[Unbranded]

Originally Posted by d3mon

Congrats Unbranded! A few pics and a note on your buying and driving experience so far are in order, I guess! Which engine did you go for?

Thanks Demon!
I got an impeccably maintained 530d MSports - late 2021 vintage post the LCI refresh, still under original warranty and registered here in Karnataka. Relatively less run with odometer reading less than 13k km.

Will pen down the detailed note on the criteria , choices and the decision.
For starters, here goes couple of random pics

[d3mon]

Odo has crossed 25K kms with small highway jaunts here and there.
Most recent one was a quick 2 day trip to Chennai with 4 on board.

Onwards journey started off well but the constant diversions (due to construction) and truck traffic meant I couldn't stretch Trie's legs. Had to drive slowly and patiently. And eventually the Chennai city traffic was also painful to navigate.

Got good FE for the first 2 hours, with smooth roads and calm cruising. Anyway with the FIRs being lodged at 130KMPH, made liberal use of the LIM (limit) function to ensure I don't go over 130.


Final stats, after navigating through the endless diversions & chennai traffic.


On the way back, decided to explore a different route via NH75 and some back roads that I knew. This route was way more fun and got us back through some lovely roads. 620NM and 265PS were called upon liberally at every available opportunity to accelerate and the ZF8 was in its element as always, never missing a beat. Truth be told, sitting at my desk, i have the itch to get a remap, but that itch goes away when I go for a long drive and experience the already insane performance, no matter the terrain or the payload

Catching the sunset along the way.


Final stats for the return.


About a km away from home, I got a notification on the iDrive about the rear right tyre pressure being low. Got down to check and indeed it was only 24PSI, vs the 40 PSI (hot) in the rest of the tyres. Further investigation showed a nail bang in the middle of the wheel tread. Anyway I had RFTs, so just carried on for the remaining km and parked safely at home. Was surprised that the TPMS (indirect) did not warn me earlier, as a 14PSI delta is quite large and the system should have been able to detect it sooner. I'll probably have to get direct TPMS sensors fitted the next time I get some tire maintenance done for better monitoring.

[d3mon]

Just sharing more pics of Trie having fun.



On a Team-BHP Bangalore drive.


















On a trip to Kgudi with a 6 GT.



Just to clarify, I didn't park on the highway to capture these pics!
These are rolling shots, but the shutter speed was too fast, which has frozen the wheels.










Another small meetup with team-bhpians at a sunset point.


24KMPL when driving with strict instructions from co-passengers not to floor it


Simple pleasures of life - early morning drives in the rain


Note on CBS - after each service, the engine oil change countdown starts from 12K kms. Then depending on the driving cycles, it estimates the overall condition of the engine oil - city drives and/or very aggressive driving will cause it to reduce faster, while relaxed highway drives can cause it to even go beyond 12K. This interval can be as low as 7-8K kms for exclusively city driven cars. But for my kind of usage (95% highways & long trips), the CBS is happy to let me drive for almost the full programmed interval of 12K kms.

Last service was at 18.3K KMs, and Trie is at 26.6K kms in this pic. That adds up to 8.4K KMs since the last service, and the service countdown is still at 3.4K kms. That means a total service interval of 11.8K KMs! This is pretty rare - the service counter has never lived up to the claimed 12K kms duration before for me, and the experience is pretty similar for most other folks driving BMWs. Of course, I'll still have to get it serviced because the 1 year duration is up, but still, good to see that highway only duties will indeed deliver the claimed 12K service duration.

[viXit]

Love the fact that you kept the chrome.
Looks nice in a sea of gloss black.

[d3mon]

Originally Posted by viXit

Love the fact that you kept the chrome.
Looks nice in a sea of gloss black.

Thanks Vixit. The black grill just doesn't look right on the G30, at least in white. Here's a sample pic from the internet.
I too much prefer it with that little bit of chrome.

[androdev]

What a looker this G30 5-series is!! Really hurts to see the new 5 series.

[viXit]

Originally Posted by d3mon

Thanks Vixit. The black grill just doesn't look right on the G30, at least in white. Here's a sample pic from the internet.
I too much prefer it with that little bit of chrome.
.
.

