[Berry]

The year long wait and contemplation finally ended on 14th January 2012.

It all started in 1995 when I first watched the Bond movie - Golden Eye followed by Tomorrow Never Dies & The World is Not Enough .

No, I am not talking about my love for the Bond's Babes here , it's about the even sexier Bond's Bimmers that I still cannot stop drooling over the BMW logo ever since.But the right time came only now when I can own one.

After a deep thought and financial tussle with my mind exactly one year back I decided to buy a luxury car and it was pre decided that it has to be a BMW and nothing else. So it started with the then newly launched X1, I had almost zeroed down on it and was waiting all through the year 2011 for some financial reasons. During this one year I went to the BMW dealerships almost every time I used to go to Ambience Mall, Gurgaon (Bird Automotive was there till last year) and that became a regular habit of checking out the X1.

I wanted to buy it with all the bells and whistles as I never intended to just buy the badge by buying the CE variant, so the sales guy insisted that I should get the 20d Exclusive Limited Edition (I may be wrong with the variant name) which was costing almost 37L OTR (Delhi) and was loaded with features that I could wish for and was practical too for our roads but I rejected it only because it does not have the rear AC vents. Having driven the Ford Endeavour for almost 3 years now, my family can't live without these so the X1 got kicked out of the list.

BUT then the day came when a casual visit to the dealership became a turning point in my decision and there it was the sparkling Havana brown colored 520d parked right beside the X1 which caught my attention and when I looked at the price tag which translated in to just 5.5 L more than that variant of X1, all the mathematics went inside my mind and I now directed my decision making stream towards it and said to myself "Boy ! this is The Car !".

By the way this was September 2011 and I could not resist picking this one up. But then I gave a second look to the calendar and noticed that December was just 2 months away and I could fetch hefty discounts on it in that month.

Now came the 5th December, I walked in to Deutsche Motoren, Mathura Road and a very friendly sales guy named Vinod Chainani escorts me to the car. I had the check ready with me and did not want to make that guy waste his energy on convincing me and I told him "Hang on mate ! Here's the check, tell me the year end discount on the 520d, register it on the 1st Jan 2012 and I will take the delivery on the 14th Jan". Amidst all this the sales guy's mouth was open wanting to say something and on asking he said "Sir, you are the easiest customer I have come across in my 6 years of car selling career" . To this I just smiled and asked him to go ahead with details of discounts. To my unpleasant surprise he pulled out an official paper which read that they are just offering 50K discount and I was like because I had been waiting for this year end discount for so long and this is what they offered me a meager fifty thousand . I quickly zipped my iPhone out and called up the BMW corporate office and wished to speak to the anybody who heads up sales there and the gentleman who was on the line was GM-Sales. I asked him about the discount on the 520d and he quickly replied with the same 50K and as I was about to disconnect the call he said "Sir, why don't you consider the 530d , we can give you an excellent deal on that." and I asked him to go ahead.

He offered me 2.5L discount + BSI for 3 years+ BMW Secure Advanced and an option to take the zero dep insurance from outside. And that worked out to be 3.5-4L value in real terms. After this I thought of registering this car at NOIDA and that saved me another 3L+ due to difference in tax. So after all the number game I found out that I am saving a good 6.5 L by registering in NOIDA and accepting the deal offered by BMW. The car now was costing me 51.XX L OTR as against 57.XX OTR in Delhi. As I said I entered the showroom with a signed check, in no time I filled the booking amount and booked the same Havana Brown colored 530d and yes it had even bigger feature list than the X1 and the 520d and I chose it over them because ;

- Paddle Shifters with Sportstronic
- Additional 70 Horses, 2 cylinders and some 100+ NMs of torque
- A working Navigation
- HUD
- Rear Seat entertainment system which can keep my daughter busy.

and many other things.

and now I am the proud owner of this beauty and I feel like James Bond

Initial Ownership Review

Positives

- Lots of torque in every gear.
- The awesome turbo kick
- HUD makes me feel like NFS and very exclusive



Now time for some detailed info is mentioned below :

Usage pattern

This is my weekend car which will primarily be used to go out shopping , evening parties and some occasional long drives.

