REVIEWS: 2011 BMW 535i

Months in service: Five
Miles to date: 13,437

After an all-too-brief time in New York State, the 535i was summoned back to the editorial mother ship in Ann Arbor. Associate web editor Jeffrey Jablansky was dispatched to bring the car home, and so the 5-series embarked on another New York to Michigan run.

Jablansky reports: "The 535i handled brilliantly through the hills of Pennsylvania. Unlike everything else I've ever driven on I-80, the BMW made the curves through the Poconos fun, as opposed to a chore. "The infotainment system is a breeze to use, but Audi's MMI makes audio functions a lot easier. The iDrive had difficultly understanding my voice commands. I thought I'd lost most of my heavy New York accent, but perhaps not. Word is that this particular 5 was to be sent to California, so maybe the problem was that I didn't preface each command with, 'Dude.'" Despite that issue, he gives the 535i high praise as a long-distance touring. "We might be in possession of the ultimate road trip car," he says. "It looks like a 7-series, but it has the fuel economy of a Mini Cooper. It's quiet, efficient, faster than anyone truly needs, spacious, elegantly styled, has amazing front seats, and requires only infrequent refueling."

Back home in Michigan, the car spent a weekend with West Coast Editor Jason Cammisa, who also packed on the miles. "I put 488 miles on the 535i this weekend, with four passengers on board. We averaged an indicated 25.7 mpg overall-pretty spectacular considering all the full-throttle acceleration runs I did to convince everyone that six cylinders is more than enough in a 5-series. In fairness, it only took one run to 100 mph to shut them up for good. The others were just for my own enjoyment."

Like other road-trippers, Cammisa had praise for the seats, pronouncing them "10-hour comfortable, front and back." Unlike Jablansky, though, he had no issues with the voice recognition system. "I absolutely love the voice recognition," he said. "No matter how strange the street name, the system got it. And I love the fact that, unlike with Ford's SYNC, you can speak the address normally without having to make a separate entry for house number, street, city, state, et cetera."

One problem area has cropped up, and it has to do with the chassis. Our 535i has the sport package, and its firm suspension tuning is causing the front tires to take a real beating on Michigan's crumbling roads. After only 10,000 miles, the front tires are shot, with multiple bulges where the bands have failed due to hard impacts; there's also evidence of wheel damage, and the tires are wearing unevenly, due, we suspect, to the suspension bottoming out and knocking the front end out of alignment.