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Read the WELCOME ALL BMWFANATICS post.
Llew's F90 M5
- Thread starter TurboLlew
- Start date
TBP88
Well-known member
agreed.
TurboLlew
Honorary ///Member
Not me I'm afriad LOL - Spec was a bit thin.
I think it was sold though. Not sure who got it.
TurboLlew
Honorary ///Member
OH I thought you meant the M3 Touring LOL - the E39 is just on an extended visit. It's Neven's
I am heavily encouraging the conversion though... E39s are special things, even with cars many generations newer and faster next to them.
TurboLlew
Honorary ///Member
Plan is done... I really do wish BMW would have offered Audi-like extensions but IIWII
As @Neven tells me, welcome back to the wild west LMFAO
It always amuses me that they list this as M-DCT even on insurance systems.
As for what's next? There is a high chance I will be adding an IX3 depending on when it launches and what it's like.
It feels like the end on one hand, but on the other it is probably only the beginning.
I will be doing the RK billet reservoir and CSF coolers within the year.
As @Neven tells me, welcome back to the wild west LMFAO
It always amuses me that they list this as M-DCT even on insurance systems.
As for what's next? There is a high chance I will be adding an IX3 depending on when it launches and what it's like.
It feels like the end on one hand, but on the other it is probably only the beginning.
I will be doing the RK billet reservoir and CSF coolers within the year.
TBP88
Well-known member
I'd test the chinese competitors before committing to an IX3 - the cost difference will be enourmous and depreciation thusfar on the e-luxury cars from established brands has been ruinous beyond belief (and honestly the quality difference, from an interior touch and feel perspective is minimal...)
Hopefully this is a keeper - might as well really, you've maintained it exceptionally, with the aftermarket fixes on known failure points this thing could easily do many many many more miles, and I can't imagine anyone on earth needing "more" from a day to day car than this.
TurboLlew
Honorary ///Member
I am going to adopt e-luxury as a derogatory term because whatever I've seen around R1M these days is not real luxury at all
. Not from anyone. Unfortunately this is now the domain of the faux-luxury tech laden commuter car.If I go Chinese it will likely be a BYD. I have driven the current IX3 too. I want to see what the new one looks and feels like in person. It appears there are different trims/finishes for the IX3 and i3 depending on market. The Chinese market i3 has a completely different exterior profile that also works a lot better. Historically we received the better finished versions of cars so if we get the china-targeted specs then it might be interesting. BMW is specifically doing this to fight the Chinese brands on their home turf. Probably a futile battle there, but let's see.
I also just wonder whether this will look much better in person considering that I hated the G90/99 in pics but I actually didn't mind the front or sides in person (rear of the G90 is still horrendous for me LOL).
The IX3 order books for the EU and US are sold out currently so that also suggests it is better than the internet will have us believe.
The F90 is certainly a keeper for me. I can't imagine (as I've said before) spending an additional R1.9M to "upgrade" to a slower, worse finished and worse looking car. It is very different to my F10 to F90 dilemma all those years ago. With the F90, I knew it was the right move the moment I drove it despite the "vacuum cleaner" exhaust note and the prevalence of boring, sparse specs. Once I found a high-spec example with the right exhaust and the (then) inexpensive HAS kit, I was sold. With the G9x I really really wanted to find a reason to like it since it launched (I've driven half a dozen now) but I have yet to find it... Neither the logic nor the spark is there for me... and no, "being in plan" is not a reason to spend R1.9M LMFAO.
Like I said, if you don't have an F90 there is no real reason not to like or want a G9x, but if you already have one, why would you ever? With the current gen, when G99 prices drop below a certain point, it could be a future addition.
TBP88
Well-known member
Yeah, I'd have a very hard time justifying the costs involved at this level to upgrade. You just get to the point where a *VERY* marginal gain is gonna cost you multiple millions.I am going to adopt e-luxury as a derogatory term because whatever I've seen around R1M these days is not real luxury at all
If I go Chinese it will likely be a BYD. I have driven the current IX3 too. I want to see what the new one looks and feels like in person. It appears there are different trims/finishes for the IX3 and i3 depending on market. The Chinese market i3 has a completely different exterior profile that also works a lot better. Historically we received the better finished versions of cars so if we get the china-targeted specs then it might be interesting. BMW is specifically doing this to fight the Chinese brands on their home turf. Probably a futile battle there, but let's see.
