Test drive BMW 5 Episode E39 1995 - 2000 sedan

Magnificent "five"

The BMW 540i car does not exist in order to get from one point to another. Anyway, too strong feelings from the trip will make you forget about her goal. The utilitarianism of this machine is alien. You just need to ride it. And you need to be able to drive it.
ATTRACTION
What to compare this skiing? Is it possible again with an accelerated line with an airplane? This is if we were driving along the bottom of Black Rock, a dried salt lake, where world speed records set: where nothing interferes with the acceleration, the machine accelerates and accelerates, presses everyone into the chairs, puts his ears, everything freezes and breaks off. On the Frunze embankment, skiing is more reminiscent of an attraction - like American slides, which are on the opposite shore.
Settled in places, prepared ... Start! And immediately on the sides they begin in an unreal and increasing pace to flicker overtaking cars; A sharp jerk to the left - and we (even though we understand that this is impossible) we climb into a too small gap between the machines; As a respite, half seconds of acceleration are perceived by the backwood extreme left lane with the notorious pressing of the seats in the backs. What will be the next surprise? Here it is: a red traffic light is approaching at a great speed, the car goes very closely. Look like that's it. But at the very intersection we stop. And it feels not even very sharply. Only on the attractions, when you go in some wagon upside down, for some reason without falling out, you can experience such a feeling-the usual laws of the mechanics no longer work. Now our car can only drive along the wall of the house, jump in the air and land exactly at the place of departure: everything, the performance is over, it's time to run the next batch.
But the performance ended differently. To photograph the car on a suitable background, it was necessary to enter a low sidewalk. We are trying at one angle, from an other, the engine roars, and BMW after several attempts is finally awkward, it climbs hard. So do not wait for it to serve it to the entrance. She is supposed to entertain the owner, not serve.
The effect of addiction
Entertainment of speed like drug addiction. Every time we need more and more doses. Only having passed many previous stages of high -speed drug addiction, you can reach the 540th - one of the last. And immediately trying to feel her is like a fresh person to look at drug addicts: they are sitting, smoking some kind of grass - what kind of pleasure?
The owner of our BMW Dmitry confidently entered the slippery path of a high -speed mania with his first car, eight (Vazovskaya, not BaemVeshny). She was not simple. With a tightly blocked differential: the steering wheel cannot be kept in the bend, but it is better to accelerate. Then there were many other cars, but the goal was one. Therefore, memories of them are built according to one scheme. On Cherokee: passed a turn of 120 km/h and flew far from the highway; On the BMW 750: he sharply turned at the fork of two roads, flew out at great speed in the field, plowed it, with his nose into the pit, the car stood upright. Etc. We must really be a special person, so that, after crazy overtaking and rebuilding, it is a sorry, it is a pity, summer rubber, not that dynamics; Or quite seriously to say: the 540th accelerates much faster than the 750th-I think, somewhere for a second. And this does not sound with the name of the man’s lips, who, until our photographer has found the right angle, repeatedly and absolutely accurately made figures of the highest automobile aerobatics, including a maneuver of American militants - a spread from a place of 180 degrees with a skid.
Dmitry falls silent at the wheel, and his gaze becomes motionless. However, this is not a feature of this particular car owner. In the same way, he fell silent and began to look at one point by the director of the autopilot, when he moved from his 525th TDS to the 540th. And when he got out, he said that everything, now he needed only such a car.
The autophanate feels alone with the car, whoever sits nearby and no matter what happens around. The guys from the Porsche club told me that when they go around the city, the girls vote all the time - they want to ride and are generally ready for everything. With BMW 540 this does not happen. What are the girls there! The whole surrounding world with cars, pedestrians, road signs is fading into the background. Which, in general, cannot be said safely for the world. What speed will it be possible to accelerate this time? - the owner constantly thinks. The university has up to 150 on the Sparrow Mountains. There is little space. It's a shame. But in some kind of forest park near Moscow it turned out 240. To the horror of vacationing citizens. But before you are inside such a machine!
INCUBATOR
BMW 540 - In a sense, the limit. This car does not develop this car. She has obviously more opportunities than a person is able to use. She will always adjust him: come on, even faster overclocking, steeper steering, sharper brake, you again do not know what I can, study.
It seems that the same idea lies at the heart of the interior design. Remember the appointment of dozens of buttons on the panel, doors, armchairs, steering wheel, lever the checkpoint will not help any icons - you just can’t imagine so many of them. But to carry the instructions with you and to consult with it in every time is stupid. So the abundance of the button turns into another reminder to the driver: you need to grow before this car.
