2016 BMW 7-Series

ERIC TINGWALL

September 1, 2016 at 1:01 PM

WHAT WE LIKE: Commutes during Michigan’s construction season are just a little bit easier when cocooned inside a BMW 740i. The cabin mutes jackhammers, the numb steering neutralizes rumble strips, the suspension floats over milled pavement, and the seats—my word, the seats. If you can’t get comfortable in these thrones, you are probably a giraffe. The optional 20-way seats, part of the $4100 Executive package, include power-adjustable headrests, power thigh extensions, four-way lumbar, and—what really sets them apart—power shoulder articulation. The latter allows the angle of the upper seatback to be adjusted relative to the lower portion, accommodating all forms of posture from the rigidly perfect to the appallingly hunched.

The seats have garnered only a single complaint to date: “The driver’s seat provides essentially no lateral butt/thigh support on entrance ramps,” wrote one hard-charging driver using said on-ramp en route to discovering that the 740i “cruises nicely at 100 with no show of effort.”

That staffer wasn’t the only one smitten with the 740i’s silky speed. Deputy online editor Dave VanderWerp noted that the 740i “makes 100 mph feel like 70” and associate online editor Joey Capparella wrote in the logbook, “I cannot imagine wanting more power in this car.” That comment almost disqualifies Capparella from working at Car and Driver, except that he has a valid point. The single-turbo 3.0-liter inline-six has impressive low-end response and strong top-end pull, and it continues to deliver 26 mpg.

WHAT WE DON’T LIKE: The driving dynamics have taken a back seat to, uh, the back seat. We weren’t expecting the 7-series to move like an M3, or even a 3-series for that matter. We were expecting our 740i to have more steering feel than a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe and more body control than a middle-aged dad at a trampoline park. “BMW seems headed toward the old Cadillac paradigm,” VanderWerp assessed, noting the 7-series’ increasingly buoyant body control and increasingly ostentatious bright bits found on the interior and exterior.

Those interior adornments are just one small reason our long-term 740i feels more opulent than its $96,095 price to almost anyone who passes through its doors. However, we have noticed a few whiffs of cost-cutting. For example, the doors no longer open with an infinite number of checks to hold them in place. Instead, it’s on the occupants to find one of the detents that keep the doors from swinging closed on their own, just like commoners in their Toyota Camrys. Also, the side glass isn’t acoustically laminated—even hoi polloi in the Honda Pilot can get quieting dual-pane side glass, and we’ve noted higher-than-expected wind-rush noise at highway speeds in our 7.

Other niggles reported in the logbook include a steering wheel that doesn’t tilt down far enough. Some think the ceramic coating for some controls, also part of the Executive package, make the volume and iDrive knobs slick and difficult to use, and one driver caught the nav system displaying mislabeled roads, including major interstates.

WHAT WENT WRONG: The fuel door began to separate from its hinged inner plate around 6800 miles and departed the car entirely by 8600 miles. Our dealer replaced it just days before the 740i went in for its first service at 10,000 miles. We didn’t pay a dime for either visit. The fuel door was covered under the warranty and the service was paid for under BMW’s four-year/50,000-mile included maintenance.

We lost the driver’s-side front tire to a pothole on a 35-mph Chicago side street. The driver, who had criticized the run-flat tires for compromising the ride quality a couple of months earlier, drove 20 miles on the deflated tire. “I didn’t even bother swapping for the compact spare, figuring it was a waste of time to change one tire rated for 50 mph for another one with the same restriction.” We replaced the tire at a suburban Chicago BMW dealer at a cost of $501.

WHERE WE WENT: Other than the jaunt to Chicago and a quick run to Pennsylvania, our 740i has spent most of these past few months in and around Michigan. The 2000-mile East Coast trip mentioned in our 740i’s long-term intro story remains the longest trip to date.

Months in Fleet: 4 months Current Mileage: 13,569 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 26 mpg Fuel Tank Size: 20.6 gal Fuel Range: 530 miles
Service: $0 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0

Damage and Destruction: $501

Specifications >

VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan

PRICE AS TESTED: $96,095 (base price: $82,295)

ENGINE TYPE: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 24-valve inline-6, aluminum block and head, direct fuel injection

Displacement: 183 cu in, 2998 cc
Power: 320 hp @ 6500 rpm
Torque: 330 lb-ft @ 1380 rpm

TRANSMISSION: 8-speed automatic with manual shifting mode

DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 126.4 in
Length: 206.6 in
Width: 74.9 in Height: 58.2 in
Passenger volume: 115 cu ft
Cargo volume: 18 cu ft
Curb weight: 4385 lb

PERFORMANCE: NEW
Zero to 60 mph: 4.8 sec
Zero to 100 mph: 11.9 sec
Zero to 130 mph: 21.6 sec
Rolling start, 5–60 mph: 5.6 sec
Top gear, 30–50 mph: 2.9 sec
Top gear, 50–70 mph: 3.5 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 13.4 sec @ 105 mph
Top speed (mfr's est.): 155 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 159 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.86 g

FUEL ECONOMY:
EPA city/highway driving: 21/29 mpg
C/D observed: 26 mpg
Unscheduled oil additions: 0 qt

WARRANTY:
4 years/50,000 miles bumper to bumper;
12 years/unlimited miles corrosion protection;
4 years/unlimited miles roadside assistance;
4 years/50,000 miles scheduled maintenance

After 120,000 miles divided among a 2012 BMW 328i sedan, a 2014 BMW 328d xDrive wagon, and a 2015 BMW M3, we’re ready for a respite from the sixth-generation 3-series. Each one of those recent long-termers left us cold: too disconnected, too expensive, or too flinty, but most of all, just short of totally satisfying. BMW’s quest to adapt the 3-series for mass-market appeal has watered down our decades-long love for the car that once combined control, practicality, and fun like no other.

