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Old 26th September 2012, 15:09   #76
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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Originally Posted by speedy View Post
, I am assuming after seeing your location as being Mumbai and Surat, the fuel issue would also come in for Gujrat. The M5 runs on 97 octane as i have seen while the S4 can run on 91 octane as well.
Who says M5 runs only on 97 octane ?

91 RON unleaded is permitted too.

Here is a screen capture of the same from BMW India's website

An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions-untitled.jpg
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Old 26th September 2012, 17:06   #77
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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Originally Posted by karan561 View Post
Who says M5 runs only on 97 octane ?

91 RON unleaded is permitted too.

Here is a screen capture of the same from BMW India's website
Hey Karan ,

I'm sorry if I've misunderstood it but I think the data in the screen shot shows that 91RON fuel can be used with E10 fuel not just 91RON fuel by itself .
Please correct me if I'm wrong .
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Old 26th September 2012, 17:28   #78
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

This is what the screen capture says
"Rated output: BMW recommends the use of super unleaded 95 RON fuel. Unleaded RON 91 fuel or higher with a maximum ethanol limit of 10 percent (E10) is also permitted. The performance and fuel consumption rates listed are based on the use of RON 98 fuel."

Which in my understanding means any fuel above RON91 is usable & the ethanol content should not exceed 10%.

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Old 26th September 2012, 17:35   #79
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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Originally Posted by diffuser View Post
Hey Karan ,

I'm sorry if I've misunderstood it but I think the data in the screen shot shows that 91RON fuel can be used with E10 fuel not just 91RON fuel by itself .
Please correct me if I'm wrong .
M5 can permit RON 91 or higher & also E10 type fuel (specific to US & some other regions) too as & more blending (> 10%) can be harmful for the engine ( so the maximum ethanol limit)

Indian fuel has E5 (5% Ethanol blending with petrol) so not a problem.
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Old 26th September 2012, 21:51   #80
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

If i recall correctly I read that BHPian Insideman quit using 97 octane in his supercharged M3 and found 91 octane in India to be a better option. His heavily modded car running at near optimal performance on 91 octane ascertains that most cars can run on this fuel.
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Old 26th September 2012, 22:19   #81
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

M5 purely appeals to the heart and is by far one of the best all rounder in the world. I don't think its fair or reasonable to compare the S4 or the C63 AMG to the M5.

If for any reason one considers the S4 over the M5 (bringing in the value equation), I would urge you to look up the Volvo S60 T6 as an option, The performance is slightly lower, but for about 600 GBP you will get to bump up the power to (if not more) than S4 and all of this for much much lower price than the S4.

If S4 beats the M5 on value (and i dont buy that argument), the S60 T6 blows everything else out of the water.
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Old 27th September 2012, 11:28   #82
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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Originally Posted by karan561 View Post
M5 can permit RON 91 or higher & also E10 type fuel (specific to US & some other regions) too as & more blending (> 10%) can be harmful for the engine ( so the maximum ethanol limit)

Indian fuel has E5 (5% Ethanol blending with petrol) so not a problem.
The Website quoted has its contents based on Fuel available abroad and not India specific. So as per other sites showing fuel ratings and comparing it with India the 91 Ron is equivalent to 93 octane in India and since it is not available the 97 octane is the closest fuel type. Please do keep in mind the fuel adultration that also happens in India. If you are not looking at performance and just want a "M" badge in your garage the 91 octane available in India will also do. I have mentioned the fuel 97 octane as filled by my friends who own the M5.

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Originally Posted by Sahil View Post
If i recall correctly I read that BHPian Insideman quit using 97 octane in his supercharged M3 and found 91 octane in India to be a better option. His heavily modded car running at near optimal performance on 91 octane ascertains that most cars can run on this fuel.
In order to run his car on 91 octane i do believe the ECU is tuned to accept the fuel. The performance figure would be compromised in doing so.
The S4 tuning site MTM shows 430 BHP ECU tune with 100 octane and in order to tune the ECU to 97 octane available the figure drops to about 390-400 bhp.
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Old 27th September 2012, 13:29   #83
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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Originally Posted by speedy View Post

