That bit of second-guessing that the chassis seems to do and the work you find yourself doing to counteract it is annoying and keeps you from trusting the car enough to push it hard in corners.įront-engine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan We're guessing that the rear steer is tuned to give a lively feel, but when loaded up into a corner it revectors the car and you find yourself making adjustments to the numb steering to stay on the desired line. Path accuracy describes how well a car turns in and holds on to driver's intended path. The M550i keeps challenging the driver's prompts with unwanted yips and moves. Dancing has a leader and a follower-the driver should lead, and the car should follow. BMW tunes the rear steer to increase agility or stability depending on the situation, but from behind the wheel the M550i's rear wheels seem to get into the act to disrupt your intended line through the corner. ![]() Such as many other automakers, the ratio change-faster or slower-is done by altering the spacing of the teeth on the rack. BMW no longer fits a gearbox into the steering system to change ratios. Four-wheel steering is standard, as is Integral Active steering, and on top of that our test car came fitted with the $3600 Dynamic Handling Package that bundles the adaptive dampers and active anti-roll bars. The unchanged quarter-mile trap speed, a reliable indicator of a vehicle's power-to-weight ratio, indicates the engine in round two was making the same amount of power as in round one.Īctually using the chassis's potential in the canyons above Los Angeles left us a bit exhausted. Those figures are 0.2-second quicker than before. Test two resulted in a 3.9-second time to 60 mph and a 12.1-second quarter at 120 mph. The results of round two were quicker, but still slower than what BMW claims. Whatever the reason, we got a different but identically spec’d M550i back for a retest. Possibly the V-8 or transmission had an issue or maybe the tank was filled with a bad batch of fuel. There are plenty of things that can go wrong during testing. So, we called BMW's press office and asked to retest the M550i. Heavier BMWs with identical 523-hp twin-turbo 4.4-liter V-8s, such as the X5 M50i, have bolted to 60 in 3.9 seconds, and our 5742-pound long-term BMW X7 M50i raced to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds. ![]() ![]() BMW claims a zero-to-60-mph time of 3.6 seconds yet our test car needed 4.1 seconds to hit that mark. When we last checked in with the BMW M550i we were a bit puzzled by its slower-than-anticipated acceleration numbers. UPDATE 5/14/21: This review has been updated with revised test results from the M550i's second visit to the test track.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |