Yahoo Autos 2021 BMW M5 Competition Road Test | More improved than you think
Apologies, to BMW and anyone I may have misled in my recent 2021 BMW M550i Road Test. I was wrong when I suggested it was the best executed 5 Series with an M badge. That honor lies where it rightfully belongs, with this M5 Competition.
I made the classic mistake of getting out ahead of oneself, assuming that the refreshed M5 Competition would suffer from the same issues that plagued the pre-refresh car. And the X5 M Competition I drove last summer. And the X6 M Competition I drove in the fall. They’re all just too damn stiff and serious for their own good. Great for a racetrack, but endlessly annoying in the vast majority of circumstances.
I feel as much an old man for typing that as you likely think of me reading it, but it’s true. The M550i felt like the perfectly balanced success story I’d been searching for in BMW’s iconic midsize sedan: wicked quickly, an adept handler, silken smooth on the highway. That’s checking a lot of boxes, and while it’s still a spectacular sports-sedan effort, the M5 Competition is in every way the M sedan to get.
How the M5 Competition got there is rather simple. The car has completely new adaptive dampers and a recalibrated control system this year. BMW says the new parts and revised tuning are meant to “enhance ride comfort during high-speed highway driving as well as over bumps.” These new dampers succeed with flying colors at those tasks, making the M5 Competition a sedan anybody could live with on a day-to-day basis without the need for spine realignment later in life. But don’t think the M5 has gone soft. Switch the car into full Sport Plus mode with the dampers at maximum stiffness, and the vicious tiger within is still very much alive.
This duality of excellence is what a car like the M5 is all about, and it’s one of the reasons why the model is an enthusiast icon to this day. Industry-leading steering feel and a third pedal are no longer part of the equation, but this new M5’s chassis is in one way a return to the car’s well-known glory as a do-it-all vehicle for the well-off enthusiast who wants a single car for every circumstance.
Besides the chassis changes, BMW updated the M5 this year with a number of enhancements applied across the 5 Series range as part of its mid-cycle update. There are some difficult-to-discern styling changes to the front and rear bumpers, enhanced interior tech with dual 12.3-inch screens (one for the instruments, the other for infotainment), Android Auto, a new “Track” program to play on the screens and new colors galore. The one you’re looking at here isn’t new, but it’s a highly recommended Voodoo Blue option from the BMW Individual Manufaktur program.
There were plenty of bits on the M5 that didn’t require improvement, and BMW made sure to carry those over. Namely, the 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 is still a total animal. It produces 617 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque in Competition spec (just 600 horsepower in standard M5 guise), which is good for 0–60 mph in 3.1 seconds, one-tenth quicker than the standard car. The Competition breathes through an extra-loud exhaust system (seriously, it can’t be much quieter than a Hellcat) that you’ll fall in love with as quickly as your neighbors will begin to hate you. Any conversation near the big quad pipes on a cold start will require all parties involved to yell back and forth. It’s fantastic! There’s a $7,240 titanium exhaust option available via BMW’s M division, though it’s likely overkill on overkill.
The Competition’s suspension setup continues to be more serious than the standard M5. It sits 0.2 inch lower, has 10% firmer front and rear springs, a firmer rear anti-roll bar, increased front negative camber and toe-link ball joint mounts instead of rubber bushings. It also gets 20-inch forged wheels with 275-section-width summer rubber in front and 285-section-width tires in back. This makes the observed ride quality improvement even more impressive.
