16 years in BMW 520d's .... need to jump (or being pushed!) to 530e

GPoint

Should not mix one’s progression through career over the years with average market salary for the same position. People in their 40s are not making 3x more money now than people in their 50s were making 10 years ago.

Glad for people whose salaries tripled though!

_H80_GHT

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769484#Comment_121769484

They were joking.

RainInSummer

That was a joke along the lines of the immortal Hudson's 'it's a dry heat' line.

A large part of society has seen feck all increase, and what they have seen has been eroded by inflation. And yes I know that same inflation is also responsible for some of the price increases on luxury goods too. And some of it is blatant profiteering.

anthonymacd

Hi All,

As promised in previous posts, a quick update on my experiences of the 2024 530e vs my 2022 520d. I just turned 8,100Km today after returning from a week long trip from Cork → London. I usually do the trip 3 times per year and the old 520d used to 58MPG for such a trip. Usually a mix of motorway driving, a good bit of driving around London. The new car did 2,207 km in 7 days and achieved 44.1MPG. Interestingly 397km of this was on battery (and I assume coasting also). Considering I did not charge the battery since leaving home, the car managed to generate 297km of power somehow.

I was very impressed with how the sat-nav and the car work in harmony. On approach to London (say 50 miles out) the car had zero charge. However, by the time we entered the City traffic, the car had generated 12 miles (not Km) of power which was sufficient to get us to our destination in Canary Wharf.

I continue to be very pleased with the G60 530e in terms of driving, tech and comfort. Its definitely a step up on the old car. For journeys up to 300km, the 530e is more fuel efficient than the 520d. My 530e is averaging 51.4MPG since the factory, as opposed to 60.4 in the former 520d.

In terms of items to dislike, my list in order are:

1. Steering wheel buttons are now a touch sensitive panel. Very very unpredictable to use. Not happy with this, particularly the toggle between Cruise Control and the Speed Limiter.
2. Battery makes the car heavy. Not an issue for motorways, but the car feels overweight when driving on rough country roads. The 520d felt a lot lighter.

Overall I am pleased with the 530e and happy to have bought it. That said, if the 520d became available in Ireland again I'd probably jump back.

As I said in previous posts, I found it hard to get real world info on the 520d vs 530e for high mileage drivers. Hope my layman reviews helps any people considering the switch.

CivilEx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121982076#Comment_121982076

Thanks for the update, it's good to see real world figures and how cars like the 530e are driven in practice.

I have to admit that I'm scratching my head trying to understand the rationale of the traction battery in this car. The way the longer trip is described, the car wasn't plugged in at all for over 2,000km, which means that it was only charged through regenerative braking. The sole purpose of the traction battery in this use case seems to be to try and improve the overall efficiency of the petrol engine?

Surely it doesn't make sense to be carrying around a heavy battery like this and a car with a traditional petrol engine would get better fuel efficiency. In essence, if the battery is never plugged in to charge it, then what's the point of "lugging it around". I expect that a modern BMW with only a petrol engine would do better than 44mpg?

I don't want to sound like I'm having a go here, I'm not. I'm genuinely trying to understand why a traditional petrol engine car isn't a better option than a plug in hybrid in a real world scenario if the hybrid is never plugged in.

prawnsambo

Pretty much demonstrates that there is only a narrow use case for PHEVs. Somebody who does the odd long trip but otherwise just tootles around the city or suburbs on short trips would be the perfect use case. Somebody who does a lot of high mileage trips would seem to better suited to a petrol or diesel car.

anthonymacd

Hi @CivilEx @prawnsambo - I 100% agree with your assessment! Putting it bluntly, I literally "carried" a half tonne battery from Limerick → London and then back to Cork! Diesel is the only option for someone like me at the moment, but brand loyalty (or stupidity!) kept me in a 5-Series. I did look at the 520i, but felt it was best to hedge my risk by buying the 530e given the inevitable switch to cars with a battery.

In terms of MPG on Petrol alone … I achieved 46.5 MPG on the journey between Oxford and Holyhead. Nice motorway driving on a dry day. Dublin → Cork was in terrible weather (wind / rain) and the MPG came in at 41.5 MPG.

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121982833#Comment_121982833

Yeah. At the moment the longest range available on a BEV is ~650-700km. That includes cars like the Tesla Model 3 and S, Fisker Ocean, Polestar 2 and Merc EQS. Probably another year or two before we get ~1000km range.

CivilEx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121982833#Comment_121982833

I've mentioned it on this thread before, but like yourself, I moved from being a serial 520D buyer to crossing bands into an Ioniq 6 in January this year. Also like yourself, I have done over 9,000km in the first 3 months of ownership, including a trip to Manchester recently.

I don't agree that diesel is the only option for high milage users, but there is a lot of planning ahead with a BEV on longer trips and that definitely isn't for everyone. I enjoy it though!

joe1303l

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121982962#Comment_121982962

The other great benefit with the old 520d was the residuals, a great car to hold their value even with high mileage. An Ioniq 6 may not do so well even allowing for fuel savings. At least you’re not worrying about timing chains, turbos, clutches/flywheels etc.

anthonymacd

@CivilEx - Glad to see you getting on well with the new Ioniq. Remember your comments from last year on the 520d. Agree there are multiple ways to approach high mileage .. its a matter of how organised you would like to be!

CivilEx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121983837#Comment_121983837

I always treated my 520d's over the years as workhorses, fantastic cars, really comfortable doing big milage and 100% reliable. The only downside for me was that it was always hard to get in and out of a BMW dealer without spending €500+ on something, even if the service interval was only every 25,000km. I'm not missing that side of it too much!

The only one that I could say though that I had a higher than average residual value though was the last one I had which I traded against the Ioniq 6. I'll admit that I got lucky last October when I did my deal, catching the tail end of the high residuals and where my car had lower than average milage because of the pandemic.

If you are someone doing "average" milage then yes, I'd agree, the 520d's held their value. If like me though you put up to 90,000km on a car over a 3 year ownership cycle, dealers weren't always biting your hand off to take it as a trade in and that was reflected in the price.

I have literally no idea what the Ioniq 6 will be worth in 2.5 years time when I trade up again, but I'm managing my expectations in that space. By then, I will have built up about a €6,000 difference in fuel & maintenance between the 520d and the I6 to give me a small cushion. At the moment the depreciation on BEV's is certainly very high, but I'll ride it out as I expect it will settle down as that market matures over that timeframe.

Buddy Bubs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121990690#Comment_121990690

I'd expect it to settle at some stage this year. The values I'm familiar with from reading here are the VW ID cars, their depreciation from 2022 and 2023 prices are very steep, but they were overpriced then. The value of a 2 year old one against prices of a new one today are reasonable.

Idbatterim

My mate went from a e60 530d to an f10 530e and way prefered the 6 cylinder diesel

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121990808#Comment_121990808

G30?

CivilEx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121990834#Comment_121990834

It was G30 in the 520d in recent years anyway. F10 was one of the earlier versions of 520d I had. I'm trying to remember if it was the the F10 that I had the problems with the timing chain, literally one month outside the 3 year warranty. I'm not missing that stress...

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121991220#Comment_121991220

I was questioning the other posters F10 530e. I don’t believe there was one. G30 was the first one.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121991336#Comment_121991336

correct, there was no F10 530e. The only hybrid in the F10 was the "active hybrid" 535i

Idbatterim

Sorry, its a 2018 g30