Test drive BMW 5 series E60 2007 - 2009 sedan

Four quarters of prestige

A full-wheel drive premium sedans of the middle class if we assume that the recipe for the perfect car for Moscow generally exists, then they are one of the main applicants.
 

Comfortable and fast, spacious and compact, representative and not loud. Full-wheel drive where something falls from the sky half of the days a year cannot be overestimated. There are four of them. And everyone has their own approach to how to cook according to this recipe.

Weight without masses
Audi A6 2.8 FSI Quattro
A6 is perceived by the most solid car among the participants in our test. At the same time, it is both the brightest and the most emotionally light. Despite the fact that the base of Audi is shorter than the BMW, A6 driver does not leave the control of the control of a longer -playing machine than it really is. It is quiet here, and updated V6 2.8 with a capacity of 220 liters. With. performs its work almost imperceptibly, like an automatic Tiptronic, and the running balance between comfort and handling is slightly shifted in the direction of comfort (relative to BMW). However, both indicators, if they are available for measurement, would have given a slightly larger amount together than that of the main competitor. Basically, due to the larger supply of the energy intensity of the suspension, the mental comfort and the spiritual comfort: it is important for us to have such a chassis in Russia so that you can relax and not wait from each fossa or a wave of asphalt that consists of most of our roads, no troubles. Today I know only one soothing car in the Jaguar XF market. But he is more and more expensive. In addition, there is no full -wheel drive.

A6 modernized. Among the participants in our test, this machine was finalized later than all. And they were not at all as easy as it might seem at the first glance at the usual, in general, a car. Designed strokes are almost invisible: in Audi, lighting and bumpers only refreshed slightly. Another thing, technology. All engines became much more perfect and all versions of the machine received new energy -saving technologies, and the QUATTRO constant all -wheel drive system is reconfigured with a more rear -wheel drive accent: in a gold ratio of 60/40. Thanks to this, insufficient rotation characteristic of the Audi of past years has gone: the current machines have retained family stability in the straight line, but are also controlled today easier. Just easy. It easily seems to be the main word in a conversation about this solid German car.

Mustache nanny.
Go on a working day for parking any business center or a large administrative building, and you will find yourself in the sweet dream of the creators of the black Audi A6. Probably, white or ocher-brick specimens in fiction, or they are immediately imported to aliens. There are only black cars, only to drive to the office. In fact, black color is exclusively dress code, not attitude. Audi A6 has always been and remains a very light, interesting and positive car. Search for other changes, except for optics and engines line, in the restyled version there is no one should not. In any case, positive. A strip of LEDs, for example, does not go out if you turned off the ignition, leaving the turning point and the steering wheel turned on. You already notice that the left janitor does not reach the rack of a billion light years. So the corporate aroma of sweets in the new leather salon is not felt. New times new A6. But all this does not matter, not a single other car will give such self -confidence in oneself and the safety of their sometimes eccentric actions in the driver's place. He knows how to do everything for you in such a way that it seems to you that you have done it. Like a children's bike that your caring dad rolls by the handle. A6 he is dad, which is why he is in a black suit, and not because he is going to work.

Audi A6 2.8 FSI Quattro
Engine
Typebenzine, V6 working volume, cm32773 max. Power, l. With. at about./min. 220/5500-6800 max. moment, NM at about./min.280/3000-5000
Dynamics
Maximum speed, km/h237 acceleration 0100 km/h8.4
common data
Fuel consumption (funny cycle), l/100 km9.7 wheelbase, mm2843 length, mm4916 width, mm1855 height, mm1459 Equipment mass, kg1680
 


The taste of spices
Honda Legend
Sh-AWD and Hondovsky V6 3.5. You ask why I write Hondovsky in the material about Honda Legend as if there could be some other motor under its hood? Because after Honda surrendered its four-cylinder engines to ecologists and sonyam, the same sad fate could comprehend V-shaped. However, the V6 on Legend is still characteristic of everything that Honda won the place in the pantheon of the upper class motorists: sports breed, strong character, engineering grace and passionate voice. SH-AWD system of electronic power selection from the front axle. She is remarkable for her ability to turn to increase the speed of rotation of the outer rear wheel using planetary gearboxes, helping the driver turn the car. To ride such machines (Lancer Evo, for example) what is on Windsurf: the first time it can be difficult to entrust your weight, but as you get used to it, it will go. Here you need to actively press the gas when for years the developed driver's reflexes demand that you drop it: at the entrance to the turn. Europeans, as often happens, were ripe until the series of similar pieces later (BMW in 2007, Audi in 2008), however, they set them up with much greater grace: their systems do not require violence against themselves from the driver. Read more about this in a conversation about BMW in the same test.