Yep.
It must be the contrast. Making the grille and fins in the kidney the same color makes it all invisible and kills contrast. Keeping the lip around the grille in a different texture might look nice. Maybe a matte/satin finish or a dark grey.

Anyway, big fan of keeping it OEM. Something charming about it.

Originally Posted by androdev

What a looker this G30 5-series is!! Really hurts to see the new 5 series.

[Kelly66]

Loved reading Trie's journey, d3mon! I remember seeing this thread sometime last year and since then I start looking at Spinny for some good deals on 530d but none showed up. Your were really lucky to get this beauty.

Those blue dials (called Alpine something?) are droolworthy. In one of the posts that smiley covering the number plate looks like a person wearing specs and smiling

As per your advice, I tried the Bimmerlink app and the battery SOC is around 70-76% during city drives, and the Voltage is around 14.8 (like the 320d) while idling/driving compared to 13.1v at idling when I checked at the SC. Will check after a long drive, which is coming up next weekend.

Enjoy and keep munching those miles!

Originally Posted by _raVan_

Can you tell me what all changes did you do using the Bimmercode? I am specifically looking for the codes for "Easy Access" by which the seats will automatically slide back when the car switches off for easy exit. My G31 LCI only moves the steering up and down on entry and exit.

In the seat module driver, set the protection area to 0 mm to allow the seat to travel all the way backwards, for easy ingress and eggress.

[d3mon]

Just checking in - been 6 months since the last update. And about 2.5 years and ~19k KMs since I got Trie in my garage.

In all of my previous cars, the upgrade bug had bit me by this time. Big time.
But this time, there is no pang or desire to get anything better. Simply because as far as sedans go, Trie's as perfect as sedans can be (Disclaimer: For me). Would I like a Porsche 911 or a Cayman? Of course! But other than proper sports cars which I can't afford anyway, none of the other mainstream offerings in the market make me feel like I'm missing out on anything.

It's one thing to say this fresh after you get a new car. But it's completely different if you still feel the same after a couple of years, when you've really gotten to know the car really well.

I do not wish for

- More power
- More Space
- More Comfort
- Better Handling
- Better FE
- More gadgets
- Better quality
- Better NVH
- Better sound system
- Better gearbox

I only sometimes wish for a better soundtrack from the exhaust, which is frankly impossible, this being a diesel. And a manual 'box. Which is only available in the Z4 & the M2 now.

Other updates:

- Got the annual service done in December. Just standard stuff, nothing to report.
Had gotten a call about the EGR recall for Trie, so I had planned to get this done at the same time as the service, but Kun BMW messed up and despite confirming that they had the part in stock, they told me that they had the wrong part and asked me to visit later .

- On my second visit, they did replace the EGR and updated my inbuilt navigation maps from 2017 or 2018 all the way to 2024. Map update was a really slow process and it took more than an hour to first download from the server and then another hour for the car to copy over the 30 odd GB worth of maps onto the internal HDD.

- Somehow ever since the EGR replacement, Trie's FE has gone up by at least 10%, both in the city and the highway, which is frankly very surprising. Performance remains the same.

Road trip to Hyderabad
Recently went on a quick road trip to Hyderabad.

Before starting the trip, I had looked up the distance from BLR to HYD and seeing that it was ~570KM, I thought I'll fill up the tank before starting off, and then after driving around for a bit in Hyderabad, I'll probably need to refill on the way back at a clean Jio or a Shell station. That's because I usually don't get more than 900KM of real range from the tank. Made a mental note to bookmark one before starting back.

The onwards journey was quick and comfortable, with nice roads throughout. Started at 6AM and reached by 2:15, with a couple of breaks. Google predicted 9 hours, while we did it in just ~7hrs or so of driving time.



Now here's the surprising part. Despite Trie being in Sport mode throughout the journey and me making full use of the torque at every available opportunity, at the end of the journey, Trie reported that we'd done 572KMs and the tank still had an unbelievable 656 KM of range left!




This pillar was trying to fat shame Trie by calling it a big car.



Look how small and diminutive Trie actually is, next to a Creta!




Drove around in Hyd for a bit and the roads were amazing, especially when compared to the pathetic excuse of roads that we get in Bangalore.

