Scoot’s thoughts on all things technology, design, photography and life in general !
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Had a new 5 series for a couple of days on an extended test drive as I think about what car to get when mine is up for replacement later this year. The nice team at alphabet arranged for Berry in Heathrow to supply a test drive car of the new F10 5 Series. The car was delivered on Monday afternoon and collected this afternoon.
The car was a 530d SE Saloon with the following specifications:
- Black Sapphire Metallic paint
- Black Dakota Leather interior
- Dynamic Pack
- Sports Front Seats
- High gloss shadowline
- Sports Steering Wheel
- Anthracite headlining
- 19″ W Light Alloys style 332
- Media Pack – Professional
- 10.2″ widescreen sat nav
- BMW assist, portal & telematics
- Hard drive
- Heated Front Seats
- Fine Brushed Aluminium trim
- Automatic Gearbox
The interior was very comfortable and the sports seats are better than the ones on the E60 Touring I have at the moment. I would prefer a slightly smaller and chunkier sports steering wheel, but the one fitted was comfortable and worked well with the cars new all electric steering system. The central tunnel is much higher than that of the E60 touring and therefore gives the impression of a smaller more enclosed cockpit. The rear seats had plenty of legroom, but given that most passengers in the back are likely to be no older than 3 in the short term this is not a big issue. The boot is massive, but not a big as the new E Class Merc, but plenty big enough for most trips.
Now for driving the engine is a peach, in comparison to my current 3.0 diesel this one responds immediately so no gearbox or turbo lag and is very free revving all the way to the red line. But for me the highlight of this car is the eight speed automatic gearbox, it is fantastic piece of engineering and drives beautifully. You don’t notice the changes and when you want to push on it just gets on with it without fuss or hassle. I reset the fuel consumption meter when I got the car (it was reading average of 36mpg) and managed a respectable 33mpg over a very short amount of driving mainly on twisty roads or in rush hour traffic, plus I did take advantage of the sport mode a few times. This is going to be a massive improvement over the 27.1mpg I have averaged over the last 20months with my current car.
The handling of the car was good, but was slightly upset by the 19″ wheels on run flats, I expect I would go for 18″ wheels instead as a better compromise of looks versus handling. On twisty roads it changed direction without fuss, but did get a little unsettled on those fat boys. The ride is softer than the E60, but that is also due to the E60 being an M Sport variant.
So as a car I want one, it ticks all the boxes for me. The only thing that I would change is I would be more inclined for the M Sport version that is due later in the year, but currently it is not available so would not fit with my timescales and is going to be at least a couple of grand more expensive. I got to see the new 535d M Sport Touring at the PGA on Sunday and it looks fab in carbon black, but I think the SE version looks good and BMW have done a better job of the SE look in comparison to the E60 SE saloon.
The other person to give the F10 the thumbs up was LCJ as you can see below…
Got the car back on Monday and so pleased to have transport back even if my wallet is very light at the moment. Paranoid that the roof will go wrong again so am avoiding using at this stage, fingers crossed for summer. Talking of summer have had a date for the work starting on the conservatory by first removing the old garage, this will be next week. I will post some pictures of the work as it starts and progresses.
In prep I had to clear out the garage which was a mixture of things like spare wood, bikes, golf clubs, carpet, tools, paints, ladder and jet wash.. Need a good clear out once the conservatory is completed..
So the nice man from Autoglass appeared about a week ago and spent 2hours fiddling with the broken sunroof. This was after saying this should be a quick job as it only 6 bolts to undo 
Finally he appeared stating Houston we have a problem, OK he didn’t use that exact phrase. It turned out that with all the will in the world the sunroof would not close as the anti jamming mechanism kept cutting in due to hidden debris. It turns out that glass cover only goes as far as replacing and hoovering up broken glass that can be got to. So as my sunroof cover was closed when it exploded most of the shattered glass ended up in the roof headlining and there some in the rails that the roof slides along. I spoke to the insurance company and they stated I have two choices the first would be initiate a full accident claim and hence stuff up my protected NCB or take to the dealer and get them to fix it.
So I decided the dealer as with excess and potential additional cost due to loss of NCB at next renewal would be greater than the costs overall. Next issue was getting it booked into the garage which meant that it only went in yesterday for evaluation. The garage rang and said that I had two options, first to have the glass taken out of the sunroof and the hoover stuck inside to try and remove all the glass at about 1.5hrs labour or the whole head liner removed and all the glass cleaned out at 5hrs labour. I opted for the expensive one as I was concerned that I would drive down the road and another piece of rogue glass get in the mechanism and the roof being stuck open again 
The car is now due back on Monday as its a long job which they couldn’t finish on Friday.. Oh well looking forward to getting it back especially after hiring a ford focus for a week that was a bit gutless and noisy on the motorway..
On the way back from Heidi & Adrians in sunny Buckinghamshire we were traveling on the M25 between J16 & J15 when there was a loud bang followed by a shattering sound. After the initial shock it became clear that the sunroof has shattered, but how. The bang coincided with us going past a bridge so we can only think that something fell from it or was dropped/thrown on to the car roof. I got off the motorway to check the damage and the front glass had completely shattered
A good around the car and no other damaged could be seen so we are foxed to the real cause of the break. I am glad of two things about this accident, the first was the fact that the internal cover was closed otherwise the three of us could have been showered in glass. The second thing was that it wasn’t raining.
