Vs BMW 5-Series G31 vs. Competitors


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Merc should give it the V8 with about 450hp.
Btw. that's the pre-FL S6 on the video with 420hp (video says 450hp).
 
The verdict summary from the above article:

Verdict
First place: BMW 5 Series

It’s five stars for the 5 Series. BMW’s new exec saloon is comfortably the sharpest car to drive, the most comfortable, and matches its rivals for practicality.
While it’s more expensive with xDrive 4WD, it was still the most efficient choice; a rear-driven 520d is competitively priced and will be even more cost-effective.
Strong residuals round off a convincing win for one of the most complete cars on sale.

Second place: Mercedes E-Class

The E-Class is still a great saloon car with an impressive level of tech available. However, its ride is choppier, while expensive options mean you’ll pay more to match the 5 Series’ kit.
It’s efficient, spacious and offers good performance, but this isn’t enough to offset the Mercedes’ poorer residuals, high servicing costs and dynamic shortfall compared with the BMW.

Third place: Jaguar XF

In this company, the XF feels a generation behind the curve. There’s no denying it has a strong engine and an agile chassis, but it isn’t as comfortable or as refined as its German rivals.
There isn’t as much tech, either, and despite having a big boot it feels more cramped inside. Still, the XF is attractively priced for cash buyers, even though it depreciates at a similar rate to the Mercedes.
 
I don't think at this point anyone can deny that the new 5er is the class benchmark. It's better than its competition at almost everything. Just weird constantly reading on how comfortable it is than the E class.

Only competition left is the S90 maybe it can upset the King:D
 
martinbo said:
Ok, you're entitled to... but let's see if your disagreement stands up to scrutiny.


The biggest flaw in your disagreement lies in your perception of what a gear lever is. To state that it can only be used as a "useless handstand" (a hand rest would be the more appropriate term - a handstand is what you do in the shower after a hot chilli crap) gives you away as a novice driver. True drivers never view the gear lever as a place to rest your hand. It is a control necessary for vehicle operation - even an automatic. As such, a large centrally mounted gear lever is leagues ahead of the small, fiddly little control stalk on the steering column in terms of accessibility, intuitiveness and ease & speed of operation. You see, a centre console mounted shifter's plane of operation is aligned with the vehicle's plane of operation too. On a column mounted shifter up is for reverse and down is for drive. a) It's small and b) disjointed from a car's plane of motion. Yes, of course it's easy enough to get used to but that doesn't make it ergonomically superior.

I've done a couple of AMG courses where the customers get in and just battle from the outset to use the column shifter - something you don't see on courses where the gear lever is conventionally located - but hey don't take my word for it - after all you're entitled to your disagreement.

The nice thing about having the gear lever in the centre console is that you can also expand on its operational use - ask any seasoned BMW driver and he will tell you about the convenience and speed of engaging the transmission's sport mode by just slapping it across into sport. Glorious. I use it everyday in a host of scenarios from quickly getting out of auto start-stop mode to adding a bit of pep when the moment arises or even enabling full manual mode in - wait for it - a car that has PRND! [<- take note of the correct sequence by the way.]

Guess what? You can't do that with a column mounted shifter.


The superior ergonomics mean quicker - and hence, safer - selection of R or D which is also useful in various scenarios.

The fact is simple: Mercedes Benz have embarked on a symmetrical centre console layout precisely because of the cost saving brought about from not having to make two versions: one for LHD and one for RHD. Even their ultimate driver's car - the AMG GT has a symmetrical centre console - but, you know what - it's got its gear selector on the central, transmission tunnel console. Go figure.
Click to expand...





Getting slap happy with a centrally mounted shifter in an automatic transmission car was never my thing. I would rather have a full blown manual transmission car, thank you.

I am back btw, running three schedules is really tight so please excuse my long absence.


First of all, my comment about the “handstand” was just pure sarcasm so there is no need to scrutinize about that. Your opinion about the gear lever placement is simply an opinion you are entitled to.
I am not going to disagree with it completely but it is still a subjective viewpoint. My point was, if you are in an Automatic transmission car, it has to be stopped for you to select it`s main gears, even on a centrally mounted lever. My main point here was having both hands on the wheel as a defensive driver, your hand is not on the shifter, therefore, the ergonomic placement of the shifter in an automatic transmission is not as relevant as you would like to believe (unless you like slapping the stick) this makes the placement of the shifter subjective in my opinion.
Your argument is basically a lecture on gear lever placements and the cost cutting “expense”
of a column mounted shifter in your own defense (as a BMW fan) which is not my orignal point and takes this discussion in another direction.

You gave me your personal opinion so I will give you mine.

I do not care where the shifter is placed in an new automatic transmission car from BMW or Mercedes, (as long as it does it`s job and is basically out of my way after selecting gears.) be it a column or centrally mounted, I can get use to either one equally.

Take note, the new gear selectors used in the newer BMWs and Mercedes are electronic and use the same point of resistance from center, before moving back in place like an arm on a rubber doll. These new shifters are not like the older cars where the selector was actually moved to the selected gear. This is why the placement of the selector does not hold as much gravity as you would like to believe and basically dispels your comments of a “cost cutting” column mounted shifter in the Merc cars vs the BMW IMO. Now if the gear selectors on these cars had to be moved in place like they used to then I would prefer centrally mounted shifter and we would not have this disagreement.

