Test drive BMW X5 E70 2007 - 2009 SUV

BMW X5 is desperately fighting against the Porsche Cayenne GTS

What should be the premium SUV? The most luxurious, fastest, most comfortable? BSA began with a small friendly boxing match right in the editorial office. A reason for a fight Topic how can you compare BMW and Porsche?.
 
And why not, if both premium class, very fast and very luxurious? Yes, it will be just sacrilege, because Porsche the top of the car Olympus. And BMW, then, doesn’t fly so high? No not like this. Why? Well, Porsche is the peak of the car Olympus ... So, clearly, stop rolling your eyes swaying. We will compare. Even if you have to measure the degree of steepness above sea level with a micrometer in your hands.
They are equal, but BMW is longer
If we were talking only about functionality, then the BMW X5 and Porsche Cayenne could really not be reduced in a duel test. Because Porsche has a low gear and air suspension that allows you to increase the road clearance to 271 mm. But no one will go on such cars on a rut from a timber truck. Even if their owners go hunting, to the hut of the huntsman lost in the threshold most likely, asphalt will be laid. The maximum of off-road that awaits these cars in life, sand on the beach and a couple of shallow puddles. So if we compare their cross -country ability, from a practical point of view, this makes no sense. There is a purely academic interest. For premium class, more importantly: acceleration, comfort, quality of the finish, controllability. And, of course, nuances, nuances, nuances. There are no trifles at such heights ...
The Bavar generously gave the competitor to the headlight of his engine 45 forces weaker. Moreover, this is at the top version of X5. In rivals, we took her average Cayenne configuration with the GTS nameplate.
The starting positions of our athletes are ridiculous. Each of them costs about four million rubles. They accelerate to hundreds in 6.5 seconds (Cayenne, although more powerful, but at the same time heavier than 120 kg). The engines are 4.8-liter, located longitudinally. Six -speed automatic transmission. Just twins-brothers! Apart from that Cayenne is shorter (the total length is less than 74 mm, and the base is 80 mm).
It can be mentioned that the Cayenne engine uses a proprietary technology of direct fuel injection, and it reaches power of 405 liters. With. But BMW with its 355 l. With. He goes just as quickly, and most importantly, eats much less: 15 liters versus 20 in our measurements.
The pendants of both cars are crammed with electronics. Cayenne among the main tools of the control system and control of the rigidity of shock absorbers. The rolls are pressed with the help of active stabilizers, which, depending on the angle of rotation of the steering wheel and transverse acceleration, create an effort, striving to align the body. Plus, a special off -road mode: when the reduction transmission is turned on, stabilizers move relative to each other and allow you to increase the angle of crossing the axes.
The Bavar, in turn, is armed with a system of control over the braking in corners, as well as the DTS traction control system that allows increased wheel slipping when the situation requires this, in particular off -road.

 
The interior of this car is captured by the traditions of Porsche cars. BMW is also in slavery by the corporate style, but it looks much more premium

 
 
Complex game of planes, asymmetry and wood inserts: contemporary art, masking for antiques

Bavarian drums
Inside, cars are finished in absolutely different ways. The X5 has a very beautiful, expensive, high -quality plastic on the front panel. Plus a tree inserts. Cayenne has perfectly made and stolen skin almost manually. Plus insertions for aluminum. The architecture of the front panel of the X5 in the High-tech styles, and its opponent in the spirit of VW Golf. Well and so on. Perhaps this is the rare case when the ultra -modern approach looks more solid than traditional. What is not enough for the Porsche salon? Either thoroughness, or sports: it does not very successfully balances between these extremes.
True, the movement makes its own adjustments. Transfer from Cayenne to X5, you will hear a roar: it rattles with panels of the Bavarz salon! You may even want to insert Birusha or make music louder. But we will be honest: such sensations appear exclusively in contrast.
We don't need fellow travelers
So, you will not hear the creak of the panels in Porsche, but at high speed, on the highway, aerodynamic noise joins it with an annoying fellow traveler. It is literally worth it to accelerate to 150 and that’s all, as it happened. BMW does not have this. But he has trajectory stability lame: if uneven asphalt came on the arc under the wheels, this supercrosword significantly rearranges. Yes, and on direct similar symptoms. Alas, all its excellent handling, for decades, the honed culture of the suspension settings and the steering is suitable only for German autobahns. For long distillations, Porsche Cayenne is better on our tracks. His suspension works clearly regardless of the mode, whether it is sport or comfort. And this despite the fact that in general Porsche is tougher than BMW!
Writing is sad about urban operation. Do not envy those who travel to the BMW X5 and Porsche Cayenne in Moscow. This is how to walk a powerful dog on a short leash in a public park: you all the time move in jerks. Passengers are even more unhappy: if they do not fasten them tightly, they beat alternately with their forehead and the back of the head on the luxury insides. Brake in Paul gas in the floor. And so constantly. But keep in mind in the city of X5 still less evil than his current rival. It is a little softer, a little smoother how much such terms are applicable to such machines.
 
Matter: Porsche Cayenne

 
 

Matter: BMW X5
 

 
 
With clarity of sharks
Some grunt with pleasure when they are given to click on the pedal in a steep turn on a car with a five -liter engine and a price of $ 150,000. But there is no greater pleasure than driving such a car into a sand career. We deliberately use sand in our tests. The victory over the dirt is too dependent on the type of tread or engine power, and all are equal on the sand, especially on the road rubber into which most test machines are shown.
The off-road BMW and Porsche met so differently that it is just right to write a doctoral about the features of their full-wheel drive. Softly, intelligently, the X5 sandy slopes will plow, only occasionally interfering with the driver with the strained electronics of the motor. The moment on wheels is redistributed quickly and accurately, completely imperceptibly. And this is without any locks, a multi -disc courst is already pulled up at the start.
We will not praise Cayenne GTS, here it works clumsy. The car goes with jerks: obeying the anti -wings system, the pads are hard on the brake discs. With such a shuher, you expect a feat from Cayenne, and he climbs through the bold area, as if tearing. If it were not for a low gear and air suspension, Porsche would be disgraced.
But BMW ... Tear over his front bumper and he will make many crooks! Only click on the right pedal more. Bavarians are not afraid of mud. And you will not frighten them with a puncture of the wheel. A hard sidewall makes it possible to get to the service per 100 km at a speed of not more than 70 km/h. About Cayenne, I'm sorry, you can’t say this. He does not have a hard sidewall, and instead of a spare, in our case there was a subwoofer. In case of trouble, there is an emergency set of a bank with a gel. We did not help her all through the nipple into the punched wheel. On the rim we got to the tire fitting, where the master stunned from what he saw showed us a through hole five centimeters from the inside of the disk. It was probably a mine.
Off of discs and bumper
Cayenne wonderful car. On the asphalt, he maneuvers with the clarity of the shark, it seems, only Dun and he will obey diamond accuracy. It is beautiful and BMW, but only on even asphalt or on the ground. And the opponents will be able to satisfy the demand consumer on the off -road if the discs of 21 inches with low -profile rubber, and from the second front bumper, will be removed from the first.
What to choose Cayenne or X5? I put it on Porsche: it is excellent on any road. However, his fame of the celestial is still clearly exaggerated.
Author: Dmitry Leontyev, photo Victoria Ilyinskaya

 

Source: Magazine 4x4 [September /2008]