Yesterday was a good Republic Day for me! A friend's brand new F10 M5 paid me a visit!
After a quick photo-shoot (with an iPhone, sorry the pics aren't the greatest), we made a run to Mahabaleshwar to put some Kms on the odo, stopping for the obligatory vada-pav en-route!
The new M5 is a great car! It's supremely comfortable, HUGELY torque-y, steers quick, rides well, shuts out the outside world nicely and gets you to where you're going quicker than a large saloon car has any right to!
Since the car is brand new, we were babying it and weren't using more than 50-60% throttle or brakes at any point, keeping under 5,500 rpm, and generally using all the gears, as much of the rev-range as possible, and just generally getting everything run-in nicely!
Initial impressions are very good! The engine is an absolute peach and is worthy of the ///M badge, despite being a turbocharged unit. There doesn't appear to be any turbo-lag to speak of, at least none that's discernible whilst running the car in. There is torque to be had from very low down in the rev range, the car pulls in a nice linear fashion when asked to and despatches rows of cars and trucks nicely with a quick flex of the loud pedal! The throttle response can be adjusted, which makes it easy to have a nice, lazy setting for stop n' go in-town conditions, a slightly sportier setting for quicker driving and a full-on aggressive throttle map for open-road or track runs.
There isn't much induction noise to be heard, at least not the way we were driving and the exhaust has a fairly muted, but discernible woofle to it. It growls nicely when you accelerate fairly briskly from around 3,000 rpm on! The M5 just gets the job done without making a scene of things!
The gearshift on the 7 speed DCT gearbox is super-smooth and WAY better than the old SMG transmission on the previous M5. Shifts are barely perceptible and instantaneous. There is just the tiniest hint of lag between asking for the next gear and actually getting it, but the shift itself is seamless. You can program the speed at which the DCT transmission shifts cogs. I found the most aggressive of the three standard settings to my liking for the highway.
The suspension does an outstanding job of handling the bumps and ridges on our less than decent highways. The car doesn't get unsettled by little ruts and doesn't tram-line when it goes over truck tracks in the asphalt. It just sits planted on the road, like you'd expect of a super saloon. Again, there are adjustable settings for the electronic dampers and, again, I preferred the firmest setting for the highway, even though this made the ride a lot bumpier than it is in comfort mode. In comfort mode the ride is excellent though the car does exhibit a little roll, as you might expect from a large saloon. In the stiffest mode there is virtually no body roll even when going through the flik-flak turns on the ghat headed up to Mabi!
The steering wheel is nice n' chunky and gives you a good grip. It is ever so slightly thinner than the steering wheel on the current E92 M3, which many reviewers felt was too thick (I didn't!). The steering itself is accurate and can be set to your choice of heft, just like the dampers and throttle can be adjusted. I liked the weightiness of the heaviest steering setting, but sadly there is very little actual feedback to be had through the steering wheel. You can place the car perfectly through turns, you just don't really get a feel for what the front wheels are doing in your hands. Through tight bends at decent lick the car does exhibit just the tiniest bit of understeer on occasion. It doesn't happen much and would be very easily corrected if we could boot the throttle and kick the tail out just the tiniest bit to bring things back in line. Since we were being gentle, that wasn't really an option!
So, on the whole...it's a gorgeous car. Perfect for someone who wants lots of practicality, space, comfort, performance and even decent economy (for a big, fast saloon). The ground clearance is better than the E92 M3's and it is easily able to tackle fairly large speed breakers even with three passengers. Visibility out of the car is good, there's lots of gadgets and gizmos to play with (like the HUD that displays your speed, revs and other info on the windscreen ahead of you) and it just eats up the kilometres with effortless ease. At the end of over four hours of relatively quick driving, we all got out of the car absolutely fresh.
So, without further ado...here are the pics I mentioned earlier! (That's my E92 M3 alongside)!