My Journey to a BMW F10 M5. A Review, by an average Petrolhead

I’ve always been a petrolhead.

Growing-up, I’d spend many a weekend with my grandfather, who was a retired mechanic and workshop foreman, with decades of experience under his belt.
Naturally, I owned some great cars and being able to maintain them myself meant I could stretch more than most people would have the guts to.

I had a couple of Opels (Vauxhalls to most of you lot), one of which was an Astra Coupe Turbo.
It had a plethora of mods. Bigger turbo, fat intercooler, beg dump valve, bla bla bla. I quickly learnt about the limits of front-wheel-drive with this sort of power.
I then became a BMW slut.
I sold the Astra and got a BMW E39 M5, which I absolutely adored.
I maintained it myself and spent most of my daily commute sideways.

The last few years were a concoction of different cars because of changes we went through as a family. We had two kids, we moved, my wife had health issues, we changed our cars as our financial situation changed and in accordance with our needs and tastes.

The M5 was sold and replaced with an N54-powered E92 335i DCT (with some modifications) and an R56 Mini Cooper S (the turbo one).
Then it was an E90 335i (powered by an N55) and a 2006 Opel Corsa GSi.
We used my father-in-law’s Disco 4 for the odd holiday trip when we needed to carry more than we could shove into the 335.
But, pretty-much, that E90 335 was the car we’ve had the longest. It was great.
So was the Corsa though.

We’re now lucky enough to be in an F10 M5 and a Range Rover Evoque.

Out of all the cars we’ve owned, my favourite was the E39 M5.
A close second, was the E92 335i with DCT + mods.
It was stupidly fast. Much faster than the E39 M5 it replaced (we’re up at an altitude of 5500ft, so turbo is king) and it used less fuel in doing so.
But it missed something. It didn’t really feel like it was filled with soul (not the fried chicken type).
It did have a bit of character and compared to it’s rivals it had decent feedback and was pretty enjoyable to drive.
But the reason it was a close second favourite, was the power. It was just ridiculous.
The car didn’t want to drive in a straight line and I loved that.
The suspension was horrible though, way too low and way too hard.
The E90 was the same. Call me old, but it’s just not convenient, or comfortable, to have to take a speed bump at 4 km/h. Or rebuild the entrance to your newly tiled garage so that the bloody thing will get in without ripping-out the undercarriage.

So, I want lots of power, but I also want something that isn’t scraping along the ground all the time.
Power is great, but I didn’t want something that delivered it clinically and without fuss.
Like a bloody RS3. I hate them. Sure, they make a WONDERFUL noise and they go like stink.
But that’s it. They’re fast, but they’re boring. And when you’re not driving it at 10/10ths, it’s got awful suspension.

Cue the F10 M5.

We’re obviously all aware of the fact that all modern cars get more and more refined with each new model release.
So comparing a current-gen car to one of its direct replacements that is a couple of generations older, isn’t really fair.
Especially for petrolheads. Because, you know, we all love feedback, rawness and all of that stuff, right?

I don’t know. Do we really?
Is my mother-in-law’s Mk1 Golf nice to drive in traffic? No. It’s not. But it definitely has a character about it and it grows on you.
Character. That’s what I enjoyed the most about the 2006 Corsa I was using as a daily for the last (almost) 3 years.
It was slower than cancer, chowed fuel, understeered like a pig, but it just carried-on and loved to be driven.

The F10 M5 is a big car. No, like, it’s bloody huge.
The chassis is exactly the same as you’ll find under the larger-bodied 7 series.

Naturally, the suspension has been tweaked, as have the diff and drivetrain, but you’d expect it to be a bit of a boat.
Now, I cannot compare properly to the E60, because I haven’t owned one - I can’t fairly recall how it felt because I only test drove a few.
So let’s use the F10’s spiritual predecessor, the E39 in a quick comparison.

It was also really big at the time.
The E39 M5 kind-of shrunk around you as you drove it and you never really felt like it was a large car, until you cornered hard.
The giveaway was the body roll (especially during the beginning of my ownership with it, because it had broken anti-roll bar brackets)

The F10 is quite a lot bigger than the E39.
Parking it was a bit of a task for about 2 days, but then I embraced the Surround Camera Package and became pretty bloody lazy.
It’s a breeze to park and maneuver in tight spaces, because it has 6 cameras. 3 for parking, including a reverse camera and two mounted under the rear-view mirrors which project various different views of the car on the iDrive screen. It also has another 2 towards the front of the front wheel-arches to help you pull into traffic, because the bonnet is so long.
It’s actually awesome. I love the gadgetry of it and use the cameras even if I don’t really have to.
So, using everything it has at its disposal, I find it easier than the E39.

For the daily grind, I do about 10km in each direction to the office and back and I drop-off my son at school in the mornings.
Lots of stop-start traffic, some tight parking spaces at the school but generally a relaxed drive with the little tyke arguing about something or asking me to point-out busses, trucks or M5s to him.
The auto start/stop system, along with the DCT ‘box are an absolute pleasure in daily drive mode. Smooth, great at gear selection and a really long, lazy throttle in the default, enabled-at-start, Efficient throttle map. For the sheer size of the car and the power output of the engine, when driven like a granny, the consumption isn’t too bad actually. Better than the E39’s.

