Manchester event

I am at the GMEX centre today at 1600 for my first sighting and drive any one else there at this time. Really looking forward to it hope I am not disappointed. SWMBO thinks that it will be to small and wants me to buy a 5 series tourer which will cost about the same but has loads of toys. Big decision or argument ahead!!

Just remind your good lady wife how far the 5 series touring will travel in the snow that is forecast this winter - not far if my neighbour's X5 is anything to go by!

Never had BMW with X Drive.. Is it really not good in snow? I would have thought it would be good in snow.. not for general off-loading maybe.. bye in snow... wierd.

(12-08-2011 12:08am)wardpg Wrote:  I am at the GMEX centre today at 1600 for my first sighting and drive any one else there at this time. Really looking forward to it hope I am not disappointed. SWMBO thinks that it will be to small and wants me to buy a 5 series tourer which will cost about the same but has loads of toys. Big decision or argument ahead!!

Pictures, we want pictures!

I went to the event in Manchester on Friday at the GMEX. There were about 30 cars there all Dynamics and Prestiges with a 50 50 split between 5 door and coupe.
There was plenty of opportunity to look round the cars and also a drive of about 50 mins or longer if you got lost.
The test drive was all on urban roads with loads of turns and roundabouts which was a shame really because you were concentrating on the sat nav and traffic and couldn't really appreciate the car. Loads of people were getting lost and there were evokes going in all directions! really quite funny.
My first impression of the car was that it was bigger than I expected after reading all the comments. I thought that for a car this size that the interior room was good and the boot was bigger than I expected.
The material on the prestige is very good and i thought that the dash covering on the Dynamic, which will be the same as the Pure, was not to my liking. You obviously can upgrade to the Dynamic plus and I do like those seats but at 3K it does seem expensive.
The wife's main complaint was that as she is small even with the seat height raised the mirrors were too big and impinged on her view to the side.
This week i have also test-driven a 5 series tourer with a 2 litre diesel engine. I found that the evogue was a lot nosier engine and the gearbox was lacking. Why oh why did they not put the new 8 speed box in there which would have also given stop start to the auto. At one point on the test drive i tried kick down and the car seemed to drop a couple of gears rev its b******s off and eventually respond. Hopefully there will be a software update on production models as the car did hunt up and down in gears.
Most of the people i spoke to at the event thought that the panoramic roof was a must have this has obviously created a problem with supply as already indicated in other topics
Colour wise i liked the red with black roof but at £600 for about 6 inches to paint around the panoramic roof its expensive The wife's mini coloured roof came at no extra cost!! The red looked very good in daylight but when we left the event there were some cars outside in the twilight and it certainly looked a lot darker. The grey is nice but we all know that this is Stornaway and so will not be on production cars . There were spec sheets in the gloveboxes which showed the colour.
Overall I thought it was a nice car and I liked driving it.
Will I buy one-i don't know. I am going to replace my FFRR in 6 months and the evogue is on my shopping list but I am also looking at other cars hence the 5 series test drive. If had the money there would be no question my deposit would already be down for the 2013 FFRR but i haven't and i need to cut down on my motoring costs . I have just spent 1K on servicing and taxing the FFRR and a full set of new tyres is on the horizon.
I know the BMW is a totally different car but i did enjoy driving it. Also from September build road tax will be £95 and the servicing package is £400 for 5 years.
So I am now waiting for all the comments on this forum after people get their cars before i decide what to do - in a way i hope the comments are good. Its a heart verses mind problem!!

Your negative points are very similar to my own after driving one at the York event, i.e. the gearbox (sluggish and slow) and the huge mirrors which look out of proportion compared to the rest of the car.

I'm sure LR will address both of these issues in the future, but that won't help the early adopters, unless as you say the gearbox 'problem' can be sorted with a software update (fingers crossed!).

I read recently that there will be no redesign of the wing mirrors - they are the minimum size now permitted by those loonies in Brussels apparently

That can't be right surely. If you put mirrors that size on something like an MX5 it would fall over at the first roundabout!

AFAIK it has to be a certain percentage of the frontal surface of your car. Obviously the MX5 is much lower and has a smaller surface.
Design by numbers rarely works.

That would make some sort of sense. The mirrors on something like a hummer must be gigantic though.