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About MPG:
This tuesday was in a hurry to get myself and the car from Lund, Sweden to Hannover, Germany, but had worked a little bit to much, and slept a bit to little, to be really fit to drive myself.
I usually average 12.5 l/100km, but the ex-taxi driver guy who drove (with me sleeping) averaged 10.7 l/100km. So obviously the driving style is very important.
There are a number of things to be aware of when buying an M5. For starters M5s are much more comfortable than M3s, so M3 donŽt tend to be driven so far per year as do some M5s. And as the value of the car depends heavily on its mileage, and as interior wear doesnŽt show easily, the risk (compared to M3s) of getting a car with a manipulated odometer cannot be neglected.
The car is unusual. This means local dealers often relly dont have enough experience, or knowledge. Dealer ignorance is rampant.
The M5 clutch has a safetymargin between its rated torque and the engineŽs torque of about 20%. If you make one small mistake youŽll heat up the clutch very fast, and it slips. When this happens you loose almost all power to the wheels. With a bit of luck, you manage to declutch fast enough to save the clutch from burning.
The suspension is much firmer than the standard 5 series. This is nice from a road holding point of view, but a drawback is that all interior components (like panels) are vibrated much more intensely than in a standard 5-series. This makes the M5 much more prone to squeeks and rattles than the standard 5-series(with the same mileage). Dealers have zero knowledge how to fix those, you have to rely on the knowledge of the people on this board.
Of all the things that needed to ever be fixed on my car since I bought it a year and a half ago, IŽd say 90% was resolved thanks to information found here, rather than info the dealer had.
About the cost-of-ownership, IŽd say the figure I saw in a magazine a while ago seems to be in the right ball-park: GBP 1.30 per mile.
Now for the general impression: this is one amazing car... It is definetly worth every penny. I just want BMW to raise the prise a bit so they can afford top notch car and customer service too.
David
David
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