Yahoo Autos The Competition Badge Killed the BMW M5
There’s no shortage of Bimmer love ‘round these parts. For example, I just penned a 7000-word ode to the M3 (please go read that), and at least one R&T staffer has a roundel tattooed on their nipple. Probably. The M3 exercise saw us gather a pristine example of each generation, E30 through G82, for a shootout on Mid-Ohio’s legendary curves. We spent two days reveling in the light that shines from Bavaria’s finest, and when it was all over, I hustled a time-capsule E30 M3 back to the airport. I lead a hard life.
Welcome to Kinardi Line, mouthpiece of the free world’s most self-loathing auto writer. Home to questionable takes, reviews, and shitbox worship.
During the afterglow of that M3 rodeo in Ohio, I borrowed a 2021 BMW M5 Competition for a weekend in Oregon wine country. This should have been an ideal time to drive the M5, my brain still awash in M3 feel-good juice. But during my first minutes in the M5, somewhere just south of Seattle, I brushed the brake pedal. My face nearly cannoned through the Bimmer’s windshield. I blamed traffic—the stretch of asphalt between Seattle and Tacoma is one of our nation’s most congested chunks of highway. So when the sea of faceless Teslas finally parted, I hammered the M5’s twin-turbo V-8. Hard.
But that first inch of brake-pedal travel brings on a huge portion of the M5 Competition’s stopping power. Hence my forehead’s date with tempered glass. This incident was not isolated. After a week slogging city streets and hustling Oregon’s finest winding asphalt, I never came to grips with the big sedan's touchy brake pedal. Or just driving the thing in general.
At low speeds the abrupt brake calibration caused balky, jerking stops. The chassis sent up expansion-joint clunks like rifle shots from the road, and the M5’s suspension had far less compliance than a luxury sedan ought to. BMW’s lane-keeping assist tugged violently at the wheel, which sent my heart racing whenever the M5 strayed too close to the edge of the road. All that caused more than a dab of grief for my long-suffering wife, who’s nursed a herniated disc for years. And despite a lifetime spent rejecting self-love for self-flagellation, I’m convinced this is a calibration issue, not errant programming of the flesh-bag at the wheel.
Because another big Bimmer, the M8 Competition, drove exactly the same way when I tested it late last year. And that got me wondering: What use is there for a big BMW sedan that you can't just point toward the other end of the continent and go? This exact product, from this exact company, used to represent style, speed, and above all, comfort. Even one generation ago, BMW’s über-sedans didn’t behave like pit vipers at the dinner table. Every previous M5 had a hellfire engine, but paired it with largely sociable, sensible four-door dynamics. Sure, handling creds were baked in, but not at the expense of comfort. That was the M5’s central charm.
Somewhere along the line, BMW and its paying customers changed their minds. Suddenly, sharpness meant immediacy of input, involvement meant a harsh suspension, and every brush of the brake pedal pinned your lungs to your sternum.Much of that calibration is a band-aid, meant to disguise the extra length, width, and curb weight that each new generation of the M5 has accrued. And I’d like to blame the brake calibration on the optional carbon brake package, but a 440i xDrive I sampled recently had the same problem, despite coming with standard iron rotors. This was a choice. (Confoundingly, the new M4 Competition on carbon-ceramic rotors doesn't exhibit this bad habit.)
So where should old-school M5 fans turn if they’re after an über-sedan that handles, but doesn’t go all spike-and-leather dominatrix during cross-state jaunts? You could buy a base M5, skip the Competition badge and carbon brakes (and save about $16,000 in the process). That reigns in some of the suspension’s harshness but will do little about the overall calibration.
But what if BMW still made a vehicle in the vein of the greatest M5 ever built, the E39 generation that covered the 2000-2003 model years? Just like the E39, our hypothetical M5 would have four doors and acres of usable luggage space, a wheelbase around 112 inches for those just-right proportions, a 400-hp engine, a curb weight less than 4000 pounds, and grace in the face of corner-carving and highway driving alike.
BMW does make that car. It’s called the M340i. You can’t buy it with a stick shift, but it’s lighter than an E39 M5, more fuel efficient, and every bit as tossable and comfortable. Oh, and you’ll save something like 30 grand if you choose an M340i with every good option over a brand-new base-model M5.
But the best part? The M340i will never slam your nose into the steering wheel for looking sternly at its brake pedal. For that brand of punishment, we still have the M5 and its Competition badge.
Join me for the next edition of Kinardi Line, wherein I’ll survey our staff’s flesh for roundel tattoos.
You Might Also Like
