2011 Bmw X5 35d With 39000 Miles on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2014 BMW 535d xDrive

I absolutely love to travel, but man, do I hate flying. Not the act of flying itself, but air travel in general - slogging through the airport, dealing with security, fighting with delays, only to finally be crammed like cattle into a too-small airplane seat where you're offered $8 sandwiches that are half-frozen. (Okay, it's not always that bad, but still.)
So when I was tasked with attending the launch for the 2015 Subaru WRX STI in Carmel, CA, I had a choice to make. I could fly into San Francisco and find my own way down to Carmel, or I could grab a turbo-prop out of SFO and fly directly into Monterey. And since you're reading about all of this in a car review, it's pretty obvious which option I chose.
The current BMW 5 Series isn't a new car, despite receiving a couple of updates for the 2014 model year. But what is new is the 3.0-liter turbodiesel inline six-cylinder engine found underhood, borrowed from the larger X5 xDrive35d and also seen in the upcoming 740Ld xDrive. It's a honey of an engine, and here in the 5 Series, it makes for a truly first-class experience.

2015 BMW M4 Convertible is here to put wind in your sails

Each generation of the BMW M3 has included a convertible model. Even the distant E30, the patriarch of the M3 line, had an ultra-rare (only 787 were built) droptop model. The convertible became more common on the successive generations, with the hardtop-convertible E93 being the most recent. Considering this history, there seemed very little doubt that as the M3 became the M4, a convertible would be in the cards. Now, the new droptop has arrived.
Set for its global debut at the 2014 New York Auto Show, the 2015 BMW M4 Convertible features, like its forbearers, everything that's great about the hardtop variant while adding an unlimited amount of head room. That means the same 3.0-liter, 425-horsepower, 406-pound-foot, twin-turbocharged straight six sits under its domed hood, while either a six-speed stick or a seven-speed M dual-clutch transmission dispatches power to the fat rear tires.
As for specific differences between the hardtop and the new convertible, obviously, the droptop is heavier. A lot heavier. Where an M4 with a six-speed manual tips the scales at 3,530 pounds, the M4 Convertible weighs in at 4,055 pounds. Believe it or not, BMW has actually trimmed 90 pounds from the last-generation M3 convertible, code-named E93. This marginal weight reduction from the third-generation convertible to the fourth is barely half of the 174 pounds BMW was able to subtract when transitioning from M3 Coupe to M4 Coupe.

2016 BMW X5 xDrive40e Review [w/video]

BMW is no stranger to electrification. The company put the world on notice with the launch of its innovative i sub-brand. But the lessons learned from the i3 and i8 aren't limited to these small-volume cars. The more mainstream X5 xDrive40e impresses with lessons learned from i, all without compromising the SUV's character. The combination of a 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder engine with an electric motor is good for 308 overall horsepower and 302 pound-feet of torque. Sure, 240 hp and 260 lb-ft come from the four-cylinder engine alone, but the electric motor – integrated within the ZF eight-speed automatic transmission's housing – chips in a maximum of 111 hp and 184 lb-ft of torque. The 9.2-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery can sock away enough electricity to drive up to 14 miles on a single charge and will recharge at your average 110-volt socket in about seven hours. Of course, the battery pack and electric motor are a big weight penalty. At 5,220 pounds, the xDrive40e is 430 pounds heavier than the standard xDrive35i. Still, the gas-electric powertrain hustles this husky X5 40e to 60 miles per hour in just 6.5 seconds, less than half a second slower than the 35i. The stopwatch figures are complemented by the best fuel economy of any gas-powered X5, at 56 miles per gallon equivalent and 24 mpg combined. Only the diesel X5 xDrive35d is more efficient, at 27 mpg. But achieving top fuel economy in the 40e isn't as simple as going easy on the throttle. Perhaps more than any vehicle we've tested recently, understanding how all the X5's systems work together is crucial to eking out the most mpgs. The xDrive40e's Drive Dynamics Control will be familiar to anyone that's driven a recent BMW. Eco Pro, Comfort (the default mode), and Sport make the same adjustments to the throttle response, steering weight, and dynamic damper firmness as they do in a standard X5. But in the xDrive40e, they also impact the way energy is recaptured. Comfort/Save offers the best blend of fuel efficiency while achieving maximum energy recapture. Sport mode's aggressive energy recovery is the fastest way to recharge the battery on the go. When it's working, there's a sensation similar to gently stepping on the brakes, though you actually aren't doing anything – this is a familiar experience to the way most EVs use regenerative braking. Comfort mode reduces this effect, and in turn how much energy is recaptured.