The suspension soaks-up bumps and the generally rubbish roads in its default Comfort setting and is a vast difference from the E90 and quite a bit softer than even the E39.
Steering is very light. VERY light, with pretty-much no feel in the default Comfort mode. It’s maybe a little disappointing for an M car, but it’s in daily drive mode so who cares. Here, the E39 wins though.

The speed-limit for the road on which I’m driving, is conveniently displayed in the Head-Up Display, along with my current speed, navigation info and any vehicle information it thinks I should know.
(Like, perhaps the fuel tank is empty).
At night, I’m now lazily given the choice of having the car switch between high and dipped beams for me and even an infra-red nightvision camera behind the kidney grilles with a pedestrian warning system that flashes-up on the HUD and iDrive screen. With the heated seats switched on, the Active Seat function enabled, one could almost fall asleep in those loungers up-front.

As a daily drive, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever experienced. It has absolutely everything and it wafts along effortlessly with the comfort of a sofa.
It really is lovely. Nobody really needs a manual ‘box in traffic, so you can’t take away points there.

If I had to pick some faults with the car, they’re mainly silly things.
The centre console storage area has a flaw - the way it opens.
It has two halves that open towards the driver and passenger respectively.
When you press the release button, both halves open.
It’s a little annoying that both open and it’s not quite as easy to get inside the storage bin as with the traditional BMW rearward-opening ones.

Right, so that’s all boring.
Let’s focus on what really matters. The M part of it all. Which of course means that, by definition, it has to be a bit Jekyll and Hyde.
It has to be a great commuter, but it also has to be a good sports car.

And my goodness, it is.

I absolutely love the two M Drive buttons. These let you save settings for the ‘box, suspension, steering and throttle, as well as HUD preferences. You have two buttons, for two presets.
I have M1 set to the maximum throttle map, with the middle suspension and steering settings and traction control in the “half-off”, quite unobtrusive, M Dynamic Mode.
M2 is full attack mode, with everything on max, except for steering, which I like in the 2 out of 3 setting. In this setting it has enough feedback and weight for me, whilst not being overly heavy like in the highest setting. Traction control is completely disabled in M2 and the gearbox is in full sequential mode on both, with the middle shift-speed program for M1 and the fastest for M2

It’s been pretty nippy the last few nights.
I’ve been using the weather as an excuse to pop out to get some take-out in the evenings, but I take the long way, obviously.
The great thing about the cold weather, is the 1 million extra horsepower the engine is able to produce in comparison with a somewhat less acceptable amount in the heat of the day.
In the heat of the day, after a few hard pulls, the car suffers from heatsoak and you notice some reduced performance.
Even so, in the heat of the day it’ll give a Merc SLS a decent smack. Yes, it will.

So, getting back to the cold. The problem is the Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres aren’t able to produce quite enough grip if they’re cold - all this whilst the engine is in superhero mode.
A mash of the throttle yields a really great feeling. One of the best of modern cars I’ve felt in a long time.

Sure, it’s not as responsive as the naturally aspirated S62 in the E39.
However the term “lag” isn’t the right word to describe it, because there is no turbo lag when using Sport or Sport+ throttle modes. (There is some in Efficient mode, though)
BMW M engineers utilize some special valve timing tweaks which effectively mimic an after-market anti-lag system, so the engine keeps the exhaust valves open a little longer, to keep the some gasses flowing into the turbos to keep them spooled-up. This has an effect on fuel consumption though, which is why it’s not in-place in the default Efficient throttle setting.
The exhaust manifolds are also very trickster. It’s a twin-turbo lump, but they’re also each twin scroll, so the exhaust manifold design is quite interesting.
The anti-lag trickery, coupled with very short exhaust manifold lengths means that you’re feeling no turbo lag.
You do feel boost threshold characteristics though, but it doesn’t ruin the throttle feel because the ECU has been tuned to very artificially mimic a good old-fashioned M car.
The engine pulls harder and harder as the revs climb, much in the way of the older N/A M cars. It’s actually very well done.
Power delivery is aggressive, but somehow linear. It pulls ridiculously hard from just under 2000rpm and keeps pulling harder and harder until you hit 7200rpm.

So, it has lost a bit of the absolute knife-edged response of the N/A engine, but what it offers is so good and so enjoyable that you actually don’t care.
There is so much power and so much torque that the car is pretty-much almost undriveable in anything under the top-half of 3rd gear.
The sticky tyres, while not up at optimum temps, coupled with the absolutely mad power and torque mean that you’re going sideways. A lot.
In the cold weather, it’s a match made in heaven.
There has literally not been a single cold night where the car hasn’t kept me on my toes. It’s downright scary.
But I love that. I loved the modified 335 for its inability to drive in a straight line and this M car has that.
It’s an absolute hoot. Smash the throttle and you’re spinning through 1st and 2nd and even a little into 3rd.
Bear in mind that the top of 3rd gear is about 160 km/h in this thing, so you’re capable of being at the edge of tractive limits at stupid speeds.

