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…
In case you have been under a stone for the last four days or engrossed in the UK election drama (not) there has been a slight issue with a volcano in Iceland. This has caused the off airport and airspace to be closed completely for flights.
Having headed out very early on Wednesday morning leaving home at 4.30am for Gatwick and the joys of Easyjet. All went well and we arrived completely knackered at 9.15am local time at Praha Airport.
We realised that there was an issue when I saw a reference on twitter that UK airspace had been completely closed for the first time since 9/11. Having seen the odd false alarm etc we didn’t worry about it until it became clear on Friday morning that we might not be able to get a flight home on Saturday as scheduled. The adventure began that Friday morning while out and about in Praha we were check websites contacting family and looking at options.
It became clear the only option would be to get the train north and get a lift back to the UK via Eurotunnel.
After completing our research we decided it was time to book our travel and prepare for the trip. We went back to the hotel after lunch and got hunting for those train tickets. Unfortunately we couldn’t book the train tickets online which was a shame, but had identified a sleeper service from Praha to Koln and onto Brussels. We spoke to the hotel who recommended a trip to the central station to buy our tickets. The station was packed and the ticket office was worse, so we joined a queue and waited in line. After about 5minutes we spotted a sign being moved around stating another ticket counter was opening. CJ rushed off to check and a minute later mine phone rang instructing me to get to her quick as there were only two people in front of her in the queue.
The ticket office checked around and it became clear that no services out of Praha that day were available, but she checked for Saturday and there was a Praha – Nurnberg – Frankfurt – Brussels route available. So we booked it immediately without firstly worrying about what was 8000 Czech Koruna and was leaving at 5.04am.
We arranged with CJ’s Dad to get Eurotunnel tickets on the Saturday to do a same day return that had increased from the morning price of £29 each way to over £100 each way.
Saturday
Saturday morning started early we us getting up at 4am (3am BST) to grab our taxi to the station at 4.30am. This was on time and a reasonable 250 CK (about £9) given the unearthly time.
We arrived at what seemed a very empty station and went to find the departure boards so we knew which platform the train was going to depart from. Our train the R350 Karel ?apek left about 2mins late but hey ho. The train was pretty full with most seats taken in our carriage. The chatter was amazing a real international service on this little four carriage train heading to Germany and Nurmberg. We have a Belgium family, a number of Czechs, three English, some italians, an american, a chinese man just sitting around us. But not a sound of german to be heard.
Our train stopped at the following
- Praha hl.n. Metro
- Praha-Smíchov
- Beroun
- Ho?ovice
- Rokycany
- Plze? hl.n.
- Domažlice
- Furth i Wald
- Cham(Oberpf)
- Schwandorf
- Amberg
- Nürnberg Hbf
Total Distance 355km in approximately 5 hours.
The journey was smooth and the sunrise was excellent over the Czech countryside which was proceeded by a beautiful mist. Unfortunately I was very tired and the windows very dirty so didn’t get any pictures. We had some food on the train from the trolley service and I was almost covered in hot water when the urn fell off the trolley.
My phone welcomed me to Germany at 8.11am around the time we stopped at Furth i Wald. We arrived at Nurnberg at 10am and spotted a train on the opposite platform going to Frankfurt. We checked with the guard and yes it was good for Frankfurt and got us there an hour early than scheduled so reducing the risk of missing the connection. Now Deutsche Bahn know how to comfortable travel with the second class seating on an ICE travel really good. CJ had a bit of a run in with a german man who thought that his ticket gave him rights to the whole table and all the legroom under that table. Fortunately for us a nice woman offered CJ her seat and then tore a strip off the man.
We got delayed outside Aschaffenburg for 15mins. The train stopped at Würzburg Hbf, Aschaffenburg Hbf and then Frankfurt(Main)Hbf. The driver told everyone onboard that the train would terminate at Frankfurt airport instead of going onto Koln. We had covered about another 15okms. We should have known that things would change on route.
At Frankfurt we got some Euros and grabbed a traditional snack, OK we had hot dogs 
before heading to the platform to wait for our train to arrive.
I took the chance to take some photos as a record of the journey and I like this one as we have been traveling since 4.25am by Taxi and two trains so far 8hours into the journey.
Took this of the ICE service to Paris that was departing from the same platform as our Brussels train would be. The train we would be getting would be splitting at Koln with half going to Amsterdam and half to Brussels, so we double checked we had the right half. We managed to find unreserved seats with a table so we could make ourselves comfortable.
The train was due to leave at 13.29 but it was held for some connections to make Frankfurt thus allowing other travellers to get to Brussels. We could see streams of people get on and before long it was packed with plenty of people standing.
The train was stopping at the following stations:
- Frankfurt(Main)Hbf
- Frankfurt(M) Flughafen Fernbf
- Köln Hbf
- Aachen Hbf
- Liège-Guillemins
- Bruxelles-Nord
- Bruxelles-Midi
It was clear very early into the journey thanks to our fellow travellers that we were taking the scenic route to Koln along the Rhine. We had some interesting characters on the train who helped the extended journey pass by a little quicker. So instead of 65mins to get to Koln it took 120mins. The train finally arrived in Brussels at 6.20pm after 4hrs 30mins and about 300kms. We rang CJ’s Dad and he met us by Sam’s Cafe where we grab some supplies and headed out to drive to Calais to catch our EuroTunnel this time 200kms in a car.
Got the nine o’clock train and arrived in UK about 8.40pm and hit the motorway only to get stopped by the police. After a short delay we were back on the way to Gatwick to pick up the car. The airport was very quiet and strange but made getting the car and heading off to CJ’s parents. We eventually arrived there at about 10.45pm and the end of an epic journey of 19hrs 18mins, one taxi, two cars, four trains, five countries and 1054kms (655 miles)….
Future travelling tips:
- Carry some Euros
- Carry Driving License
- Don’t go on short breaks
- Be prepared
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..
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
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