Legend suspension is the hardest in the test, and the accuracy of the steering wheel reactions and the willingness to take a maneuver to even gas are slightly less convincing than that of Europeans. A little means a little. But a very competitive price. Minus design and all that Repkina wrote about the interior. Honda could have defeated, we choose cars only with brains and wallet. But she failed to win. Even with all the attractiveness of the Hondovsky V6 3.5 and the CH-AWD all-wheel drive.

I am for!
Imagine an open vote: six out of ten have voted against, your voice of the seventh, and he will not determine anything. It is very convenient for you to be noble and terribly sweet. The winning and so that the loser is pleasant, and there is no responsibility for you. Nobody understood the Honda Legend (Acura RL) model. Let's now stand up for her, open the eye to the world! However, what happened happened. The model was not successful and did not earn a serious restyling. Six months have not yet passed since the renewal, but now the car seems old -fashioned in its excessive seriousness. The trends were replaced, but it dresses in the old fashioned way expensive, tastefully, but boring and too pompous. The dynamics reveals the technical complexity and engineering perfection of this machine, but bored in the traffic jam, you begin to look at the details that cause a light half smile of emotion. So you look at the old photos where everything looks terribly cute, but at the same time terribly stupid. In the competition for the best legend drive, a formidable and implacable opponent, who is easy to offend, hitting numerous weaknesses regarding its interior and control panel.

Honda Legend
Engine
Typebenzine, V6 working volume, cm33664 max. Power, l. With. at about./min. 295/6200 max. moment, NM at about./min. 371/5000
Dynamics
Maximum speed, km/h250 Acceleration 0100 km/h7,1
common data
Fuel consumption (funny cycle), l/100 km11.6 wheelbase, mm2800 length, mm4985 width, mm1845 height, mm1450 Equipment mass, kg1868



RESTART
Cadillac CTS
I still remember my first trip on the first all -wheel drive CTS. That was the first Kaddy for me not from the world of Elvis and his mother, but from the reality of the matrix and rebooting. In the American GM, then everything was really great rebooted, and the impression of the car made the strongest it was very, very good on the go. And my expectations were much more modest: both in quality and in technology. We traveled all the test routes on all coatings, and I did not find something to complain about. The years have passed since then. There were good SRX and STS cars that changed the perception of the Cadillac brand. They changed so much that these cars began to be directly compared with Japanese and European classmates. And today we are on the comparative test of the next generation CTS. However, there was no serious upgrade after that reboot, and the world, which Cadillac then began to catch up, did not stand still. It remains only to shrug: what was good candidate work did not result in a doctoral dissertation.

CTS has the softest suspension. She allows the buildup, the rolls, and delayed the reactions of the machine. And she is shaking the most: a trip on a cobblestone pavement on a soft cadillac shakes the soul where the relatively hard Audi and BMW are almost flying. CTS perfectly holds high -speed straight and willingly takes the maneuver even on slippery coatings, but against the background of competitors, its suspension is the least tenacious, and the system of all -wheel drive is the rude and the most rough and with a pronounced rear -wheel drive character. The stabilization system allows greater liberties, allowing the driver to feel the sliding of a well-controlled car, and an automatic transmission with an honest manual mode provides accuracy of gas reactions ... CTS is still a good car: all its shortcomings are not absolute: most of them are only noticeable in comparison with Europeans.

Recitative in retrograde
The navigator of the steep car Cadillac CTS knows that somewhere there is Russia, knows that there is some Moscow near Warsaw. He knows nothing more. But this is not scary, its display can be adapted to the DJ remote control. The Bose audio system on the move, like hip-hop, reads a strongly worn and scratched disk in DVD format. Of course, there is a TV set. And a 40 GB hard drive. And the hatch for both rows of seats. You look at this parked at the dirty curb of Cadillac, and you see how the skilled beauties in a bikini soap his sides. You go and feel yourself with a casual beauty in a bikini that substitutes your face with the California sun and even more hot views. Comfortable sensations. A comfortable car. Practical car. (On the inside of the trunk cover there is a full handle so that it is more convenient to close it. There is even heating the wipers, the wiper nozzles and the tank). And a very profitable offer so many horsepower, leading wheels, chromium and skin for one and a half million rubles will not offer any other automobile brand.