The fun has now started to get it replaced, I am waiting for autoglass to call me tomorrow about getting the actual glass whilst we wait for Privilege to authorise the replacement. Fingers cross that it gets fixed quickly as the car isn’t going anywhere at the moment and thank goodness we have the car port to protect it.
So todays photo had to be of the sky or a skyline given the fantastic colours we have seen at sunset this week. I managed to get out in time to capture some of these colours so picked this as my shot of the day.
And on the way I home I even got a shot of a big bold skyline
Snowing last night which left around 3inches on the ground this morning, here is a bad shot from my iPhone at 6am
Garden this morning
Headed into the office at about 7.30am this morning to find the side roads were very slippery and some of the main roads were icy to say the least. Journey was going fine until I hit the A329 just before it turns into the A329M at Binfield. The traffic was stacked and I didn’t like the look of it. I jumped off at the Binfield junction and headed back home.
I have warned a colleague that there was trouble on the A329M, but they go the message as they were trying to join from the M4. Apparently the road hadn’t been gritted hence the traffic and people were falling off the road. So my journey was about 8-10miles in total and took about 1hr 15mins…
Got loads done this morning once my laptop had decided to boot properly.
This is what it looks like now down our road…
Afternoon view
More snow and ice to come according to the forecast, temp down to -4c this evening…
This week have seen the following cars in the press….
- Audi A2 – Oh no the last one just didn’t fit the market, will they get it right this time
- Bonkers Cadillac CTS-V.. LCJ could design a better looking car with his eyes closed, but 0-60 in less than 4secs and under £60k.
- Police Lambo crashed in Italy – ouch thats gotta hurt
- Porsche Boxster Spyder, looks rubbish with the roof up
- Alfa what? Do we know the name is it Milano or Giulietta? Anything has got to be better than Alfa 147 sounds like a drug compound.
- Autoexpress has a test of tech….
- Launch control on a Porsche – Hit
- Heel-and-Toe on Nissan (Datsun) 370z GT – Hit
- Self Parking on VW Tiguan – Hit
- Night Vision on Merc E-class 350CDI – Miss
- AE also have a slot car review with the best buy being £225 ouch
Needed to post this picture of Camerons fire engine that we got a Mercedes World a few weeks back……
Fire Engine with flashing lights
Have been thinking about what to do next autumn when my current car goes back. So with a germany car history over the last six cars and 15 years it will be germany again next time.. So the history goes something like this:
- 86 VW Golf MkII 16v GTi
- 90 VW Golf MkII 16v GTi
- 99 VW Golf MkIV 1.8T GTi
- 02 BMW 320Ci
- 05 BMW 330i M Sport Saloon
- 05 BMW 530d Sport Touring
Current car is fab, it has loads of space, drive pretty well, handles like a treat given its size, but not a patch on 330i in terms of out and out driving fun. Cos it is so practical it makes it difficult to think what to get next. The heart says something a bit different, but the brain is saying we need the space. Not sure this is exactly true and in reality we need the space half a dozen times a year.
Where to start was the next thing so have been thinking a lot about the different options and ideas to throw into the mix in terms of what I should really test. This is been an interesting exercise seesawing between sensible and not so sensible. As you will see from the list below there are some differences in the choices..
- BMW 5 Series M Sport Touring
- BMW 5 Series M Sport Saloon
- BMW 5 Series GT SE
- BMW X1 sDrive
- BMW 3 Series M Sport Saloon
- BMW 3 Series M Sport Touring
- Jaguar XF 3.0D
- Audi A5 Sportback
- Audi A6 S Line Saloon
- Audi A6 S Line Avant
- Audi A4 S Line Saloon
- Audi A4 S Line Avant
- Mercedes C-Class Sport Saloon
- Mercedes C-Class Sport Estate
- Mercedes E-Class Sport Saloon
- Mercedes E-Class Sport Coupe
It seems I have listed most of the german options with a Jag thrown in the middle So the heart is saying at the moment go for a E-Class Coupe, but concerned about the space in the back for the car seat. LCJ will be moving out of his car seat about 6months after my change date so may not be that bad if it fits.
May be I will just stick with what I have (or just get a newer one) but I do like to have a change now and then. The next steps is to start driving some of these over the next couple of months so I can get a better idea, but one thing that has also come up is the potential to pick up a super saloon/estate as an option that would potentially provide the best of both worlds, but will they be too expensive Options on this list are
- BMW M5 Saloon or Touring
- Mercedes C63 AMG Saloon or Touring
- Jaguar XFR (not sure I will ever get one in my price range for a good few years)
Once I have tested some of these cars I will include my thoughts in this blog. It will be interesting to see if they match the reviews comments.
What holiday you may ask well since the holidays I have been very busy at work lots of meetings and certainly a lot of activity on the stuff coming up so watch out for that. Spent bank holiday weekend in Leeds at Ruth and Stuart’s enjoying lots of lovely food and drink. As usual managed to keep my record of breaking something, this time it was a glass. So how you may ask, well simples pickup decanter containing red wine tip and pour into glass, smash.. oops forgot to take the stopper out before pouring the wine. heaven glass stopper vs thin wine glass equals a smashing time.
This weekend was the first free weekend for ages and it threw us a bit so saturday was a lazy day. Today we decided a trip to mercedes world at brooklands which was fab. The little boy loved running around the cars jumping in and out of cars from the range and also watching the cars on the track and the skid pan.
