Test drive BMW 7 E65 E66 2001 - 2005 sedan

BMW 745LI

We passed six months, and it was time to give the legal owners of the BMW 745LI. Do we feel regret? You can’t answer in a nutshell.
Agree, 8000 km in six months is very little. Usually, during a six-month test, cars in the autopilot manage to run one and a half to two times more. What is the matter? The answer is simple: the case is both in the car and in us, who turned out to be users of this machine exclusively by the family of their activities, but not by income and standard of living.
+/- The seven did not become the machine that was in the editorial office every day. And the first question is with parking. Not only you can’t leave such a car anywhere at night: after all, embodied in metal, skin, glass and plastic $ 150 thousand-not jokes, so it is far from always possible to do physically. The seven is large. With mirrors, its width is 2.13 meters. Even having folded them, less than 1.9 m will not work. And the length of the large seven, that is, a car with the LI index - 5.17 meters. It is clear that to attach it in a typical Moscow court, where parking on the lawn is a common thing is unrealistic. Moreover, even in the presence of free space on the sidewalk, which, as you know, is not made for pedestrians, but solely so that the cars occupy as bizarre positions as much as possible, not every driver of 745LI risks climbing the curb. A car whose speed is artificially limited to 250 km/h is too low. Unfortunately, despite the fact that everything that is possible is pumped up in the suspension, it is impossible to raise the seven at least an extra five centimeters. But the problem with parking is again the problem of the standard of living. It is clear that the owner of such a car has his own place either in front of the house, or, more likely, in the garage. Moreover, from this garage to the house, he does not reach the tram, but on the elevator. And at the office he will find where to stick in the sink, and at the restaurant in front of the seven, the guard will remove the chain from the place reserved for an important guest. All this is so. But for us, the seven never became a car for every day. How confident the BMW feels on the asphalt, as helplessly and ridiculous - on a broken KamAZ with sand and zilas with manure a primer, which the last one and a half kilometers of the road invariably end to almost any dacha near Moscow. It is to the cottage, and not to the cottage or palace. But, in fact, no one advertised the topic of trips to barbecue and fishing on the BMW 745LI.
+ With representative functions, the car copes one hundred percent. We can judge this by the fact that for six months there was no case that someone expressed dissatisfaction with our presence on the road with blinking, bibikan, facial expression or characteristic gestures. And parking workers at municipal parking often did not dare to approach an important person at the wheel of BMW 745LI.
+/- At the wheel in the seven, sitting is great. Some of the editorial staff undertook to say that more comfortable seats simply do not exist. The rest did not share this point of view, admitting, however, that a larger number of adjustments still need to be searched. The seven may not have enough adjustment range to fly the steering wheel, which is why a high driver has to sit a little closer than we would like.
Another small complaints are an unlotted central display. On a dark night road, he distracts attention. You can, of course, slightly extinguish the brightness, but nothing more.
About how the car is driving, we already wrote - everything is on top. And overclocking 6.4 seconds to hundreds is impressive, and she slows down confidently from any speed. Sometimes it becomes unclear why, if so good at the wheel, so much space? For the passenger. And in its place to be no less pleasant. He was fenced off with a curtain from the world around him, set up a chair for himself - the number of adjustments is smaller than ahead, but also impressive - and rest. At your disposal, the silver joystick Idrive, a colored monitor, a TV, also a TV (which really failed), a telephone tube, the adjustment of personal climate control, is lightly facilitated. We visit that the temperature indicator for the rear passengers is not provided. By the way, despite the impressive size of the car, the third behind will be clearly superfluous. To plant in the middle - in the place where the armrest is extracted - only the enemy is possible: both hard and the ceiling hangs, plus a wide tunnel under the feet. Although the third, the middle head rest hints that a person can sit here. It is possible to use this space humane only by installing a children's seat in the middle of the rear sofa and fixing it according to the ISOFIX standard.
+ Six months of operation brought a minimum of technical problems. The engine was slightly lifted, but there was no need to add. The thing is more serious - we were replaced by 5000 kilometers of the run as a guarantee of the steering rack: its malfunction gave itself a roar when traveling through potholes. Look like that's it. Practice shows that for a car stuffed with electronics, this is quite good.
- Seven - obviously the car is not for a taxi. The trunk has a volume of 500 liters. For the sake of laughter - on the Ford Focus sedan, a car, in its dimensions, three classes below, it is 490 liters. Moreover, the trunk on the seven is also not very convenient: wide, but shallow. There is no skiing hatch for the transportation of long objects either: the skis would have rested on a microcherer hidden behind the rear armrest. A hatch with a special cover is an option.
- It is difficult to say what cars will become in the future, but even at the present stage it is difficult for a person to keep an algorithm for managing all the functions of the car in his head. In any case, at 7-RE. Once I set up radio stations - and a month later, in order to expand the list of positions brought into memory, you need to climb into the manual. Where you should fuck in the menu, you will not remember. More annoying that Russian buyers of the seventh BMW series are not available to such charms as the menu in Russian, navigation and branded BMW help (communication with the dealer in the accident, BMW News of On-Line, and so on). The representative office says that the problems of the Russian market - although they are more related not to the car, but to the country as a whole - will be decided from next year.
 
 
+ I must admit, in six months we have not figured out the seven with all available functions. Never, for example, they used the remote system, from the remote control, climate control. I didn’t even have to feel how convenient it is to get into the car, which, according to the timer, at the time set in advance, warmed the engine and brought the temperature in the cabin to the necessary.
+ We tested the car for six months. For six months of 2003, from January to June, the new BMW of the seventh series diverged in Russia in the amount of 338 pieces. The main demand fell on the stupid 745i. It was clearly not bought from a lack of funds for a long seven-because if you reason from the point of view of the passenger, one could do with a short 735th: it is cheaper than a long 745th. So, seven are bought with the expectation to get behind the wheel. Therefore, the BMW remained faithful to the slogan.
Text and photo Sergey Sherestnikov

Costs (January 20 - July 20)
Mileage city/highway - 8000 km
Gasoline A-98, AI-95 (1450 l) $ 590
Autocas -GO insurance $ 14,800
Summer tires $ 2670
Disks for summer tires, set $ 2655
Tiresomontate $ 140
Moika $ 290
Washing liquid $ 90
Total $ 21,235
 

Source: "Autopilot"