It lives upto the slogan, it certainly is the ultimate driving machine. So, if you like driving your own car, it is the BMW 5 series you have to go for. Impeccable road holding and driving manners, the handling is superb. You wont feel that you are driving a 1.5 tone beast when you are behind the wheel of a 5 series. It handles like a much smaller car, yet wafts away 5 adults in first class comfort. And passengers can relax in the hushed atmosphere inside the car, very little egine or road noise comes inside the car. Not even any bad smell from the outside. The climate control is so advanced that in addition to filtering and temperature regulating inside the car, it has sensors for obnoxious gases and if any such gas is detected it automatically goes into recirculate mode!
And the safety is superb too. Airbags galore, ABS, EBD, CBC, DSC. the amount of electronic trickery which helps you prevent an accident is amazing! Mind you, never think of buying a car without ABS, the amount of safety it adds while you are braking is great, I think ABS should be standard on all cars.
The goodies doesnt stop, parking sensors, auto-dimming rear view mirrors, electric seats with driver memory, steering wheel mounted controls for stereo, cruise control.,
I love the ambience lighting. When you drive in the night, there is a warm orange glow inside the car, which is just enough for you to locate your gadgets like your moblie phone, and the map reading lights are brilliant too, passengers can switch it on to read without dazzling the driver, it just shows the attention to detail in this car.
I drive a BMW 520i in the UK. I have driven more than 90000 miles(160, 000 km) in my car. I have driven the diesel models too. They are brilliant cars. Not many day to day road cars handle and drive as well as the BMW 5 series.
Problems so far: The air con stopped working on a warm day once, which the dealer rectified in 3 days, change of a condensor, following which the car hasnt given me any trouble so far. This is a known common fault with BMW 5 series.
Good luck, go ahead buy one, and you would want to sack your driver!