2002 BMW 525i

To start, a bit of background. We are a car firendly family with an eclectic set of cars in our short driving history. In the past five years we've owned: 8? Chevy Cavalier, 96 Chevy Cavalier, 96 BMW 328is, 83 Porsche 911sc Cabriolet, 87 Ferrari 328gts (see review on epinions), 98 Ford Mustang, 98 Saturn SW2, and the car that was traded in on this 525i which was a 2001 Mercedes C-240 (see review on epinions)... and should have my 2003 Mini Cooper S delivered in September, 20002.

I'm going to share my peeves with this car first and get them out of the way - they aew so minor and so silly that you'll see that this car is really pretty decent based on how little I really have to complain about.

RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT
Obviously each car that is made is focused at a specific type of person to fit a specific need. So, no... I don't expect a cup holder in the Ferrari (who'd want one in that car?!?)... but in the lowest powered 4 door 5 series that BMW makes I'd expect usable front and rear cupholders. It's a family sedan - one for roadtrips with kids in the back, etc. but there are absolutely 0 in back (not even in the armrest?!? - why not reclaim some of the wasted space of the armrest BMW?!?) and the two up front are probably the worst I've encountered since the 96 Chevy Cavalier... I take that back, at least the cavalier's didn't have the cup holder in the way of the interior air controls.

The garage door holder is weak - I couldn't program my garage door until I pulled into the garage. Then it seems to sporadically broadcast well and then poor.... so one day I can open my garage door all the way down the street and the next I almost have to have the bumper touching the garage door!

When I sit in the back seat my knee freezes/overheats if I actually try to leave the rear facing vents in back open and let the air flow trough them.

The center console does not open and have any storage area of a usable size.

You have to go to the dealer to reprogram a number of things (daytime running lights, key dependant memory of seats, etc.)
END RANT - END RANT - END RANT - END RANT

O.K. - now that's out of my system I can talk about why I love this car.

The 2001 Mercedes C-240 had a bunch of silly elecronic problems over the course of ownership (all covered under warranty) and between this annoyance and the urge to upgrade to a larger car my wife and I drove over to the VMW dealer and test drove the lowest end 5 series they had on the lot with an automatic transmission.

This would be our first automatic transmission since the 8? Cavalier that my wife bought for $100 in college... even the Mercedes was a 6 speed manual! So, I wasn't looking forward to what I thought would be a slugish existance from the smallest engine in this model coupled with a slush box of a transmission. Well, I was pleasantly surprised with the transmission in sports mode. Decent acceleration, ability to manualy control which of the 5 gears I was in using tiptronic, and nothing like any of the other automatics I've ever driven (mostly rentals).

The first thing that actually struck me about the 5 was the fact that it doesn't handle like a big car, but it has SO much more interior room than any of the other cars I've ever owned. O.K., O.K. - so it's not likely to win an autocross... but it handles decently - you can park it easily, you can steer and know exactly where it's gonna go whether at a crawl or at highway speed.

We did end up with the heated seats/heated wheel/xenon headlight. These are good options - I like the seat heaters on my back! I like the added brightness of the xenons and I don't think I'm blinding oncoming drivers because they have a self leveling mechanism built in.

Overall I think it's a good family car that provides safety and some additional room that we were looking for - the car is solid and is in the final release before it recieves a redesign - so I think it's going to be reliable for the next 2 years or so that we own it.