BMW M5 Review

If you're after a scorchingly fast performance car that's still quite practical and luxurious, absolutely. Normally, we'd say you also need to have quite a bit of spare cash lying around, but if you're a company car user, that won't be necessary. The monthly outlay will vary depending on how much tax you pay, but it could be only a few hundred quid a month. 

With the M5, you only have one choice to make – do you go for the saloon or the Touring? On that front, we'd go for the latter. Yes, the boot space you get isn't brilliant for an estate of this size, but the price difference is marginal, and it'll be much easier to load bulky items into the back of the Touring. Most importantly of all, it's just cooler, we think. This is the first M5 Touring to be available for around 15 years, so it's likely to get a lot of attention. 

The M5's arch rival has long been the Mercedes-AMG E63, but the most recent one is no longer available, and it's thought the next-generation version which ditch its V8 for a less theatrical inline-six. There's also the Audi RS6 Performance, which makes for an excellent foil for the M5 Touring. It's set to bow out pretty soon, set to be replaced by a car which, like the M5, is expected to be powered by a hybrid V8. 

The Porsche Panamera could be considered a rival, although the GTS and Turbo E Hybrid versions that rival the M5's performance cost quite a bit more. Finally, there's an alternative that's quite close to home – the BMW M3. Yes, it's far less powerful, but it's also a lot lighter, which means it accelerates from 0-62mph a little quicker than its bigger brother, and the boot space in the Touring version is actually bang on the figure of the M5. 

The M5 needs to be spot on in this department, considering its price tag, and fortunately, it largely delivers. All the materials you come across are of top-notch, premium-feeling quality, and everything's put together beautifully. Our one complaint is one we make commonly in modern cars, so the M5 can't be singled out in this regard. We're talking about the use of shiny black plastic, which tends to show up scratches quite conspicuously, and in no time at all. 

The M5 runs iDrive 8.5, and although the menu system isn't quite as straightforward as some earlier versions of the software, it doesn't take long to get used to it. The 14.9-inch touchscreen is very responsive, but you don't necessarily have to use it. 

While BMW has been deleting the classic rotary iDrive controller in its smaller cars, it's still very much a thing in bigger models like the 5 Series. We're pleased it's still there, because tactile controllers like this are considerably easier to use on the move than a touchscreen. What's more, there's something extremely satisfying about the way it gently clicks as you rotate it. 

The in-built navigation is one of the better OEM systems, and it includes up-to-date traffic data. It's one of the few manufacturer nav systems you won't want to immediately bin off in favour of Google Maps via your smartphone. If that's your preference, though, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included as standard. 

Along with the touchscreen, there's a crisp and comprehensive head-up display fitted at no extra cost, which is able to show mapping data. Also included is an excellent Bowers & Wilkins sound system. 

The M5 is well proportioned in terms of USB connectivity, with two USB-C sockets at the end of the phone tray, a further two under the front armrest, and a final pair for rear-seat passengers. 

We normally sing the praises of the 5 Series plug-in hybrid models for not losing any boot space relative to their pure combustion counterparts, but sadly, we can't do that here. It's all to do with packaging the hybrid battery and the M5's clever electronically controlled rear differential, which leads to a sizeable drop in volume. 

The saloon can take 466 litres, down from 520 litres, while the estate manages 500, a drop of 70 litres compared to other 5 Series Touring models. That's no more than you get in the smaller M3 Touring, although the M5 wagon does much better than its little brother once the rear seats are folded, offering 1,630 litres compared to 1,510 litres. 

In the Touring, there's a load cover which can be retracted or removed entirely. Using handy levers in the boot, the rear bench can be easily folded in a 40/20/40 split. 

Further forward, there's a lidded compartment under the central armrest offering a good amount of storage, and near there are a pair of cupholders. The door bins aren't massive, we should point out.

You won't have complaints from anyone in the front about space, and legroom in the rear is decent, but thanks to a sloping roofline in both versions of the car, taller rear-seat passengers might not be so happy about the headroom

There's only the one combination available in the BMW M5, which mixes a 4.4-litre, twin-turbo V8 with an eight-speed automatic gearbox containing an electric motor. The latter is powered by an 18.6kWh battery pack. 

While the 727PS and 1,000Nm of torque outputs are a significant step up from the old M5 Competition, the new M5 is actually a tenth slower when accelerating from 0-62mph, taking 3.5 seconds, with the M5 Touring a further tenth behind. That said, it's quite conceivable that BMW will make a faster Competition version of the new M5. 

In any case, we wouldn't worry too much about the raw numbers. That's because the way all that power is delivered has been fundamentally altered, with the electrical side of the equation boosting low-down torque and making up for the lag of the turbochargers. 

The result is a car that's wickedly responsive. Almost too responsive. It's so eager to pick you up and lob you down the road at terrifying speeds that the M5 begins to feel too much for anywhere that isn't a derestricted autobahn. It's unhinged. 

Not that it sounds all that bonkers. As mentioned, the 'M sound' is a bit naff, so we preferred to turn it off, but the V8 on its own is quite muted. 

Although you won't hear much of the engine inside the cabin, you do get a lot of tyre noise. The M5's footprint is massive, with 285mm wide tyres at the front and 295mm tyres at the rear. On some road surfaces, the 'roar' from the tyres is such that you might want to turn the sound system volume up a bit. Wind noise isn't as much of an issue, at least. 

Euro NCAP is unlikely to crash test a valuable car like the M5, but the safety body did assess the standard 5 Series, which is built around the same structure, in 2023. There's good news on that front, as the 5 Series achieved the full five-star rating with 89% and 85% given in the adult occupant and child occupant categories, respectively. 

Standard safety equipment includes lane assistance, autonomous emergency braking, blind-spot detection and speed limit recognition. You can enhance the electronic safety suite further, with things like evasion assistance and a wrong-way warning system added with the £2,100 Driving Assistant Professional package.

As such a new model, it's hard to tell how the M5 will fare in terms of reliability in the long term. The best we can do for now is look at how well BMW did as a brand for reliability in the most recent HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index ownership survey, which was 16th out of 33 manufacturers with a score of 89.92%.

The M5 has the same length of warranty as any other BMW, lasting for three years with unlimited mileage. Like all the brand's plug-in hybrids, the battery is covered by a separate warranty also lasting 60,000 miles, but for six years rather than three. 

Good news! The new M5 isn't in the top insurance group. Bad news? It's only one place lower, at 49. It'll be especially important to shop around here, and you might want to try a few specialists to see if you can get the premium down. 

The (really rather pointless) £10 Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) discount given to hybrids has been binned, so you'll pay the same £195 annual rate from year two as anyone else. A low emissions figure makes for a modest first-year rate of just £110, but you're unlikely to care, given that this is absorbed by a six-figure on-the-road price for the car. 

You might be a bit more concerned about the government's luxury car tax annual surcharge of £425 from years two to six of ownership. Given that the threshold is £40,000, the M5 has no chance. And as it's based on the original RRP with options and transferred to subsequent keepers, buying used won't get you around it. Sorry. 

The M5 is a single trim level. As standard, it includes a 'staggered' set of 20-inch front/21-inch rear wheels, adaptive LED headlights, ambient lighting, four-zone climate control, an electrically adjustable driver's seat, leather steering wheel, wireless smartphone charging, front and rear parking sensors with a reversing camera, adaptive suspension and a powered tailgate.