Apologies for this being long over due but i have been very busy lately and not really had time to do a wee write up for the 530d!
As most of you may know John Clarks kindly donated a raffle prize to the club for a weekends hire of an X3. Needless to say, i amongst others was quite keen to win this, so when my name was drawn out there was a bit of grumbling and heckling along the lines of "ITS A FIX" which indeed i wish it had been because i wouldnt have had to fork out 15 or 20 quid on raffle tickets to win!!!
Anyhoo, i turned up on Thursday the 10th Feb to give all my license details etc and i booked the hire with one of the managers, a very nice chap called Ian Henderson. I booked it this weekend so that i could take it to the meet in Inverurie. He said no problems just come and pick it up at about 12 tomorrow. Brilliant i thought, i would have it from mid day friday till mid day monday.
So i turned up on Friday and spoke to a nice young lady who said no problem sir, whats your name and i will go and arrange for the car to be taken out the front etc
She then came back about 2-3 mins later a bit red faced and said "i'm really sorry but one of the other managers has actually given it out to someone else this weekend, we have double booked it by mistake" so she gets ian out of his plush office out the back. He also explains the situation and says "what would you like instead"..............LOL! He said "we'll have to get you something nice for you for the weekend!!!"......cool!!!
Obviously M cars were out of the question, so i explained that my next car would be an E39 540 sport, so he says, i have just the thing for you ma boy! Hows about a 530dSE.......result!!!
So it pulls out into the forecourt, the nice young lady took me out in the car to explain all the functions to me, bearing in mind i had never used an auto, or used an i-drive or cruise control etc etc etc so needless to say i was a bit wary of taking out a 35k car!!!
She explained the gadgets very well and really knew what she was talking about so i took it round the block with her still in it. No probs, mastered it all in seconds!
So i took the car away from the garage, i was very impressed with how smooth and quiet almost petrol like the car was, none of this rattly diesel business here!!!
So, now i had it, i immediately took it out the back roads of Aberdeen, some really nice twisty bits and a few straight sections later i was loving it already. I was very impressed at how chuckable it was for a big car.
Performance - Sadly this is actually the fastest car i have driven, but given that this car was a 3ltr straight six turbo diesel with 218bhp and 369lbft and hits 60 in 7.1 s and can cruise up to 152mph, i think its a fairly potent car in most peoples books!!! The fact that this car is 75kg lighter than the e39 and most of the suspension and parts of the engine and body are aluminium helps quite a bit in taking the big barge swiftly round most of the corners i chucked it round. When the big turbo kicks in, you really know about it, there is a massive surge of power which really does encourage you to drive it fast, the kickdown was quite amusing! There was a wee bit of lag, but not enough to be annoying. It just made the turbo seem even more brutal!
Handling/ride - The handling was superb for a big car, it had fairly meaty tyres on 17" rims, they were not low profile but they were not bus tyres either!!! IMO they were just the right balance for everyday driving. Within hours of driving it i had full confidence of what it could do around bends, both tight and long sweeping bends.
I had the rear end trying to catch up with the front end on the outside of a few corners and i must say it was very controllable and great fun! Sometimes the traction control cut in a bit and tried to spoil the fun, but that didnt spoil things to any great extent. Maybe Stephen Perry can vouch for this! The ride was amazing, it was so so smooth, although i must admit i am used to a 3 series with big alloys and lowered suspension so most things feel a bit softer on the road, but this really did feel nice!
Gadgets - This car had almost all the gadgets you could want, except sat nav. So, anyway, i had plenty of time to try everything out, which was good fun.
I heard all these horror stories about the i-drive system.......but dont believe a word of it, its a piece of cake. If you are competent enough to navigate your way around the menus on a mobile phone, you can use the i-drive. It really was simple and a pleasure to use, you can control everything from adjusting your radio channels to how warm your 'hin end' is! I thought it was great! The autobox was good, i never thought i would like driving an auto, but i did and i found it a nice change especially in the city, none of that flaming heavy clutch work for me!!! The cruise control was great as well because i constantly found myself speeding, as it was so much smoother and quieter than i was used to and it gets to 70 a helluva lot quicker than my car does thats for sure, so i often used the cruise control to help me keep out of trouble with Gary!
It had pretty much electric everything, seats, windows, remote central locking, all the usual goodies. But my favourite along with the i-drive was the parking sensors. This car had them at the front and the back. Now i consider myself to be very good at parking, i have a very good awareness of where every corner of the car is. But this really made parking an absoloute doddle, it had the usual green yellow red warning indicators to show how close you were to anything to the front or rear of the car, even pavements!!! The only criticism is that it was a bit sensitive, it went red at over 1 foot away from the car infront/behind, i would prefer it to go red a bit closer, but thats just my taste. The stereo was nice and clear, simple to use, good sound, but only a single cd........
Interior - The interior was massive, there was loads of room in the front (and the back LOL). The big leather chairs were very comfy and plush, at first i felt the interior panels/dash/centre consloe felt a bit plasticky, but after a wee while in the big five i realised that it was actually very nice and felt fairly solid and well put together. There was quite a few wee hidey holes for storage too.
Looks - Possibly the most controvertial of recent BM's. Its a case of love it or loath it and i must admit i grew to like it a lot, i love the front lights, with the angel eyes and the overall shape of the lights and the bonnet. The rear end is still on trial tho, its a wee bit suspicious, its far from the prettiest car i have ever seen, but i certainly wouldnt be ashamed to have it on my drive put it that way!
Over the whole weekend i think about 2 people noticed the car, but when i drive my 3 i have had people stop me and ask if i would sell it, i have had a lot of very nice comments about it and even once a woman walking along union st pulled out a camera from her handbag when i was at the lights and took a photo!!!! So it certainly isnt a car for the posers among you! 
Although the M5 and various schnitzer/Hartge versions look pretty tasty i must admit. I am also not a fan of silver cars, its either black or metallic black for me!
Over the weekend i had it, i covered about 350 miles in it, so i think i can safely say i enjoyed driving it. I would have driven further in it had i not had a call on friday (literally 5 mins after i picked it up) to go offshore on the sunday DOH!!!
I think i have covered almost everything, so just a few words to say.....
Big thanks goes out to John Clarks for the weekend loan, Pete for organising the raffle (and anyone else who helped organise or supplied prizes etc) Big thanks to Ian for being very sound about giving a 25 year old a 35 grand executive beast.
If anyone feels they need any more info that i missed out just PM me!
Cheers
Neil
** Sunday 13th Feb Pics**
Topic Options
coupe king wrote:
