Should I buy a 2008 BMW 535xi?

[JR_NYC]

Greetings Pelicans. It's been a long time since I posted on this board but I still have my SC and still enjoy it (on the 2% of days when it's not snowing or raining)!

Question for you all: should I buy a 2008 BMW 535xi?

There are a lot of these cars on the market for around $30k with <30k miles. I guess they're all coming off lease, hitting the dealers' lots - and then sitting there.

I'm moving to Chicago and need AWD for commuting. I'm looking at the 535xi because it looks like a good value given the inventory glut and because gas mileage isn't great. But these were $55-$60k new just 3 years ago.

Mainly I'm attracted to the 300hp twin turbo motor...

If you're an owner of this car tell me what you think - would you buy/lease it again if you knew what you know now? Was it reliable? What should I look out for in the used market? I've read about a chronic fuel pump issue. Does the iDrive really suck that bad?

Need to make a decision soon so let me know. Thanks.

[kaisen]

I think wdfifteen owns/leases a 535. I know he hates the iDrive. Maybe he'll chime in.

My clients have been happy with them, for what they are. And you're right about the market on them right now -- they're about the same as the less powerful E350 4Matic, and there was a glut of supply.

I'm not sure I agree on fuel economy. They do rather well for their size, power, and all wheel drive.

[gprsh924]

FYI, in no way do you need awd for Chicago. A set of winter tires on a rwd car and you will be all set. Save the money and potential future expense. I just did the winter in my recently purchased 02 530i on summer tires as I could not find a reasonable deal on snow tires. It makes things slightly easier on the 2 days we get real snow, the rest of the time it is just fluff.

[IROC]

The wife and I basically went through this same process a few weeks ago. We were looking for a 5 series coming off of lease and drove a number of them. We ended up with a 2007 530i. To be honest, I like the normally aspirated engine in the 530 better than the turbo in the 535. The 535 felt laggy - especially at parking lot speeds. Once the 535 gets moving, it flies, though. The 530 is plenty quick, IMHO.

One thing that I would highly recommend is the sport package. Huge difference over the stock suspension.

I'm old school when it comes to electronics in a car and to me the iDrive is fine. What you need is right at your fingertips and the things you have to dig for, you shouldn't be looking at while you're driving anyway...

BTW, we averaged 30 mpg on a recent trip that was about 80% interstate, 20% city. The interstate portion was averaging 32.6 mpg...

[JR_NYC]

Thanks for the responses.

I've been going to Glenview, IL at least 1x per month since November and driving FWD rental cars. Admittedly these were pip squeak rental cars but they were all over the road in the snow. I'm going to go w/the AWD so the weather won't stop me from doing things. Maybe it's overkill, I don't know.

According to the Feds, the 535xi got 16 city/25 highway, combined 19 mpg when new. It's not bad, but above 20 would be better. I can live with 16/25.
Fuel Economy of the 2008 BMW 535xi

Re: the sport package, I understand it doesn't give you a sport suspension with the AWD version. And the AWD's ride height is a few inches taller. Maybe some Bilstein sport shocks are in order? Have to investigate this.

The plan is to drive 2-3 years until the warranty runs out and then trade it in/sell it.

[ddbach]

I'm about 90 min north of Chicago and agree w/ gprsh924 on rwd vs awd. If you are in an open more rural area awd may have some benefit a few times a year but I have not found that to be the case in the western burbs of Milwaukee.
N54 engine is fun to drive. I like it better than the na 328i I drove as a loaner for a couple of days when my fuel pump was replaced though part of that may have been AT(loaner) vs MT(mine). The fuel pump issue seems to be occurring less often to fewer people with the latest version of the pump. It is covered under a separate warranty for 10yr or 120k miles so with your plan to drive for 2-3yrs you would be covered. If you are buying CPO it very likely has had the pump replaced under a recall already.
Sport pkg in an xi mainly gets you sport seats no sport suspension. Also looks like if you would want MT that is not available for 535xi but is for 535i.
Fuelly.com is another place to look for gas mileage. Posters there look to be doing slightly better than gov figures. Of course traffic around Chicago may place you towards the lower end.

[slow&rusty]

Originally Posted by georgeinhere

I had a couple of serious issues with the 335 and traded the car in about 8 months after I purchased it.
There is no way in HELL that I'd own a 535 out of warranty and as they always say...YMMV.

What kind of issues did you have with your 335? I read that the new single turbo 335 is far superior (especially reliability \ complexity) than the twins in the earlier models.

Yasin

[ken_xman]

I had a very similar BMW the 04 530i... same body. The I drive is kinda cool when you get used to it. It was pretty reliable until about 140k miles, then it seemed to come apart. My wife used it as a 120 mile daily commuter here in NY and was fine with the Conti Extreme tires on the rear wheel drive chassis. I sold it because it needed brakes, rotors, broken front spring, bad steering rack, was starting to use oil, and resetting the electronic warnings for no real problem was becoming a pain in the butt.
As mentioned in a earlier posting the Mercedes E350 4Matic. We bought one for her as a replacement to the Beemer. Its an 08 had it for a year and a half and its has had no problems. Bought it with 32k miles for $33k. Its a white sport model with the all glass panarama roof. It really looks cool, drives really nice, and goes through anything you can put infront of it for snow. As fyi- I also put on the conti extreme tires on this car too.
I should say I am currently driving a modified lifted 4 door rubicon, on 35"tires, so I have an aversion to getting stuck in the snow to begin with.
As Background I have had an X5, 3-530's, S600, and a 300SE.. and know benz and beemer products pretty well.

I would say the best car for the money right now on the used market is a Benz E350, and would buy another in a minute if something happened to my wifes.

[wdfifteen]

If I could rip the dashboard out of my 2008 535xi and replace it with something from say, a Mercedes it would be a great car. Great power, great brakes, handling is OK but it's hobbled by the tires. It has the best lighting of any car I've ever driven. It's hard to get used to "normal" lights after driving the 535.
BUT
BMW took an otherwise fantastic car and completely ruined it with the stupidest, most annoying control systems of any car I've ever driven ( and I once had a Citroen DS 21).
The HVAC is it's frikkin' ridiculous - you have to stop the car and screw around with iDrive to adjust the hot/cool air delivery and after 2 1/2 years I still haven't figured it out.
The steering wheel blocks the view of the speedometer and the turn signal indicators, which is important because if you hear a turn signal ticking you can't just touch the lever and know which one it is.
The levers for the wipers and turn signals fall back to the "off" position after you move them, which I find extremely annoying. Flip the lever up and you are either turning the left signal off or the right one on. You have to look at the arrows on the dash to see what's happening with the turn signals (but you can't see them because the steering wheel is in the way). I never know what speed I'm going to get when I flip the wiper switch. My Toyota has one lever with a barrel you twist to get three speeds and varying intermittent speeds. The BMW has a lever, a button, and a little thumb wheel thingy to do the same job (worse).
Two or three times I've returned to the car after leaving it in a parking lot to find the truck wide open. I don't know why.
The gear selector has two buttons and a lever. Why? My other cars all have one lever that does it all. It's not PRN321 like every other car I've driven either. You push it forward to go backward and pull it backward to go forward and push a button for park/neutral.
The warning chime is on all the frikkin' time. If I get in and put the key in the ignition before the door is closed, I get the chime. Open the door to pick the paper up off the driveway, chime; it's cold out, chime; open the door before I get the key out, chime. I want to take a hammer to that damn chime. My other cars give the same warnings, but they have a second or two delay before they sound off.
The piece de resistance is the warning on the iDrive when you put the key in. It says not to use the system unless traffic conditions allow you to do it safely. Under what traffic condition is it safe to take your eyes of the road and stare at a screen on the dashboard?
I was enthralled by the car's performance and I thought I would get used to the goofy controls. I was wrong. The 535 is definitely not a driver's car. The car requires that you spend way too much time looking at the dashboard and tending the controls instead of looking where you are going and DRIVING. Every time I get in the car I hate it more. It goes back to BMW in September and I'm going back to a Mercedes.

[kaisen]

Have you considered:

E350 or E550 4Matic?
Infiniti M45x or G37x?
Acura RL?
Cadillac CTS AWD?

Could you live with a BMW 550i Sport with a dedicated set of good snow tires?

[IROC]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

The HVAC is it's frikkin' ridiculous - you have to stop the car and screw around with iDrive to adjust the hot/cool air delivery and after 2 1/2 years I still haven't figured it out.

They must have made it more difficult after 2007. On ours, you just rotate the driver's side air temp knob cooler (or warmer) and speed the fan up. You don't even have to access iDrive. Same for the radio - just hit the "mute" button on the dash and then use the steering wheel controls to scroll through stations, adjust the volume, etc. I actually don't use the iDrive for anything unless I am checking fuel mileage, etc.

Another bonus of our 2007 is that it comes with a spare tire, so we can run regular tires instead of the run flats. Ours was a CPO and came with free maintenance until 100k miles all for less than $28k.

[JR_NYC]

So the '08 doesn't have a spare? I hate run flat tires.

