So after the 335i debacle, I still needed to upgrade my ride. The new role at Juniper has me spending way too much time in the car between Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. The RX8, as awesome as it is, just isn’t a highway road warrior car. I need comfort and quiet so that I can continue to live on the phone an in conference calls while I drive around.
During the debacle I got to drive relatively new Honda loaner and I just wasn’t impressed. I had also test driven a few other cars and just couldn’t shake the feeling I got in the BMW so we started looking around.
As much as I loved the performance associated with the twin-turbo 335i, we decided to take a different approach. We lucked into a pretty good deal on an older and larger 528i.
2008 BMW 528iNo Turbos, just a regularly aspirated straight 6. *most* of the bells and whistles. The bluetooth integration works well. The nav is old and crusty and non-updatable because it’s DVD driven, and it doesn’t even have heated seats. Who orders a car without heated seats these days? It’s had most of the normal BMW leaks fixed recently and the stealership just put brakes all the way around and new shoes too. So it’s likely I can drive this for 2-3 years and flip it without having to buy brakes and tires.
It’s a quality long distance commute vehicle. I’ll report back on any maintenance that’s required. We’ll see how much the Bring More Wallet adage is true. So far it gets a smooth 30MPG on the highway so that’s a significant boost. I can get from Dayton to Louisville to Columbus on a single tank. That I like.
More as it develops.