The TIP-Tronic gearbox should simply be studied separately. It can work as manual and as automatic. It can become sports and normal again. It can be moved from the first, with the second and even the third program. True, at least it is not easy to cover all this diversity with the mind, the movements from the driver are required the most protozoa. Switching to sports mode - lever to the left. At one speed uphill in manual mode - a lever forward, at one speed down - a lever back.
In general, comfort can crush comfort. Any living creature is always uncomfortable at least a little: the world around him cannot accurately adapt to its forms and desires. And the BMW 540 chair can, and therefore you feel even somehow helpless in it. It is also better than you, it can do everything. Rides forward and backward, up and down; leans and straightens; The headrest moves in search of the head of the rider; The back bends, bends, bends, bends; Any piece of seat is blown away and inflated. No, they do not treat independent people like that. And some kind of hospital silence, although the motor, judging by the arrow of the tachometer, works. You feel like an embryo in a mobile incubator. It remains to put the air conditioner at a temperature of 36.6 degrees and receive a nutrient mixture through a tube. While from all sides - from the floor, from the ceiling, from the door, from the front panel, from the space between the seats - you are carefully and carefully blown by air flows: so that the fragile young body does not overheat and does not overcool.
How simple, humane, after this resuscitation comfort, the 525th TDS of the previous lineup seems! Harsh seats. The rumble of diesel is idle. Rough, compared to the new five, plastic decoration. This car will not force you at all costs to overtake everyone in the world. If you want - overtake, no - go slowly. You are the main one, not the car.
And the last. We do not intend to teach anyone, but are still convinced that the new five is a machine for very independent people. Even if you have a position, you live on Frunze Embankment, go to Africa for the New Year, skillfully use a cell phone and Windows-95, take your time. Buying such a car is a serious and responsible step. And if you assume that the driver will drive it, and you, having settled in the back seat with a blue -eyed blonde, will relax and have fun, BMW will not help you. And he will not teach anything. And he will not let anything feel. In general, in this case, you can give both the car and the blonde in addition to your driver. Because you, saying simply, chose ordinary show -offs with your lifestyle. However, you can score nails with a microscope ...
Model BMW 540i
MODIFICATION
Manufacturer BMW AG, Germany
BODY
Type sedan
Number of doors/places 4/5
ENGINE
Basin type with multi -point injection
The location in front is longitudinally
Working volume, cm cube. 4398
Number/location of cylinders 8/V-shaped
Cylinder diameter X piston stroke, mm 92x82.7
The degree of compression is 10.0
Power, l. With. (kW) with rpm 286 (210) at 5700
Moment, nm at rpm 420 at 3900
Valve number/cylinder 4
TRANSMISSION
Rear -wheel drive
Gearbox five -speed automatic Steptronic
SUSPENSION
Front independent, multi -link
Rear independent, multi -link
STEERING
Type gear-rake, with hydraulic power steering
Brakes
Front disk (ventilated)
Rear disc (ventilated)
ABS standard
Wheels
The size of the discs is 7JX16
Tire size 225/60 r16
Dimensions/about EME/Weight
Length/width/height, mm 4775/1800/1435
Wheel base, mm 2830
Rule front/track rear, mm 1512/1526
Minimum turning radius, m 5.7
Dry mass, kg 1615
Dynamic characteristics
Maximum speed, km/h 250
Acceleration to 100 km/h, sec 6.5
Economy
Fuel consumption, l/100 km
medium -conditioned 13.0
at the city cycle 19.9
What else
The BMW 540i is a harmonious combination of representativeness with sports (not at all organized, as for some reason it is customary to think), formally remaining a middle-class car. Models with similar dynamic parameters and the level of comfort, and even rear -wheel drive, few produce in this class. For clarity, we found representatives of various design schools - German, Italian and Japanese -American (more precisely, Japanese with an American slope).
Infiniti Q 45 as a car oriented towards the North American market stands out with the largest dimensions and the most spacious salon. The behavior of the car on the road is also close to American ideas about comfort. If your tastes coincide in this matter with American, Infiniti Q 45 is what you need.
The closest competitor is Mercedes-Benz E 420, despite the seemingly obvious sports makings, still not able to finally come off from its dullly conservative genealogy and definitely does not fall under the definition of Driver's Car.
If it came to a car for a driver, especially a driver who wants to tickle his nerves and pride, then Maserati Quattroporte will argue with our hero on an equal footing. Even despite the shortage of a pair of cylinders and one and a half times smaller engine volume. After all, the Italian owes a hot temperament not by the number of cubic centimeters, but to double turbocharges.
 
Alexey Kamensky,
Stepan Rybakov (photo)
 

Source: "Autopilot"