Where would you go next...

530e is the correct choice no doubt.
The 545e is what you might buy when 2/3 years when the price differential has narrowed to only a few grand between them.
Have you driven a plug in hybrid before?
Best of luck with it.

yeah you'll be 600

With the new year and all that, and reading a few pages of this tread, I started looking around yesterday at a 330e M Sport. I found a good example in Wexford, 211 in Portimao blue. The cost to change was €21,500 on my 530i 181 with 15K miles ( there are a few pic of that car on the old GTI tread)...

Bit of a shock really, I knew that I was going to be hit hard on the depreciation front, but €27K for my car is difficult to take...

Unless you really need the hybrid why on earth would you change?
Your car is a far nicer car in every way to the 330e.

I got the 5 in Beshoffs motors back on Paddys day 2019, UK import with 3K miles, lovely car... The car was 50K, but I had a 3 year Mk7 Gti as a trade in which knocked off a lot of that €50K.

The main reason I'm a bit "pissed" is that I was offered a better trade in from Joe Duffy Finglas, week before Xmas on a 211 330e, and didn't go for it...

MisterDrak wrote: »

Cheers, It is a lovely car, but I find it a bit "big" for my needs, kids all grown up etc or maybe coming from 15 years of Gti ownership.

The longer i hold the 530, the more the value erodes...

I know what you mean, went from a 5 series to a Golf a few years back for the same reason. Would you not try to sell it privately? Even if you got 30,000 for it you would be far better off.

looking at that new 545e on the BMW Ireland site (despite some regulars here claiming it wouldnt be sold here) it's a pretty good deal. 75k for a mid spec msport model is not bad at all.

ELM327 wrote: »

looking at that new 545e on the BMW Ireland site (despite some regulars here claiming it wouldnt be sold here) it's a pretty good deal. 75k for a mid spec msport model is not bad at all.

Prices, as advertised, inclusive of grants

520i msport 58k as advertised, cheapest of the bunch.
520d msport 60k (+2k)
530e 63k (+3k)
545e 76k (+13k)
530d 79k (+3k)

I'd argue the 545e isnt good value at all, along with the 530d

520i, cant see why you'd bother. 530d, same.

520d and 530e are the relative good value ones here. I cant see why you'd pay 13k more for a 545e over a 530e when the purpose of the things is to be efficient. 400bhp v 300bhp notwithstanding, if it was my money, or indeed most others here, we wouldnt be looking anywhere near the 545e. It will sell in relatively small numbers, some people will have the cash and/or desire to finance that much, and its more or less the flagship model (outside m5) now so it has to be expensive, but I don't see any value in it at all.

I've heard that about the 740e. My cousin brought one down from the North at the start of the year, he didn't keep it 3 months and traded it in for a Range Rover Vogue P400e.

With nearly 400bhp but a lot more weight I know. He definitely prefers the RR anyway.

I'll caveat that by saying he also has a Panamera so it's more a daily driver cruiser he was looking for in the 740e, finds the RR fits that bill better and is quite economical too.

mickdw wrote: »

Lovely car. limited market now with 530e but I guess someone who might want to hold it long term and do small mileage might consider it a better prospect than a 530e.

Really nice car but yeah the problem price wise is that 2018 530e's are so cheap to import now and due to lower running costs are probably worth more here too so that has reduced the value of your 530i

If it was mine I would keep it - can't see it worth less than 20k in 2 years time, where as a new 330e could easily lose a lot more than 15k in the same period

Augeo wrote: »

Is that still the case though...

Yes - loads of VAT qualifying 2/3 year old BMW's in the U.K. and the VRT changes seem to favour the PHEV's

Buddy Bubs wrote: »

Prices, as advertised, inclusive of grants

520i msport 58k as advertised, cheapest of the bunch.
520d msport 60k (+2k)
530e 63k (+3k)
545e 76k (+13k)
530d 79k (+3k)

I'd argue the 545e isnt good value at all, along with the 530d

520i, cant see why you'd bother. 530d, same.

520d and 530e are the relative good value ones here. I cant see why you'd pay 13k more for a 545e over a 530e when the purpose of the things is to be efficient. 400bhp v 300bhp notwithstanding, if it was my money, or indeed most others here, we wouldnt be looking anywhere near the 545e. It will sell in relatively small numbers, some people will have the cash and/or desire to finance that much, and its more or less the flagship model (outside m5) now so it has to be expensive, but I don't see any value in it at all.

I think your prices for the plug-ins are excluding the grant. BMW's website states that you can save up to €7,500 with SEAI grants, presumably if they were including those, they would have said that the price includes them. So that would have the 530e as the cheapest and the 545e under €70k, or only about €8k more than the previous favourite 5 series, the 520d - and so much more performance, refinement (and possibly better mpg if you're careful with how you use it) in return, along with the 530e as the cheapest model.

Certainly in Germany an M Sport 520i is about €8,000 cheaper than a 530e M Sport but there's no VRT or anything like that over there, a 530e gets 7% VRT here whereas under the WLTP a 520i M Sport is rated as at least 145 g/km so that's 19.5% VRT. There's no way they could charge €5k more for a 530e when there is a 12.5% VRT differential and a €7,500 grant available.

That said, maybe those figures are the actual price you pay, because the SEAI's website appears to state that now the grants are only available for EVs and it's on a sliding scale up to €40,000 (one that's supposed to have a list price of €16,000 is just eligible for a grant of €2,000) and then of course the grants are progressively axed up to €50,000 after which no such grant is available. Not really sure why BMW mentions it at all in this case.

If those are the final numbers then a 530e is €3k more than a 520d and €5k more than a 520i, it's not quite such an attractive proposition then - I think the vast majority of 5 series buyers would be best served by a conventional petrol or diesel (unless you really want the extra power of the 530e or of course do a lot of urban or short distance driving, they're ideal for that and will do it much better than a conventional petrol or diesel 5 series), when there is a much larger fuel tank and boot, and far less weight so more dynamic handling. The conventional cars have the added benefit of M Sport suspension just to further add to the handling advantage (the plug-ins have to make do with SE suspension even if you get an M Sport - although of course the adaptive suspension option gives the same suspension for all models regardless of trim level or drivetrain). I still think a 545e is the best option for a fast 5 series, though - but it's a real shame we can't get the 540i (ideally with rear wheel drive) or a 530d with rear wheel drive because I've no doubt with their superior weight, fuel tank and boot space, they are the best models.

carsfan2 wrote: »

Ranger rover p400e is a 2.0 petrol plug in hybrid too as far as I know.

Yup, it is, although they're replacing the D240 four cylinder diesel with a D250 3.0 straight six diesel in some models, such as the new Defender.

Criminal to put such a small engine in a full fat Range Rover no matter how many kilometres it can run on electricity, especially when under the WLTP tests plug-ins get ridiculously low CO2 ratings.