Cadillac CTS
Engine
Typebenzine, V6 working volume, cm33564 max. Power, l. With. at about./min.307/6400 max. moment, NM at about./min. 369/5200
Dynamics
Maximum speed, km/h225 Acceleration 0100 km/h6.7
common data
Fuel consumption (funny cycle), l/100 km11.2 wheelbase, mm2880 length, mm4829 width, mm1793 height, mm1440 mass equipment, kg1618



Power reserve
BMW 530xi
The five BMW has been with us for so long that it became almost native even to those to whom it was originally not only completely alien, but also alien. Nevertheless, the machine that gave rise to so many controversy was capable of a very long life. Even though experts recall the fact of her restyling only rummaging in memory. And very few drew attention to the fact that since 2007, the full -actual versions of the car received an active rear differential, capable of applying an additional moment to the outer rear wheel, helping the machine turn. Only a thin connoisseur will note the truly unrealistic efficiency of X-five in corners and, unless he digs in pieces of paper, will attribute these merits, rather, the tenacious chassis than a full-wheel drive system.

The fact is that the XDRive BMW is so intelligent that it works without generating any unusual effects: it does not ask, unlike Japanese analogues, having felt a new and tart taste of its work, to learn how to bald only from it, and not from dinner as a whole. XDRive, simply acts delicious. It is so tasty that, as it sometimes happens to us in a restaurant, it only remains to squint with pleasure, and then write down the name of the dish, the address of the restaurant and to sob over the account: there is nothing more to discuss.

Those who do not use all the possibilities of adjusting for themselves expensive BMW-hairs stealing at home: this is a fantastic lodgent. Together with the magnificent work of the suspension that practices small irregularities so that you do not notice them at all, the seat can sensitively facilitate and extend the life of intervertebral discs. There is only one real drawback: the energy intensity of the front suspension is often not enough to live without breakdowns.

Infrared world
The BMW 530xi car has a lot of good. For a lot of money. The basic cost is 2,186,000 rubles, plus 83,500 per machine, plus countless and almost priceless options. From a conversation on this sensitive topic and you need to start a test. The cost of the tested car is approaching three million. Everyone is accustomed to the appearance of this machine and its presence on the roads, and people passing by do not pay any attention to it, completely not seeing in it a bag of gold, a bit more than with diamond dust than snow. And I sit and look in the dark at the world through an infrared chamber installed on a test car, which tracks only objects with plus temperatures. In winter dirt and cold, I am close to me such a profitable, although arrogant position to see only warm. See only good. BMW cars are overgrown with cliche and stamps, like a tree with vines. Behind the stereotypes you can no longer look at the car. And even in our editorial office, a commotion rises because of the five, like in the morning in a chicken coop. Each claims to be objective of their subjective assessment. Well, this only makes an honor to a car, six years later from the beginning of production, still causing surprisingly there are a lot of disputes and emotions and a surprisingly many.

BMW 530xi
Engine
Typebenzine, R6 working volume, cm32996 max. Power, l. With. at about./min. 272/6650 max. moment, NM at about./min. 315/2750
Dynamics
Maximum speed, km/h250 Acceleration 0100 km/h6.4
common data
Fuel consumption (funny cycle), l/100 km9.7 wheelbase, mm2888 length, mm4841 width, mm1846 height, mm1468 Equipment mass, kg1710



Summary
It was incredibly difficult to engage in places this time. Participation in a dispute with Europeans Japanese and American distorted the entire coordinate system. With their price sentences, they knock out the soil with the decent cells from under the feet of the one who begins to lay out all the arguments on flat shelves, and twist the space with a screw, offering a new dimension. The car is inferior in technology will receive such an offer at a price to forget about it. The fourth place in Cadillac is explained only by the murderous technical advancedness, and sometimes the perfection of all other opponents. If you like its design, you are not averse to having something in the new American style and are not prone to envy, Kaddy will be a good acquisition. And on the saved products you can buy some kind of machine machine or child. With Honda, everything is easier. It is from a completely different test: already made of senior flour. It's all about details. It is tangibly cheaper than Europeans, but slightly less balanced, and she lacks chic: both technical and designer. As for the social, in Russia, accustomed to thoroughbred machines and more sensitive than most countries, to the fact that the car is not only technology and design, but also status, it would be better to be Acura for us. BMW is for nothing that old -timed, the most technically advanced and technically perfect, which is not the same as we could see by the example of Honda. His full-wheel drive system is a work of engineering art: the fruit of the magnificent work of not only engineers, but also test pilots. Even the design is still not outdated, however, the price is even more than the list of advantages that are still less important in the city than on the track. But the problem with the energy intensity of the suspension is especially sensitive in Russia. Thus, more affordable, more comfortable and, practically not inferior in technology (with the exception of a slightly less effective all -wheel drive system), Audi became a winner with us.

1. Audi A6 2.8 FSI Quattro + an exceptionally successful combination of running properties

2. BMW 530xi + handling, phenomenal all -wheel drive price

3. Honda Legend + engine, reputation of a high -tech car, design price, specificity

4. Cadillac CTS 3.6L V6 AWD + price, chassis power, comfort management ratio

Text Dmitry Sokolov, Olesya Repkina

 

Source: Cars