I also just wonder whether this will look much better in person considering that I hated the G90/99 in pics but I actually didn't mind the front or sides in person (rear of the G90 is still horrendous for me LOL).
The IX3 order books for the EU and US are sold out currently so that also suggests it is better than the internet will have us believe.
The F90 is certainly a keeper for me. I can't imagine (as I've said before) spending an additional R1.9M to "upgrade" to a slower, worse finished and worse looking car. It is very different to my F10 to F90 dilemma all those years ago. With the F90, I knew it was the right move the moment I drove it despite the "vacuum cleaner" exhaust note and the prevalence of boring, sparse specs. Once I found a high-spec example with the right exhaust and the (then) inexpensive HAS kit, I was sold. With the G9x I really really wanted to find a reason to like it since it launched (I've driven half a dozen now) but I have yet to find it... Neither the logic nor the spark is there for me... and no, "being in plan" is not a reason to spend R1.9M LMFAO.
Like I said, if you don't have an F90 there is no real reason not to like or want a G9x, but if you already have one, why would you ever? With the current gen, when G99 prices drop below a certain point, it could be a future addition.
Even at a few levels down from this it already gets really hard to justify, and we're now in a world where E92M3s are R1m+ cars...
Nastaliq
Well-known member
This exactly,I am going to adopt e-luxury as a derogatory term because whatever I've seen around R1M these days is not real luxury at all
If I go Chinese it will likely be a BYD. I have driven the current IX3 too. I want to see what the new one looks and feels like in person. It appears there are different trims/finishes for the IX3 and i3 depending on market. The Chinese market i3 has a completely different exterior profile that also works a lot better. Historically we received the better finished versions of cars so if we get the china-targeted specs then it might be interesting. BMW is specifically doing this to fight the Chinese brands on their home turf. Probably a futile battle there, but let's see.
I also just wonder whether this will look much better in person considering that I hated the G90/99 in pics but I actually didn't mind the front or sides in person (rear of the G90 is still horrendous for me LOL).
The IX3 order books for the EU and US are sold out currently so that also suggests it is better than the internet will have us believe.
The F90 is certainly a keeper for me. I can't imagine (as I've said before) spending an additional R1.9M to "upgrade" to a slower, worse finished and worse looking car. It is very different to my F10 to F90 dilemma all those years ago. With the F90, I knew it was the right move the moment I drove it despite the "vacuum cleaner" exhaust note and the prevalence of boring, sparse specs. Once I found a high-spec example with the right exhaust and the (then) inexpensive HAS kit, I was sold. With the G9x I really really wanted to find a reason to like it since it launched (I've driven half a dozen now) but I have yet to find it... Neither the logic nor the spark is there for me... and no, "being in plan" is not a reason to spend R1.9M LMFAO.
Like I said, if you don't have an F90 there is no real reason not to like or want a G9x, but if you already have one, why would you ever? With the current gen, when G99 prices drop below a certain point, it could be a future addition.
I really wanted to like the new 5 series after having owned the previous two versions, but couldnt get around the Lego style wheels, Killing the Hoffmeister kink with the dumb chrome surround, the horrible interior LCD dash, the crappy fake leather, the lack of rear seat pockets.
Tell me whatever you like, but I am not convinced vegan leather is better for the environment or for the experience.
For the spec i wanted it would be 1.4Bar and thats not even everything i wanted, because adding options now requires a spreadsheet of once you add this, you remove that, and once you remove that, you remove this, which adds (these things you dont want back).
FFS man.
And all this, for as you say, a worse looking, worse built, less "Driver" car.
All this also meant i would be stuck in the 20d, Ive had 3 before and wanted more power, but was told "maybe" the 30d would come with the facelift.
