Harry's review is wrong, but in a year's time it may be that the i5 looks like a shining beacon amongst appliance BYDs and Teslas with no physical controls at all other than a steering wheel.

A couple of times Harry did look like an old man railing against new technology, though that is part of his appeal.

[Rich B]

A couple of times Harry did look like an old man railing against new technology, though that is part of his appeal.

Their tech does seem pretty cringey though. I don't mind it when Tesla add silly stuff like ludicrous mode or farting seats - because they just do it without watering it down and it's funny.

But it just seems like BMW are trying their hardest to copy them, but their marketing/PR/brand/HR/sustainability/etc departments get involved and all of a sudden you get "expressive" mode...

[Jobbo]

In the video I agree; but the reality is that you would look at most of the screens Harry showed once or twice, choose your preference and then just have the nav or music on the screen.

[Rich B]

In the video I agree; but the reality is that you would look at most of the screens Harry showed once or twice, choose your preference and then just have the nav or music on the screen.

Exactly, they've spent a load of money developing an utterly pointless bit of "new tech" that no one will ever use. It all adds up to why the car costs £100k+

Meanwhile, there's a big black rectangle on the nose that no one in the design dept seemed to have realised was there until the first one rolled off the production line.

#BMW designer: "Shit, I thought that was an annotation box on the drawing!"

[Simon]

Again, Merc seems to have got the concealed radar right. On my car and other Mercs it's just behind the three pointed star in the grill - if you didn't know what to look for you wouldn't even know it was there. Other mfrs seem to just stick it anywhere and that BMW design looks like a complete afterthought.

We should be expecting better.

[Rich B]

Yeah, my 2019 Golf GTI just had its ACC sensor in the VW badge. Theres no reason why a 2023 car doesn't have its various sensors incorporated into the design. It just looks clumsy otherwise - like they cut corners or didn't know what they were doing (which really shouldn't be the case for someone like BMW.)

[Jobbo]

VW have got the sensors right - but Audi have not. It's quite bizarre.

Rich, I imagine all of that pointless menu stuff is on the base £51,000 520i too so it's not necessarily contributing to the stupid price of that model.

[mik]

No big manufacturer goes to market without customer focus / feedback sessions. Some (hopefully NCG’s) are expressing a like/desire for this pointless crap.

[Mito Man]

Remember when they all said it’s to appeal to the Chinese market, then the Chinese started pumping out better looking cars domestically

[Rich B]

No big manufacturer goes to market without customer focus / feedback sessions. Some (hopefully NCG’s) are expressing a like/desire for this pointless crap.

No one asks for this sort of crap, the marketing dept just cries that Tesla are getting a load of TikTok's because they have "ludicrous mode" and they need something similar. They just missed the point.

[Mito Man]

Yep, I think the Tesla silly stuff was clever at the time as they figured out that the best marketing is doing something very different and silly so everyone would post it on social media. Not sure a legacy manufacturer needs to do the same.

[MikeHunt]

Only just watched Harrys video last night, it did make me feel better about owning the old model.

I drove a number of BMWs late last year while my car was in for repair and I found the new widescreen idrive 8 and lack of buttons a massive step backwards. It took a few years to get idrive right and current interior will take some time to evolve. On the outside, all BMWs seems to look terrible initially and once you have seen them in the flesh, they start to look ok, with the new i7 and x7 being notable exceptions.

My car is coming up to 2 years old and fully specced it was £98k, compared to the M60 it does have a few more toys, £17k is quite a lot, there will be an ice hybrid at some point, I wonder how that will be priced.

[Jobbo]

The 550e xDrive MSport is already on BMW's website to spec - starts at about £76k. It has 489bhp made up of 313bhp from the petrol engine plus 197bhp from the electric motor. I'm not sure if 313bhp means it's the straight 6 engine though; it could quite easily be a 4-cyl at that level sadly.
[Edit] it is the 3.0 straight 6 petrol in the 550e.

[Mito Man]

That must be extremely detuned/chocked by emissions regs.

[MikeHunt]

That's a lot lower than the current 240i which is circa 380bhp or even the older engine found in the z4 which was 336.