This changes a bit when the tyres warm up.
You’re still able to break traction into 3rd, but it really only happens if you’re more ham-fisted at this point.
Feathering the throttle a bit works very well in the Sport+ throttle setting, because of the anti-lag tweaks. You can feather and not be out of boost.
The throttle does a great job of not feeling like an on/off switch as was the case in most of my modified turbo cars.
With a bit of finesse, you can get the car off the line with little fuss - and there’s an extreme amount of reward when you get the rear-end to hook up properly and put all that power down.
It is an absolute monster. It’s too fast for public roads, period.

Having said that, yes, I have had a bit of fun when conditions allow - it would be a waste of the car not to do so, but there really is a hell of a lot of power.
I had a bit of fun with a friend’s modded 135 DCT one night. He’s got a JB4 and a downpipe for now.
We went rolling from 20km/h in 1st, which should’ve given the lighter 135 an advantage.
It didn’t. Every gear, any speed, the M5 pulled train length gaps on the JB4 135 DCT.

I haven’t had the car long, so suffice to say I’m still getting acquainted with it.
It’s intimidating in most situations at first and the feedback through the steering is a little less than the E39 offered.
It’s more accurate though, being the usual rack-and-pinion-type, as opposed to the E39’s recirculating ball steering.

The limited-slip differential does an absolutely fantastic job of keeping things tidy in most situations.
With some finesse at the throttle, it’s easy enough to get through corners fast.
The more I drive the car, the more I’m becoming more “sensitive” to the steering.
It now feels like it has the same amount of feedback as was in the E39, but I had to get used to it because it isn’t quite as good initially.

The gearbox is sublime. It is absolutely perfectly matched to this engine and chassis combination.
In the fastest sequential mode it absolutely bangs through the gears. It’s actually almost a little E60-esque in this mode.
The changes are so fast that with the tyres warmed up, it almost reminds you of the full-attack bangs delivered by the E60’s SMG ‘box.
In the middle setting, it’s like a VW DSG on steroids. Silky smooth, with no interruption in power delivery, but almost imperceptibly quick.
There is no noticeable delay between the time you pull the gearshift paddle to the gearchange. It is almost instantaneous.
In the slowest setting, it’s smooth like an auto. In this mode, the only time you know it’s a DCT is when puttering-around in traffic.

In Sports+ suspension mode, the dampers stiffen up and allow the car to corner very flat.
It’s big and heavy, but you’d hardly know this if you prod the throttle enough mid-corner.
As long as your steering and throttle inputs are smooth, it’ll behave and go where you point it.

But isn’t the purpose of an M5 for dicking about?
I’ve destroyed about 30% of the tread on my tyres already. It’s so much fun to muck-about with this thing and the way it entices bad behaviour is addictive.
All it wants, when you’re in full attack mode, is for you to misbehave. It’s a hell of a lot of power, in a chassis that’s balanced enough to handle it if you’re respectful and crisp with the controls.
But if you feel like misbehaving, it’ll indulge you all too easily and deliver hours of tyre-smoke-filled pleasure. Prod it with a stick and it’ll bite though.

It’s much easier to get it sideways than the E39 (and that thing WANTED to be sideways) because of all the torque that’s available all the time.
Because of the adjustable suspension damping, it stays flat in the corners and this makes it very predictable.
Yes, there’s a lot of weight you’re shoving around, but for me it feels a little more composed than the E39 was.
The chassis and suspension use technology to their advantage and it really does work.

At the heart of this car, it wants you to treat it like a red-headed stepchild. It wants to be thrashed and mistreated.
It rewards your dicking-about with it. The engine is simply phenomenal, delivering a performance that is most deservedly worthy of an M badge.
Yes, again, the power delivery is artificial, but the ever increasing pull to redline is extremely satisfying and it’s half the reason you want to take it out and ring its neck.
The chassis laps it up and remains composed if you have enough finesse at driving smoothly. For situations where you want some sillyness, there’s plenty of power to overcome grip and produce vast amounts of tomfoolery. (It even has the secret burnout mode Easter Egg that’s been in existence since the E9x M3 DCT)

The whole package is encased in one of the best chassis in a larger 4 door sedan I’ve ever experienced.
It’s the best daily drive I’ve had, by a long shot.
In fact, it’s the best M car I’ve had, too.

What it lacks in steering feedback and absolute throttle accuracy it makes-up for with sheer brute force, determination and attitude.
The anti-lag tricks and power delivery let you forget about it’s small throttle and steering weaknesses that are bi-products of model refinement.
It has a truly unique character about it and it feels like the right evolution of an M car.
It’s so good, that I don’t miss any of my previous cars at this point, excluding the certain sentiment one gets for some cars because of what they once were at different points in life.

I love the turbo M era.
That power though. Wow.