The plastic inside the car is cheap flimsy plastic, and the seats are not comfortable at all.
An E90, or even E46 has better seats than this "premium" luxury sedan.
I think youre making an informed decision which considers all the characteristics of what makes a car a car.
BMW is at a nexus-pschizo point where it tries to make performance cars that SOUND like performance cars, but look like a prius trying to satisfy the yuppies and enough fake performance enthusiasts (think M-badges everywhere and you know what I am talking about). A real performance car doesnt need performance badges everywhere, it just performs and doesnt care if you think it can or not. it just does.
BMW then also is now manufacturing a full on ///M Variant of everything. Lets see:
1M
M2
M3
M4
M5
M8
X3M
X4M
X5M
X6M
Meanwhile all have fake exhaust notes through the sound system, an exhaust from a GTI that cracks and burbles at all the wrong times, only comes in weird variant gearboxes and then costs all your nuts, your friends nuts and still youre short of nuts.
This isnt unique to BMW, theres cost cutting across the board and price gouging. Enter the Chinese brands and thats a whole other conversation.
It will appear to most like we are old guys who need to move with the times, but at this point I would go back and buy an F10 before buying the new 5 series.
The F30 build quality is far superior to the G20 and the current 1 series looks like a poormans temu transformer. I have bank cards that have stronger plastic.
The car brands that will win are the ones able to beat (at least on paper) emission requirements (because we are all going that way), with a healthy balance of quality versus price for the general masses. For the proper enthusiasts, many of us will be forced to hold what we have, eventually holding for someone to make something thats not a POS and has a real engine and we probably will sacrifice many tech things for performance and lightweight.
I dont know how light these cars can get theoretically, but copper wire for EVERYTHING gets heavy and cars already have kilometres of wire inside them. maybe they will go wireless for everything so save cost and weight. So when your phone rings it interferes with your speedo
.Things are changing alot with cars and the dynamics of who wants to own a car and cars being made to satisfy specific geographies and then exported elsewhere.
All in all, i think things will get shittier before they improve and its going to be a rough time if you dont want to be able to select what your exhaust sounds like through an app with a subscription.
When I saw this and saw the whats next part, I was wondering what the upgrade would be. The F90 M5 (and yours in particular given how you have maintained it) is the pinnacle of BMW performance with a drivers car that ticks pretty much every box. An “upgrade” would land about 2bars plus giving your car which you have cared for and cherished and even then im not sure if you going to happy or sad considering what you have given up and the marginal benefit you get from the massive outlay.
The quality in some the new cars (even high end brands) are just a joke and the feel of the new cars and pricing point for an “upgrade” is just going to have ppl and definitely enthusiasts holding on to their pride and joys for a lot longer and then just buy something else newer , cheaper , maybe EV as a runaround.
@TurboLlew - great decision to keep, If u find that additional 2bar in your couch or something and ever upgrade let me know, I will be keen on taking the “old” F90 off your hands 😬
TurboLlew
Honorary ///Member
This drives me nuts - Try the Porsche configurator even for just a Cayenne. Every other click adds R50K in associated options. Then you click another box and its incompatible with the other option you chose. There is a reason for this though. That level of customisation is not for you the peasant only spending R3 bar. This is where the extreme upsells come in. "oh yes sir - I see you're a man of discerning taste, so you need this even more special thing"
It's the same trick that has worked so well for people who want diluted versions of hardcore cars or a 'badge' that tells them what a 'special boy' they are, certainly for M/AMG-Line that can be had on even the lowest of the range, but also sadly things like Competition which now stands for so little that they've had to drop it. The aesthetic of performance in a trim level for a shitbox.