Interior design & quality
I must say that the interiors are very ergonomically designed and the instrumentation is such that you can perform the same task via many different procedures , for example - the track list can be viewed and fiddled with in the iDrive Screen and jog wheel and also via the small wheel mounted on the right spoke of the steering wheel. The quality is top notch.

Air-conditioning
Air-conditioning is very good and silent even at high fan speeds, but the absence of rear controls is sorely irritating and I do not understand why did they remove it from Indian 530d.

Interior space and comfort
On the comfort front the rear seats are actually very un-BMW , by this I mean that the rear seat comfort is now at par with the Merc which is a + for Bimmer. I noticed that when ever I ran over the speed humps every passenger felt as if they are sitting on some springy seat, just like a leather couch in our living rooms.

Engine performance & driveability in the city
Just driven 490 kms as of now and the OBD is showing 11.2 kmpl which is quite impressive. The car is dream to hold and maneuver in the city, the turning radius is surprisingly short, my Punto has a bigger radius :-P

Additional comments on the engine
Being Turbo charged, it does have a turbo lag it behaves in such a way that it takes almost half of a second to launch every time I floored the accelerator. This is the behavior in the Normal mode, Sports+ mode is the real thing, the car becomes a mad horse.

Gearshift / transmission quality
The sportstronic transmission has a dual clutch and I can never make out when it changes the gears, all I see is the speedo needle running like a stream of water flowing in a river , only if I look at the rpm needle I can see that gears are actually being changed.

Suspension & ride quality
The car has a wonderful suspension and I will blame the RFTs for the harsh ride quality.

Music system
Ample bass without distortion and clear vocals , that's what one needs in car and it provides that very well.

Dislikes
-Have shared my negative experience here - http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...go-flat-2.html
-My neck pains when I drive it, still figuring out the optimum driving position.
-no AC controls for rear passenger and absence of vents on the B-Pillar is surprising.
-no space for the spare tire.
-Alloy wheel design is too simple for the price
-Lack of vanity when parked beside the 520d or other lower variants, all look the same. There should have been at least some distinguishing factor


Review on overall practicality
Luggage storage is less in the boot and is going to get even worst when I will rope in a space saver tire, also considering I am a father of an infant I have to carry a lot of stuff including the stroller which eats up a lot of space. I miss Skoda's notchback design which is highly practical.

Quality of after-sales service
The car is parked at the service station due to the tire burst problem and they will return it with replaced tires after 4 days which is quite a long TAT

Here are the few pics that I have taken till date, will post more pics as soon as I take it out exclusively for a Photo op (I do it for every new car I buy)

I don't know how well or badly I have written it but thanks for reading

[CRtorquefan]

Congratulations alot berry for the Brilliant driving machine.
From the pics truly I got the feel like I've owned a Beemer, Thanks & let them coming.

[PM - B]

Congratulations on the 530D . This must be a really really cool drive.

How about pics of HUD. Would really like to see that.

Also is it easy to register at Noida though you are from Delhi, or do you have a residence at both places.

Wishing you many years of lovely motoring on the beast.

[mayankjha1806]

Congratulations. This is a real good deal and you did the right thing by going for 530 and saving ~6L in the process. May this one serve you for a long long time.

More pictures please, this surely needs some better picture on this thread, especially day time pictures.

[v&v]

Congrats Berry. Thats an awesome color. Do write more about the Navigation and HUD.

More pics please.

[androdev]

Congrats Berry. It is my absolute favorite car - except for its very low GC for Indian conditions! Maan.. you got a good deal at 51+ for 530D.. we paid same for a 520D in Bangalore - our road tax is 20% and there were no discounts when we bought it last year!!!

Buy yourself a spare tire for sure if you have the habit of going far from the city.

