BMW has brought the new 5-series Touring to Geneva, giving journalists their first opportunity to pore over the car which was unveiled last week.
The tailgate now comes with electrical assistance as standard along with the traditional separately opening rear window. The boot can be had with a hands-free operation at extra cost.
The boot capacity with the rear seats in place has gone up by 10 litres to 570 litres, load space with the 40:20:40 split rear seats folded down has gone up 30 litres to 1700. The car also features air suspension on the rear axle which allows the new vehicle to carry loads of up to 730kg, an increase of 120kg over the previous generation.
Fuel consumption and emissions are said to be reduced by 11%, helped by a weight reduction of 100kg, despite being larger in all dimensions. It also features an ‘Active Air Stream’ kidney grille which is claimed to bring the Cd down as low as 0.27.
Engine choices from launch will be two petrol engines and two diesels. The 188bhp 520d comes with a six-speed manual or an optional eight-speed automatic. It is claimed to do 65.7mpg and 114g/km of CO2. The larger diesel is the six-cylinder 530d comes as standard with an eight-speed automatic and has 261bhp, in xDrive form it manages to get to 62mph 0.2 seconds faster than the two-wheel drive version at 5.6 seconds.
The two petrol engines are the 2.0 litre four-cylinder 530i and the 3.0 sic-cylinder 540i. Both come with the automatic and BMW’s TwinPower turbocharging technology, with the 540i getting xDrive.
BMW has given the car a raft of safety tech including Cross Traffic warning and Priority warning, Lane Changing assistance, Lane Keeping assistance with evasion aid. These systems help to keep the car within the lines at speeds up to 130mph.