In order to run his car on 91 octane i do believe the ECU is tuned to accept the fuel. The performance figure would be compromised in doing so.
The S4 tuning site MTM shows 430 BHP ECU tune with 100 octane and in order to tune the ECU to 97 octane available the figure drops to about 390-400 bhp.
Modern cars do not need ECU retuning to adapt to lower quality fuel, that is done automatically by the ECU depending on how good or bad the fuel is. If its extremely bad say below 89RON the car will go into limp mode and bring back to optimum performance once high quality fuel is in.
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Old 27th September 2012, 13:39   #84
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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Originally Posted by Sahil View Post
Modern cars do not need ECU retuning to adapt to lower quality fuel, that is done automatically by the ECU depending on how good or bad the fuel is. If its extremely bad say below 89RON the car will go into limp mode and bring back to optimum performance once high quality fuel is in.
What you mention is for company stock cars and does not apply for Remapped or tuned cars. I have spoken to MTM myself and have stated what was told to my..i guess they know their stuff better than me.
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Old 27th September 2012, 13:46   #85
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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Originally Posted by speedy View Post
What you mention is for company stock cars and does not apply for Remapped or tuned cars. I have spoken to MTM myself and have stated what was told to my..i guess they know their stuff better than me.
Yes I did mean stock cars. What are the MTM performance figures and pricing like?
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Old 27th September 2012, 14:15   #86
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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Originally Posted by Sahil View Post
Yes I did mean stock cars. What are the MTM performance figures and pricing like?
You have two types of ECU tunes one for 93 octane and below that give 380 bhp and 490 nm torque costing around 2500 euro, then the 100 octane giving out 430 bhp and 515nm torque costing about 3000 euro. This is with vmax that means the 250kmph limitor is taken to 287 kmph.

Lets stick to the M5's as the thread title suggests instead of hijacking it with the S4 information.
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Old 1st October 2012, 21:56   #87
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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Originally Posted by neo007 View Post
Hey!
Not sure if this is the right tread to give my inputs or get some opinion, but i found this to be the only discussing the F10 M5 & didn't feel the need to start a new thread.

A friend of mine has been looking to buy a performance sedan for some time & we had shortlisted the Jaguar XFR,Mercedes C63, BMW M5 & Audi S4.
We had driven the C63 eariler in may & he did'nt really like it.

We had a test drive of the M5 at Infinity Motors recently & my friend is blown , it does pretty much everything that he expected & really contemplating to buy one even without trying the S4 as it may take a lot of time to get one.

We had a few questions.
1) If you order one does it take 4-5 months for delivery if you do not go for a pre configured vehicle?
2)Coming form a guy who owns a Land rover discovery 4 & a 5 year old 525d, How challenging is to maintain one. i,e. costs,intervals of changing tryes etc?
TIA
Hi Neo,

I just saw your post and I'll try to answer some of your questions and chime-in with my own opinion as well.

To begin with your friend is looking at two distinctly different classes of car. The C63 and S4 are fairly compact, while the M5 and XFR are quite large. Even within those two groups, the S4 and XFR are the lower cost / lower performance option vs the C63 and M5.

The S4 is by some margin the cheapest car of the lot and it will be very much less capable in purely dynamic terms than something like an M5. Having said that, it should be a fair bit more fuel efficient than the others, it's reasonably quick in a straight line and is more car than most people would need.

The C63 is a bit of a hooligan. It sounds absolutely mental, tries to oversteer at every opportunity (unless you have all the nannies on) and is generally fun to drive (apart from the lack of a proper manual gearbox, but then none of these cars is going to give you that option over here, as I understand it). It's a small, fast saloon and great at going in straight lines, slightly less great going around corners neatly.

The XFR is a very capable, very comfortable, decent sized car. If you don't mind my asking, how old is your friend? Call it prejudice on my part, but frankly I don't think the XFR (or the M5 for that matter) is for people who truly enjoy driving hard and, imo are for older guys. They're both VERY fast though, so if that's all you want out of your car, they'll both fit the bill. The XFR struggles to put its power down due to massive torque and, as a consequence, isn't as quick as it perhaps ought to be. It's still a great fast saloon though and it's a fair bit cheaper than an M5.

The M5 is clearly the most capable of the lot, but then it needs to be because it is also considerably more expensive than the other three cars in this list. In many ways it's a do-it-all car. It can be cosseting and comfortable when you want to be sensible and it can also supercar bait when the need arises. Having said that, as someone who owns an M3 with a stick shift, I don't really enjoy driving the F10 M5 anywhere near as much as I thought I would. It's a completely different car, faster, more comfortable, more spacious even, but much less fun than a manual M3.