You then have Porsche Exklusiv Manufaktur and BMW Individual 'collection' etc that have all been diluted, just like the GT and Competiton and S/R badges have been. It is all about capturing the wallet of those that are after exclusivity and the target market of both is pretty much the same as Corvette owners in the US that will tell you some convoluted story about how theirs is the only special one. BMW owners do the same thing nowadays: Mine is 1 of 1 because... or "rare in this spec"... or 'special edition'... Mara it's a mass produced car. It is just a 'pre approved' list of high-end paints and leathers that they decided can be scaled and costed down (on their side LOL not yours) to give you the feeling that it is not off-the-shelf on a normal assembly line. You can now choose "individual" or "PEM" options for paint or leather just in the ordinary configurator which makes the average person believe they're getting an 'individual' for BMW or "PEM" for Porsche, but it’s still built from the same LEGO set as every other car on the road.
What they want you to do ultimately is actually go the 'real' bespoke route where they will actually build you anything as a one-off. This is where paying R650K+ for a Sonderwunch colour or astronomical amounts for 'real' Individual Manufaktur where nothing is on a regular configurator but you go to the extent of custom embroidery, and choosing what illuminated logos you want on your side sills comes in. You are really paying for the 'off-line' slot and basically hand-finishing of the materials in these cars. You must go into the dealership and then they have another configurator with different colours, you can choose any leather, any combo, any set of equipment etc, but you pay for that slot ultimately. Youtubers say its "a $100K option" but really that's what they paid to have a car that didn't go through the production line and had a team of people listening to the customer's actual wants/needs. I've done played with this for the G90 before. This is the realm of spending 'the base price over' in paint, leather, alcantara and electronics, to say it's all factory and see it on the build sheet/build plaque depending on car.
The industry is blaming China and EVs because it’s easier than admitting they’ve alienated their core demographic who are the people who actually know what a well-engineered car feels like.
The problem of increasing prices with inflation while ridiculously dropping the quality of materials has reached the tipping point. That flimsy plastic was impossible to ignore on last gen's merc's and now BMW has caught up for all the wrong reasons. For the person who has owned an E39/E60/F10, the drop in material complexity and 'density' is impossible to ignore. When you’re paying R3 million for a "luxury" product and the door card flexes or creaks when you pull it, you're under no illusions that you're being taken for a P*** rather than being given prestige.
Redditors and Facebookers and kids on Instagram don't buy cars so all the glazing they received from non-buyers has now caught up to basically all of them. You will very quickly realise they know absolutely nothing (or are bots/paid by manufacturers to regurgitate press release talking points). Then you realise 'research' for most people is consuming this junk and even your new friends Claude, CoPilot, Chat and Gemini are trained on this same shit.
Almost nobody who should be in the market for this sort of thing is actually buying them. The people who are buying them are worrying about whether choosing something other than white/silver/grey/black and a black interior is going to lose them money on their 'investment' because they know nothing about cars. Someone saw that line-go-up for this 'market', there was a lot of chatter on the socials and they have jumped into it. Guys are out there buying 911s thinking they are going to choose this magical spec that will make it appreciate like a 250 GTO.
Look at the sheer volume of math lit failures on here that will happily parrot investment terms they heard somewhere (rules of whatever, ratios, lease terms and tax efficiencies) that very obviously do not apply, but monkey-see, monkey-do.
As my son says 'cooked'
TurboLlew
Honorary ///Member
We might be the 'old guys' but if a 40 year old is not the target market for a 5 series/M5 then who exactly is? We are also going out of our way to try to like the new ones I feel having owned the prior gens for extended periods. The focus is on creating this veneer of 'tech' that kids get excited about. Nobody knows what real quality is anymore because the chances are low that they've felt it the way we have 20 years ago.
These days less is more and it's also more for less... The thickness and quality of carpet, the grade of leather, the attention to detail on stitching. Vegan leather and 'recycled' plastic are just greenwashing dog whistles. Vegan leather is such a triggering term for me because it is one of those things that is 100% marketing and 100% made to make you feel like the objectively MUCH worse thing is actually good. The idea that we are replacing a natural, biodegradable byproduct of the meat industry (That can actually last hundreds of years if cared for) with a petroleum-based plastic and calling it "sustainable" is a child only a marketing department could love. There are certain things you never want to biodegrade (in the case of plastics this is horrendous as they become microplastics and accumulate everywhere with negative consequences).
