I'm not sure that this is true. I had the opportunity last week to drive 2 other M5's, a 2001 and a 2002 and neither of these 2 had this happen. BTW, the other 2002 has the power steering whine and the 2001 doesn't. BMWNA says this is "normal", but it only occurs in about 50% of M5's. No one can tell me what's different about the other 50% that doesn't have the whine. Mine has it and it gets annoying. It happens at slow turns like in a parking lot or turning into the driveway, with just a little turn of the wheel either direction, and is worse with "sport" engaged. I've read other posts where someone had their power steering pump replaced and it still did this. My SA said he's heard about it but they haven't been advised of a fix yet.
Seems like every car has its quirks, but you hate to have things like this in a 70K+ vehicle