Finally when I was starting off the return journey, after the internal city driving that brought down the predicted range, i was looking at 570KMs to go again, with a tank range of under 500KMs. Given that I was in no mood for any sort of range anxiety, nor to run the tank dry and make the fuel pump struggle, I once again thought - no way I'm getting back home on this tank.

But there was a seed of an idea forming in my head.

What if. Just what if I could get back home on the same tank which I'd started on?
Surely that's not possible. I mean, 1200+ KM on a single tank when I've already spent more than half the tank without trying to hypermile?

Anyway, I set some simple rules for myself for this challenge:

1) Fill up immediately if the range goes below 100KM.
2) Abandon challenge early if the predicted range is not climbing and reaching at least +50-100 KM beyond my home.
3) Cruise at 100-120kmph. No extreme hypermiling at 80/90 etc.


By the time I got out of the hyderabad city starting from begumpet (averaging almost 60KMPH - almost unimaginable in BLR) the range had already started doing its magic. Slowly but surely, the kilometers to go kept coming down, while the range dropped less slowly, until they equalized completely. This happened within the first hour and a half of the drive itself.

Now it was becoming clear - maybe it was indeed possible.

So I soldiered on, and the suspension + steering in Sport mode kept me entertained enough, despite the much heavier traffic that I was encountering vs on the onwards journey. Dynamically, the car is flawless. Epic comfort + tank like stability at any speed.

At a rest stop for lunch.


Pretty soon after, the range was showing a comfortable +70KM over the remaining delta. And this was maintained more or less throughout till the end of the journey. Just before I got off the final highway after crossing the magical 1200KM mark, Trie was still showing 100KM of range left!

Finally, I reached the same shell bunk where I'd refueled a few days prior to starting my journey, and felt like a Top gear presenter who had just managed to finish one of their fuel economy challenges

Final stats of the return journey. The higher time was more due to the traffic than my careful driving.


Stats for the entire round trip done in a single tank of fuel



Makes me wonder - has anyone here actually gotten more than 1200KM of real range from their car? Not predicted range, but actual delivered range?

[turbowhistle]

Originally Posted by d3mon

Makes me wonder - has anyone here actually gotten more than 1200KM of real range from their car? Not predicted range, but actual delivered range?

I have a B47 in Wagon form in Germany and it has happened to me only once.
I too drive in Sport mode all the time on autobahn and regularly get 1000+ usable range despite cruising at decent speeds on autobahn.

Although for the 1200km range incident, I was traveling back home from Italy when a stone hit my windshield and caused a sizable crack on the glass. We decided to fix the car in Berlin and I ended up limping back at 85-90 kmph as the wind was slowly creeping through the crack and didn't realize I had reached home directly without stopping for gas for the last 1200-1250 km. It's even more impressive in your B57.

[d3mon]

Originally Posted by turbowhistle

Although for the 1200km range incident, I was traveling back home from Italy when a stone hit my windshield and caused a sizable crack on the glass. We decided to fix the car in Berlin and I ended up limping back at 85-90 kmph as the wind was slowly creeping through the crack and didn't realize I had reached home directly without stopping for gas for the last 1200-1250 km. It's even more impressive in your B57.

Nice. The touring is a little less aerodynamic than the sedan, so the 520d Touring & the 530d sedan are pretty closely matched in their FE.

[megazoid]

Lovely report. The combination of power, comfort, consumption frugality and more importantly the handling thanks to adaptive damping just makes this car a perfect allrounder. The trip report was good fun to read. The adaptive dampers in the 530d are electronically controlled if I understand it right. Would you have any idea how it compares with a mechanical system doing a similar job employing frequency sensitive damping? Are failures anything to worry about with respect to the damper from your experience?

[d3mon]

Originally Posted by megazoid

Lovely report. The combination of power, comfort, consumption frugality and more importantly the handling thanks to adaptive damping just makes this car a perfect allrounder. The trip report was good fun to read. The adaptive dampers in the 530d are electronically controlled if I understand it right. Would you have any idea how it compares with a mechanical system doing a similar job employing frequency sensitive damping? Are failures anything to worry about with respect to the damper from your experience?

Thanks Hari.