Carpet especially - the F90/G30 interior carpets were like the boot lining on the F10. It's all these dozens of little drops in material quality that were 'acceptable' in prior gens but now its impossible to ignore, on one hand because its so egregious, but on the other hand the asking price has gone up so much that the scrutiny has followed.
I am also fine with my 500K shitbox commuter car being made with recycled materials. What is the point of a luxury car having this? When you buy a luxury watch, you want proper metal and sapphire crystal, not recycled aluminum and "eco-plastic." to save the planet. Back to cars, if all goes according to plan some of these things are supposed to be generational additions. Who wants them to biodegrade? Green washing again... and forced obsolescence so that old/wrecked cars can't be used as sources of parts in future and you have to fork out for the newer/worse thing.
Again, EVERYTHING in this world is geared to take options away from you - especially the 'do nothing' option.
I dont know how light these cars can get theoretically, but copper wire for EVERYTHING gets heavy and cars already have kilometres of wire inside them. maybe they will go wireless for everything so save cost and weight. So when your phone rings it interferes with your speedo
As it is, it should be extremely simple to just run Auto Ethernet, MOST and canbus everywhere. For many cars this is already the case. I do feel like they are desperately trying to engineer the weight out of these things, but it really is the emissions complexity and on the EV side battery technology that will mean this is a losing battle. BTW there are already so many stories you read, when researching EVs about the car bricking itself during updates, having issues handshaking with chargers etc. It highlights how poorly though out these systems are - there are no 'centralised' failsafe ways of getting going. In some instances the dealerships also have no idea how to get things going again when a simple infotainment update bricks an entire car.
Its a chinese tyre situation. You have a whole host of people who 'never had an issue' so when someone does, they get brigaded out of existence. Same applies to the 'tech' in any car that also resets itself randomly, has GPU failures, RAM failures, telemetry failures etc. Who is exactly using this 'tech' other than to make videos on the internet I don't know. There is nothing that Carplay or Android auto doesn't do and the ADAS/safety features people like to go on about are all standard or inexpensive options due to various laws and regs in different parts of the world. Guess what? Buttons are making a comeback for safety/legal reasons as well. It isn't that 'cheap car has same feature as expensive car' - they all need to have these things in some instances.
I only have the Z4 and some of the upcoming EVs that are actually interesting in the BMW stable.
I am not even against the electric M3 - I may even buy one if its nice. My problem is that it DOES have to be nice, but manufacturers seem to be wilfully removing the 'fun' and 'nice' bit and then when it doesn't work you're an old person who doesn't like tech or EVs. When you sit in a car and everything from the weight of the indicator stalk to the thickness of the leather to the material of the shifter feels like it was over-engineered, you feel respected as a customer and also like you know where the money you worked hard for has gone. If BMW can deliver a Neue Klasse interior that actually feels premium they might win people back.
TurboLlew
Honorary ///Member
I am not sure about 'upgrade' directly, but I still believe I am too young for the next sedan that I like, which is a Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed. I never thought I would say this until I went and saw/drove one. The F90/F10/E60 were not competing with cars like this and had a VERY clear performance edge that these did not. The G90 unfortunately is more like these dynamically (actually worse). If you're going to drive something like that you may as well get one that does it properly, no?
I could easily do a CGT as well.
You can see and feel and smell all the cows and trees that gave up their lives for its existence when you sit inside. You can feel the craftsmanship that went into bookmatching the veneers on some of them or the design and heft of the metal/switches. If the G90 is the moonswatch, this is the actual speedmaster
The interior is also not one big screen, but is still tech laden. Those three dials in the centre rotate to a flat panel as well as a screen. It isn't perfect, as it still carries some modern design faux pas but it absolutely feels like luxury. It isn't this low effort trash of a screen glued to the dashboard that is also so poorly designed you need a VISIBLE BRACKET to keep it stable. WTF BMW.
But I digress. I will definitely keep you posted if I ever sell but it is looking less and less likely nowadays with the state of affairs in the new market.
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