[SleepTight]

Car Magazine Long-Term Test Review.

Ben Barry meets his new M5 – 6 January 2012

Almost exactly 10 years since I bought my first BMW M car – an E36 M3 – I’ve been lucky enough to take delivery of a new long-termer, the latest F10M-spec M5. With 552bhp and 501lb ft, the M5 has roughly double the power and torque of the old M3 that’s still tucked up in my garage. That’s pretty incredible, considering the E36 still feels like a fairly rapid car. Funnily enough, the M5’s colour combo reminds me of the old Estoril Blue/silver leather pairing that was such a staple of the old E36 Evo too.

I’ve done only a few hundred miles in this car so far, but I haven’t really got to stretch the M5’s legs: instead my first mission was to load it with two kids’ seats, and fill the boot with bags and Christmas presents. Both of which was easy, thanks to easily accessible Isofix points in the back (sometimes they’re fiddly and tucked away, which makes me shout), and a large, deep boot with a wide opening.

Kids and wife aboard, I snuggled into the plump driver’s seat and dropped it down to the floor, then fired the 4395cc twin-turbo V8 and pointed us up the A1 from Lincolnshire to Cumbria. The new M5 lets you tailor its throttle response, steering weight, suspension settings and gearshift modes, but I didn’t mess with any of that: I just left it all in Comfort, and the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox in its default mode, the first of its three settings.

I noticed one anorak detail as I pulled away: the auto handbrake automatically disengages, where every other new 5-series insists that you do it manually. I always find this infuriating – why would I want the handbrake to stay on if I’m accelerating away in first gear? – so it’s interesting that the M bucks the trend. Is this a philosophy thing on the part of M Division – where the driver is firmly in control and doesn’t like being nannied by the car – or is it that the unique-to-the-M5 dual-clutch gearbox wouldn’t enjoy straining against the handbrake? I’ll have to ask Munich and risk being labelled a nerd before I can answer that.

If you’ve ever driven the old E60 M5, there are a couple of things you’ll instantly notice when you drive its successor: first is the easy flexibility afforded by that twin-turbo V8, which brings a new-found effortlessness to motorway cruising, the V8 giving a distant, tympanic rumbling that’s very, very different to the old car’s V10. It’s not as engaging as the naturally aspirated V10 when you wind it out, but it’s definitely quicker, and there’s the promise of big economy gains over the old car too. More on that later.

The other big difference is the gearchange: the E60 M5 used a seven-speed clutchless manual transmission with six different shift speeds. Despite – or perhaps because of – these multitudinous options, I never quite found the perfect setting in the old car. And the delay between gear changes was at times agonisingly ponderous, at others ferociously vicious. The new ’box is faster and much smoother, but it also has a pleasingly direct engagement, rather than a slur, and I know what I want in terms of settings: the third, most aggressive one for manual mode, and either mode one or two in auto. The gearbox is one of the new car’s biggest leaps.

As ever with dual-clutch auto M cars, one tap on the paddleshifter is all it takes to switch from auto to manual mode, and that’s definitely a philosophy thing on the part of M Division: the driver is in charge, and he doesn’t want the gearbox to overrule him and default back to auto like so many rivals do. By and large I agree with this, but every now and again on the journey home for Christmas, I found myself leaving the car in auto and pulling the paddles to make an overtake on the motorway, then forgetting I’d now completely transitioned to manual mode. It might be nice to be able to configure that through iDrive, so you can choose an auto mode that defaults back to auto even after you’ve pulled the paddles. After all, pulling the gearstick to the right locks you into manual mode anyway. Or perhaps I’m going soft here.

One thing that hasn’t changed much is the ride quality: this M5 still rides magnificently, and it’s such a quiet, comfortable, smooth thing to cruise about in that it’s incredibly easy to sneak up past 90mph without even realising it.

However, on our first trip the weather was largely foul and the M62 seemed covered almost entirely in 50mph zones, so while I did hit 90mph or more on a few occasions, my typical cruising speed was a more plod-friendly 70mph or so. I was intrigued to see how much fuel the M5’s new turbocharged engine would use – after all, the smaller turbo motor goes against M’s previous DNA, and has been introduced to make M cars cleaner and more frugal – and I’d zeroed the trip computer before we set off. After a few hours on the motorway with the engine nicely warmed through and the ’box mostly in seventh gear, the dash confirmed we’d averaged 24.6mpg. In similar circumstances, my old Mercedes E63 AMG would have averaged 21-22mpg, so the M5 offers a worthwhile improvement – although it’s worth noting that the new E63 engine is also smaller and turbocharged, and therefore more frugal than my old 6.2 V8 was.

If anything’s going to challenge the M5’s so-far-impressive mpg figures, it’s the next week or so: while I’m back home in Cumbria, I’ll be sneaking the M5 out onto some of my favourite back roads and having a bit more fun.

By Ben Barry