Yes, the dampers are electronically controlled, adjusting every few ms.
The FSD dampers are slightly better than standard ones, but are no match for proper electronically controlled adaptive ones.
Technical documentation on these is hard to come by because car companies are highly secretive about this kind of stuff. But let me try to summarize what this adaptive damping is all about.

First, let me introduce what a damper dyno is. It shows the measured resistance (force) that a damper applies to the spring in order to control the body movement. If you have a low damping force (underdamped), the body would continue oscillating for a very long time after encountering a bump. And if the damping force is too much (overdamped) , the spring would not get enough compression, and a lot of impact would be transferred to the body, and the wheel may even lift off the ground, losing traction. This would feel make the car feel quite skittish.

With the right amount of damping (critical damping), the spring compresses once, and then just settles back to the original position as quickly as possible, without going up and down multiple times.



Needless to say, the critical damping value required at every moment to control the wheel and the body motions changes constantly. The force required to control a large bump at high speed vs a small bump at low speed are vastly different. Fixed dampers do provide varying forces which changes with the speed of motion of the damper (up / down) in compression / rebound.
But these are inherently limited in which speeds or what kind of driving they are tuned for.

Many performance upgrades like the Bilstein B6 offer an increased damping force across the entire velocity spectrum, by a factor of about 1.5 to 2x.
Remember this number. Compare the B6 vs the BMW OEM in the graph below and you'll make that out fairly easily.
That lends to much better body control on the highways, but every single review of the B6 put on F30s (plenty of them on TBhp) mentions that the ride gets quite busy at city speeds. This is the inherent limitation of fixed dampers - you can't have both a pliant and comfortable ride, and also good highway manners.



Enter adaptive dampers. The below image from Porsche is the closest that I could find that shows what electronically controlled adaptive damping can do.
Here, you can see the damper dyno for compression and rebound is no longer just a straight line, rather it's an area. The top and the bottom lines for compression / rebound are the upper and lower limits of the characteristic curves that can be called upon by the vehicle dynamics ECU at a (few) millisecond's notice. Which just means that there's a lot of latitude that the ECU has in what kind of forces to apply via the damper.



If you look at actual values for the forces at a particular damper velocity, let's say 0.5m/s, you can see that the rebound force produced by the dampers can be varied between around 1500 to almost 6000N. That's a spread of 4x! And the compression stage goes from about 1000 to 3000N, which is about 3x.
Compare that to the 1.5x-2x FIXED factor provided by a suspension upgrade like B6, and you'll start realizing what a game changer these dampers are.
It's literally like having a stock suspension + B6 or B8 + softer than stock suspension all at the same time, available for the car to optimize as per the driver's request and the road conditions.

On top of all of that, all 4 dampers are independently controlled, based on the individual bumps encountered by each wheel. They react differentially (left vs right, or front vs back) in order to control body roll and pitch under braking / acceleration, by instantly stiffening up the damping forces when the ECU detects steering, brake or throttle inputs.

And the mechanism for operation is usually via an electric motor that just turns a valve inside the damper, pretty similar to how a coilover works. Just that the control is electronic, and happens continuously while driving, while coilovers require you to pull over and set it up once. There are zero reliability issues with these dampers, unlike air suspension, where the rubber components naturally degrade over time and have to be replaced periodically.

All this is just theory - please come and experience it yourself. Let's plan a breakfast drive soon.

[d3mon]

Forgot to mention another important point in the previous post - the Porsche chart goes up to 1m/s of damper velocities. This means if the adaptive damper reacts in 10ms (Porsche claims 5ms), even at the fastest damper velocity of 1m/s, the damper would have moved up by only 1 m / 100 = 1cm in the worst case (1m/s velocity and 10ms reaction time).

In other words, if you hit a pothole or a speed bump, by the time your damper has moved by 1cm, the car can already detect and change the damper stiffness in order to optimize the ride & handling. More likely it is capable of doing that at much smaller movement scales, given the 5-10ms response times.

End result - a pillow soft ride can be maintained to iron out small bumps, and as soon as a slightly larger bump is encountered, the stiffness is increased as soon as the damper exceeds a certain travel range. This is why even if I pump up my tyres to 36PSI for max load, the ride remains completely unaffected.

[BeMyWings]

Its always a delight to read your posts about Trie, I wish you the best and many more safe and pleasurable drives in the future.