Sounds like I need to look into the Mercedes E350 4Matic. Not interested in the CTS - my ex-girlfriend had a Cadillac SRX and it was creaking & groaning after 3 years had some chronic flywheel problem that left us stranded late at night in the Bronx. It'll be a while before I consider a GM. I guess the Infinitis should be on the list but I consider the quality of Nissan below the Germans. And Nissan doesn't seem to have the reliability of Toyota/Honda.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by IROC

They must have made it more difficult after 2007. On ours, you just rotate the driver's side air temp knob cooler (or warmer) and speed the fan up. You don't even have to access iDrive. Same for the radio - just hit the "mute" button on the dash and then use the steering wheel controls to scroll through stations, adjust the volume, etc. I actually don't use the iDrive for anything unless I am checking fuel mileage, etc.

I can only try to adjust the temp and the fan speed without using iDrive. To control where the air comes out I have to go to iDrive and I get this screen:



You twiddle the knob around and push it forward and backward and the screen changes. There is no immediate change in the air movement, so you have to watch the screen to see if you got it the way you want it. One thing I often want is to turn the dashboard vents on blazing hot to warm up my fingers. I've been so frustrated trying to get the BMW to do this that I don't bother any more. If it's cold out I drive my truck.



The controls are so simple I don't have to take my eyes off the road to use them. And they are immediately effective. You can tell where the air direction is set by where the air is coming out and it changes instantly when you move the knob.

To be honest, my new Murano has some pretty stupid controls too. Not as bad as the BMW but like the BMW how a control functions when you change it depends on where it is currently set. Its operation is relative. There is a single button on the dash that you push to cycle through the options. You have to look at the dash to see if you've set the control properly. Any system that makes you take your eyes off the road is bad one IMHO:






The controls on the Toyota pickup are absolute. All the way to the right is defrost. Doesn't make any difference where you are starting from. I can turn the defroster on and never take my eyes off the road. I like that.

[JR_NYC]

The Benz isn't known for its sportiness. I'm assuming the 5 series is more fun to drive than the E350. Mercedes seems to want to insulate the driver from the road. So the question is whether I'm willing to accept really bad ergonomics in exchange for better power and handling. I need to test drive the E-class. With an NA engine I wouldn't have to worry about a turbo going out and all the complex crap associated with that. Might be willing to own it past the warranty expiration.

[RWebb]

two things to consider re AWD & commuting...

-- lake effect snow can be very heavy for any sedan AWD or not...

-- besides the above, how often will the inability of other idiots & their cars cause your commute to be interrupted? (i.e. major crash up shuts down the Danny Boy Ryan, or similar)

[gprsh924]

There were literally only 2 days this winter where my commute took longer than normal due to weather.

When we got the huge snowstorm, rwd vs awd didn't matter, you needed ground clearance. Again this was one day this winter.

I will freely admit the awd can make things easier, but it is important to realize that it is not a necessity.

YMMV

[kaisen]

Originally Posted by JR_NYC

So the '08 doesn't have a spare? I hate run flat tires.

Yes, 2008 BMW 535Xis DO have a spare tire. It's a mini donut type spare, but it is a spare.

Sounds like I need to look into the Mercedes E350 4Matic. Not interested in the CTS - my ex-girlfriend had a Cadillac SRX and it was creaking & groaning after 3 years had some chronic flywheel problem that left us stranded late at night in the Bronx. It'll be a while before I consider a GM. I guess the Infinitis should be on the list but I consider the quality of Nissan below the Germans. And Nissan doesn't seem to have the reliability of Toyota/Honda.

Then also consider the Lexus GS All Wheel Drive
A nice 2008 GS350 AWD runs pretty close $$$ to a similar 535Xi

Originally Posted by JR_NYC

The Benz isn't known for its sportiness. I'm assuming the 5 series is more fun to drive than the E350. Mercedes seems to want to insulate the driver from the road. So the question is whether I'm willing to accept really bad ergonomics in exchange for better power and handling. I need to test drive the E-class. With an NA engine I wouldn't have to worry about a turbo going out and all the complex crap associated with that. Might be willing to own it past the warranty expiration.

I think you're assuming a lot. Go drive a non-sport-pkg 535XI with a non-sport-pkg E350-4M and I don't think you'd tell much of a difference in handling or braking or 'feel'..... yes the 535 will have more power. The Sport package on a E350-4M had more content than the 535XI's Sport package in 2008.

[JR_NYC]

kaisen, thanks for the info. I'll test drive a E350 this week and see how I like it. I've been reading about it online and the controls seem a lot more user friendly. I overlooked the E350 in my search so creating this thread and getting everyone's feedback already helped a lot.

[RoninLB]

[JR_NYC]

That's awesome. Someone in the marketing dept has balls.