BMW chose to keep their shifter centrally mounted. It accentuates the sportiness of the brand, nothing wrong with that at all. Most of the switchgear is logically placed next to the shifter which is good but to me it looks and feels cluttered in the center stack with the extra buttons along with the I Drive Command knob, of which there is no place to rest your palm when making adjustment or commands. The centrally mounted shifter in the new BMW 7-Series, for example, looks nice in photos but in real life, it looks kind of cheap and is a little flimsy in operation.
(Moving on to interior impressions.)
BMWs new interiors have grown with style they have not had in the past but they are a busy place to be IMO. The downside of the busy (button fest designs) thereof might unconsciously increase stress levels depending on ones learning curve and the situations with reaction times while driving. The finger playing screen controls does not improve ergonomics while driving and is simply a distraction. Most of the basic controls are at your command but the overall impression is rather self defeating with all the tech wizardry there with the manual controls ready at hand.

In my opinion BMW is stuck in the late 90s, early 2000s with modern tech interior integration and how the two connect which is a working science in itself. Thay have come to a head with design and clearly don`t know where to turn.

Mercedes approach on interior design is geared towards luxury and technological integration logic in the design. Not design and style alone. (This is one major element that separates these two brands IMO.)
This approach gives the MB design a slightly cleaner, less button fest interior design language. The visual experience alone while seated in the cabin provides a less tense experience IMO because the tech-interior science is connected with the design language.

A host of manual controls are there in the new Merc interiors but the shape of the switchgear in the Benz cars are not stacked in a button / nob fest language. Moving the shifter to the column frees up space for the wrist pad and accentuates the luxurious feel of the Benz interior designs the newer interiors are ment to convey.
 
Zafiro said:
I simply don't follow 'it looks like FWD' arguments you guys are having. You make it sound like it's a bad thing. Like it's an excuse to make the E-class the best car in the trio, from both a design and driving experience point of view.

Go out and drive them both before you make assumptions like that. Judging a car based on pictures is just wrong.
Click to expand...



I never made the assumption that the new 5er looks like a FWD car.

If the new E-Class was cought with a double chin with big bushy eyebrows it would have been
slammed down like a sumo wrestler in this fourm. Why is the 5er praised with these seemingly out of place features.


Sunny said:
What an asinine way to compare front overhangs. Even a small difference in the position, angle of the camera or the lense used can distort how long the front over hangs appear. That pic of the E class is clearly taken using some wide angle lense.


What it really looks like -


And what the real overhangs are -

There is no meaningful difference in the overhangs between 5 and E series, if anything given the much longer wheelbase, 5er has more "RWDy" proportions.

Your posts read like, you first come to a conclusion and then make up some gibberish to support it.
Click to expand...





Is this the only subject you can point out in my post above?

Your ethical code and condescending attitude to your opponents is that of childish internet bully. I am well aware of lighting, camera angles and zoom effects can distort images.

So is comparing the E-Class Sport package with the Luxury package asinine just to prove your point? sure it is, because the packages are completely different.


Go ahead and number crunch. It does not matter what little differences there are in measurements. The obviously larger headlights and overall seemingly larger frontal area ahead of the front wheels on the new 5er makes it look necessarily big compared to the E IMO, (thats IMO). My point was about perception, not actual figures. If I wanted to show figures I would have posted them.

Stop trying to add to my post with what you think I should have typed in this discussion. That is pure father-figure fanboy nonsense to the max!
 
@GTA8.5 - sorry, but you're posting a whole lot of pointless mumbo jumbo. Stop making out like you're some kind of automotive guru - we all know you for a long time now. It's the junk you write in your responses that gets the reactions you deserve. So, take the defensive attitude, back-pedaling and your singular lack of fact-making somewhere else.
 
@martinbo, I did not expect that remark coming from you. I`ll take it as a defensive reaction to your buddy sunny, which is simply not productive on your part at all. let sunny reply on his own terms please. He does not need back up.

I was looking for another short productive comment on my reply to yours. If we are done than lets leave it here.

You Beemer fans are a hell of a pack, I gotta hand it to ya. You stick together like a pack of wolves. Standing up for the E-Class in this thread makes me feel like Clark Kent protecting him mom against a small dark clan of beemer fans.:D

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Anyway I am done arguing about this car. I have driven it and I like it.
My post is found here. All jokes aside, I don`t take this fan-hood business no way near as serious as I used to. Both these cars are really cool in their own way.

-->> http://www.germancarforum.com/threads/gta8-5-drives-the-g30-540i-xdrive.56817/#post-826419
 
I know people will find this blasphemous but for me the 5er is the very essence of BMW.
 
I like that when they climbed into the 5er they thought it was a much better place to be in albeit with 20k worth of opional extras. The 5er is just wiping the floor with everything in its class, saying its a benchmark is now a serious understatement. Can you imagine how epic the new M5 will be even with a slush box. It was the X1 , M2 now 5 series doing well and setting a nice precedence for future BMW products to come X3,Z4,X7,3er and 8er etc.
 
Autocar have an obvious love affair with Jag and almost always prefer the Mercedes to BMW. So I have to wonder how the new G30 did against the XF and E class in their recent comparison test.
image.webp
 
Has anyone read the latest issue? Any thoughts? I expect the Jag to still be the outright dynamic choice but it should (hopefully) be an interesting read
 
Rolf said:
This must be the first comparison the new 5-series doesn't win. Interesting video from Autoweek.

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Click to expand...
Neither did the E class win, he says the differences are so mininmal that it's a personal choice.The E class still hasn't won any reviews against the 5er... Sorry.
 

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