[PlatzdaTurbo]

Dude you really know how to click pictures man ! She looks so good in them that i might actually turn out disappointed the day i see her in flesh saying 'nah..looked a lot better through the lens'
Great acquisition at an absolutely killer deal considering i did not pay much lesser than that for an a4 3.0 tdi !
Congratulations !

[amitwlele]

Congrats Berry. Excellent choice of color. Wishing you a happy long term ownership.

More pictures of exteriors in good lighting would be appreciated

[Berry]

Originally Posted by PM - B

Congratulations on the 530D . This must be a really really cool drive.

How about pics of HUD. Would really like to see that.

Also is it easy to register at Noida though you are from Delhi, or do you have a residence at both places.

Wishing you many years of lovely motoring on the beast.

Thanks bro,

Yes I do have two residences and I could fetch the benefit of registering at 7% tax as against 12.5% of Delhi.

I will put up pics of the HUD very soon and post them here.

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Congratulations. This is a real good deal and you did the right thing by going for 530 and saving ~6L in the process. May this one serve you for a long long time.

More pictures please, this surely needs some better picture on this thread, especially day time pictures.

A photo op from an SLR coming very soon to this thread.

Originally Posted by v&v

Congrats Berry. Thats an awesome color. Do write more about the Navigation and HUD.

More pics please.

Thanks bro

Originally Posted by androdev

Congrats Berry. It is my absolute favorite car - except for its very low GC for Indian conditions! Maan.. you got a good deal at 51+ for 530D.. we paid same for a 520D in Bangalore - our road tax is 20% and there were no discounts when we bought it last year!!!

Buy yourself a spare tire for sure if you have the habit of going far from the city.

Roads in Delhi are much better, I have never been to Bangalore but a friend from Blore visited me two months back and he said "Arrey waah ! Yahan to speed hump naam ka cheez hi nahi hai, Bangalore mein to har ek km mein chaar hote hain !" So I can understand the issues you are facing with the GC. My Punto is even lower and I have never smashed her chin or under body in the 3 years of ownership.

Road tax in Noida is 7% and that makes it even lovelier.

I am surely going to buy the space saver and put on tubelesses once my car comes out of the service center as it is resting there with 3 burst tires.




- Nav is absolutely accurate in showing the current location,
- it has got maps for even such cities and villages of our country which most of us have not heard of.
- Places of Interest have correct phone numbers. All malls, ATMs and even PCO booths are mentioned.. trust me even panwallaas are listed too.
- The lady inside understands voice commands like a charm, if she asks something where I need to say yes or no , she understands yes/ok/hmm/go ahead as YES and no/neh/nooouu/ah no as NO, that's pretty cool that I don't have to speak her limited english unlike other voice commands.

I have a question for the current owners here http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...they-work.html (BMW 5-Series, Inner projectors - Do they Work ?)

[_raVan_]

Congratulations on getting your dream car How much was the final price difference between the 520D and 530D?

Do post pics of the HUD and the rear seats.

[Shreyas Aterkar]

Wow great pick. Nice colour, do not get to see this a lot. Congrats for the bimmer and wish you many years of happy ownership. Also, quite a steep increase in budget (equivalent to a D1 segment sedan ) but ofcourse thats something essential when you are looking to acquire a master piece.

[Berry]

Originally Posted by _raVan_

Congratulations on getting your dream car How much was the final price difference between the 520D and 530D?

Do post pics of the HUD and the rear seats.

The difference is a good 9L but the deal I got was irresistible and now the difference ex Noida OTR prices was 8L. I will post the asked pics a little later.

[Nicky]

Absolutely fantastic choice given the deal and savings. Your wait paid off for december.
Would love to see HUD pics.
Enjoy the beast and drive safely.

[vagu]

Congratulations Berry 530d is a fun car to drive. Wish you many happy miles ahead.

Waiting for more pics of the car?

PS: HR registration could have saved you more moolah, correct me if I am wrong.

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Initial Ownership Section. Thanks for sharing!