Instead of hunting for the ghosts of BMW past with yet another long-term 3-series, we’ve redirected our focus toward a 2016 BMW 740i. We’ll spend 40,000 miles determining if BMW’s apparent new priorities—luxury and comfort before sport—have been perfected in the company’s flagship.

The 7-series is less about driving and more about riding, and these days, that means a car packed with electronics. The sixth-generation 7-series takes the first baby steps toward automated highway driving with optional adaptive cruise control and brief stints of self-steering lane keeping. We assume that BMW designers also are fans of Minority Report, because the latest iteration of iDrive allows passengers to wave a hand or twirl a finger in front of the 10.2-inch touchscreen to accept an incoming call or to adjust the audio volume. Yes, the gesture controls are every bit as gimmicky and imperfect as they sound. Looking beyond the silicon and semiconductors, this new G11 chassis blends high-strength steel, cast and extruded aluminum, carbon fiber, and magnesium for a lighter unitized structure.

**Expensive, But Not That Expensive**

We’ve been conditioned to think of the 7-series as a six-figure car, so we impressed ourselves when we ordered our long-termer with a $96,095 price tag. It helped to start with the least expensive 7-series, an $82,295 rear-wheel-drive, six-cylinder 740i, because from there we positively splurged on indulgences. The $3900 Luxury Seating package with Cold Weather brings heated, ventilated, and massaging power rear seats; a heated steering wheel; heated front and rear armrests; and a 7.0-inch Samsung tablet in the rear console that allows control of just about everything in the car except for the steering wheel and pedals. The $4100 Executive package adds power side-window shades, ventilated 20-way adjustable front seats, a head-up display, and ceramic trim for the shifter, the iDrive controller, and the radio.

We went for the $1900 Driver Assistance Plus package, which includes front-collision mitigation, lane-departure warning, speed-limit display, automatic parking, and blind-spot detection but is most notable for the included surround-view camera system with a 3D view. BMW uses four cameras to stitch together an image that looks as if your personal cinematographer is filming the car from 10 feet away, and you can pinch the air and wiggle your wrist to rotate around the car for different angles. The jury is still out on whether this is more useful than the bird’s-eye or traditional vantages (these are also selectable views in the 7-series), but this bit of tech feels less like a gimmick and more like something truly innovative. Notably, we skipped the Driver Assistance Plus II package that adds adaptive cruise control and active lane-keeping for $1700. We don’t expect to miss either feature much. Our drivers typically prefer traditional cruise control, and, based on experience, we know that the BMW’s steering assistant is merely a lane-keeping aid rather than a stand-in for two human hands.

Sundries include $2600 for 20-inch wheels and $900 for a larger panoramic glass roof with LED accent lighting. We also spent $250 for what we’ve taken to calling a “key foblet.” It features a tiny touchscreen that allows you to precondition the cabin and to check the status of the door locks or the windows. It was probably money we shouldn’t have spent. There’s a phone app that accomplishes the same thing, and the key is merely one more electronic gizmo to keep charged. Finally, we dropped $150 for a space-saver spare, which adds some additional security against being stranded, over and above the standard run-flat tires, but comes with the penalty of raising the trunk floor by about six inches.

Driving the Thing

We weren’t expecting sports-car moves, so we were surprised when the 320-hp six-cylinder made such light work of the burden it carries. At the track, the 4385-pound 740i reached 60 mph in only 4.8 seconds, and a panic stop from 70 mph required just 159 feet of roadway. The skidpad figure of 0.86 g qualifies as respectable, although not exactly impressive.

Several logbook commenters have noted how soft the ride is, particularly in the car’s Comfort Plus mode. One staffer even compared the 740i to a Kia K900, a recent and unloved long-termer in our fleet. Bizarrely, that plush suspension tune doesn’t mean the ride is entirely comfortable. Our 7-series seems to be affected by a paradoxical chassis tuning in which the suspension doesn’t provide enough body control, but the wheel impacts are too harsh. Over sharp lateral features such as expansion joints, the 740i pounds and smacks the pavement. The run-flat tires likely don’t help, but we’ve never had this problem with a Mercedes-Benz S-class on run-flat rubber.

Despite the persistent drumbeat of complaints about the stiff tires, the 740i is still a wonderful way to cover big mileage. Assistant buyer’s guide editor Annie White logged almost 2000 miles driving from Ann Arbor to Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and back to Michigan. “By far the most comfortable car I have ever road-tripped in,” she wrote. “I had no back pain at all—which is not normal for me—thanks to the truly excellent seats with seemingly endless adjustability.” The small-displacement engine also is delivering on its end of the bargain: In addition to the impressive track-test performance, we’re averaging 26 mpg through the first two months.

Months in Fleet: 2 months Current Mileage: 7160 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 26 mpg Fuel Tank Size: 20.6 gal Fuel Range: 530 miles Service: $0 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0