I can also tell you that all these cars apart from the S4 are going to struggle to put their power down neatly on our crap roads. Even on well surfaced cement roads, the C63, XFR and M5 take some skill to launch seriously fast and, even then, most often, the traction and stability controls will be intervening a lot, unless you turn them off, which I'm not sure all the cars allow you to do.

Bottom line is, try them all if it's at all possible. From what you've said I don't think your friend is going to be impressed with any of the other three now that he's driven the M5. If cost isn't a consideration that's the car I'd pick from the four you've mentioned.

As to the costs and maintenance angle, all of these cars will be considerably more expensive to maintain than a 525D. Tyres alone cost way too much over here and are, for the most part, not available when you want them and have to be special ordered at the most unbelievably stupid prices. I'm talking about 50-60k and up per tyre. The S4 will probably be the lightest on its tyres, the other three will fry their rear tyres in around 9-10 Kms with even very occasional hooning! If you want to have a lot of fun without your traction and stability controls, you can kill a set of rears in these cars in 3 mins. As for fuel...what do I say...with 97 octane nudging 100 bucks a litre and only going up, these cars will all be very expensive on that front as well. The S4 will fare the best here again, the XFR and M5 should be about on a par and the C63 will be the worst.

As regards maintenance, BMW offers the BSI plan for the M5, I'm not exactly sure what it costs but it'll be 5L+ to the best of my knowledge. It's still well worth it, so opt for it, because everything costs more than it should here and if anything goes wrong, parts and labour are expensive. Not sure whether Audi, Merc and Jag offer a similar all-inclusive extended warranty, so check on that.

So that's it then. Let us know which car finally wins and get some pics up for us all to have a good gawk at!

Last edited by kbk_75 : 1st October 2012 at 21:58.
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Old 2nd October 2012, 15:42   #88
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

@kbk_75.Thanks a lot for the in depth explanation.
My friend is in his late 30's. He wanted a performance car that was easy to drive,maintain & comfortable. It would mostly be used on highways for intercity travels.

We had driven the XFR way back when the jaguar's where just launched in India, But we don't recollect enjoying it much, esp i have a problem with the headroom in the XF.
The C63 was fun but he didn't like the ride, handling & to him it just looks like a normal C.
The M3 would have been perfect, but the rear space would have been an issue. The new M3 might take a year to be delivered in India so it's most likely to be out of question, unless he get's a A6 or normal 5 or 3 series for the time being.
He just fell head over heals after driving the M5, he just loved almost everything about it.We are yet to drive the S4 hopefully soon.

For most people such purchases are normally impulsive buys & the idea of waiting for 5 months for a car of his required colour combination etc seems to be frustrating him a bit. Also since he has not yet given his advance booking amount, the practicality of owning such a car might dawn on him:( till then will keep my fingers crossed. If he does end up buying any of them will certainly post the pics.
Cheers

Last edited by neo007 : 2nd October 2012 at 15:46.
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Old 2nd October 2012, 15:47   #89
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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For most people such purchases are normally impulsive buys & the idea of waiting for 5 months for a car of his required colour combination etc seems to be frustrating him a bit.
neo- if the exterior color is causing large delays there is a way out. Get the a matte plaster on the car, this is not a tacky solution, infact it looks superb! There are pics on the forum of a matte grey f10 m5, it looks hot and there is no way you can ever tell it is a plaster coating that is removeable when your friend gets bored or can be interchanged for another color. A gunmetal matte m5 would look WOW !
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Old 2nd October 2012, 15:59   #90
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Re: An ///M-azing Republic Day...BMW F10 M5 Pics and early impressions

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neo- if the exterior color is causing large delays there is a way out. Get the a matte plaster on the car, this is not a tacky solution, infact it looks superb! There are pics on the forum of a matte grey f10 m5, it looks hot and there is no way you can ever tell it is a plaster coating that is removeable when your friend gets bored or can be interchanged for another color. A gunmetal matte m5 would look WOW !
His mind seems set on the blue as he wants it look diff form the normal 5 series.
The white & grey available seem okay in my book, although i'm not sure of the interior colour combo's. He has still not been able to have a look at the configured cars.
Anyways how does one get the matte plaster coating? What do you mean you can get it changed to any colour? Where can i find the pics??
Cheers
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