2004 BMW 5 Series SE review from UK and Ireland

Nothing so far...

Diesels have came of age, the performance for a diesel is awesome, especially at overtaking speeds.

If the road is wet at all you have to learn to feed the power on, flooring the pedal at 50mph on a wet road to overtake simply results in wheelspin, traction control cuts in and power is cut back (and no I don't fancy driving with traction control off !! :D ).

The torque from this engine is fantastic, making it an easy car to drive. I have had the traction light even come on in 4th gear !!!!!!!. Fast and comfortable, this car gets you where you want very quickly indeed; it really is a mile munching machine.

However the servicing costs are very high, a simple oil and filter change (air, fuel and oil) cost a staggering £388 at a main dealer, although this is supposed to last 15K.

Another disappointment is the runflat tyres, they cause a lot of tramlining and do somewhat spoil the refinement of the car, also this means that there is no spare wheel, and unbelievably the wheel well only accommodates a shallow space saving wheel (optional extra).

Another annoyance is the lack of a temperature gauge; I really don't know why a vital gauge like this was omitted, an increase in temperature can alert you to possible problems early on, failing water pump etc etc rather than waiting for something to fail and a light to come on and presumably engine shutdown.

My final and biggest gripe is the CD player won't play MP3's (although this is fixed on 2005+ models apparently). BMW wanted over £1000 to replace the CD player with a newer one, which is appalling when you can buy a mp3 player from Halfords for £60.

Finally I was charged £30 for a spare key to be cut....would be bearable but for the fact it is made of PLASTIC !!!! I tried it out and it felt like it was about to snap off in both the door and ignition lock (shudder at thought of that dealer repair) and it is badly marked/worn after just one use :(

Idrive - OK to use, but having to fiddle with idrive to change the centre vent temp is daft, also the new style indicator stalk is just plain stupid, a real pain to use, you really have to be careful using your indicators, very distracting.

Overall a fantastic car, but would have second thoughts about buying another BMW to be honest, a lot of trivial things are badly overpriced, and some things are over complicated for no reason.