HJ needs to update his specs table - the 530d Auto now does 52mpg/145g/km in auto form. Allegedly! More of that later.

This is a wonderful car - easily capable of 50mpg on a run if you want to drive it like that, yet will match a Porche Boxter in the 60 mph sprint, again if you wanted to do that. But you can glean all this from the BMW website. What won't they tell you honestly:-

That the ride without VDC is still BMW choppy, especially in the back, and more so with 18" & 19" wheels. It may be better than BMW of old, but for my money, it is still not what a 5 series should be about. I did a lot of test drives and also had a courtesy car to compare and after driving my VDC car, it was horrible, frankly.

With VDC and 17" wheels it is double cream - firm but oh so smooth. If you want a luxury feel to the car, then VDC and 17" wheels are essential. Remember, most cars sent out for testing with the magazines were only available with VDC or even the full active suspension & roll package - this tells you something IMO, and I think is why its had such rave reviews. So a bit naughty its not standard really. But you've read it now, just accept you add £1k to the price, and you have the perfect ride/handling combo just about.

The other great benefit of VDC is that you have Sport mode available anyway - so you can get an SE with it's greater range of colour options, and still have M-Sport suspension. AND vice versa - the M-Sport with VDC is the SAME suspension set up.

530d or 520d. The choice is yours, but they are quite different cars really. 520d makes most sense of course, but the 530d is so smooth, quiet, refined and quick. And quick in a "pulse barely raises a beat" kind of way - luxury speed, not white knuckle speed. I am still only paying £350 pa insurance, which seems amazing, the road tax is low too. Where you cannot deny the costs are buying it - an extra £7k over the 520d, and probably 20% worse economy, and 8 litre oil changes at £100 just for the oil and filter. It could be just 10% less economic than the 520d if you chose to be that careful, but quite frankly, you may as well not bother to buy the 530d if you are going to tickle the throttle that little. From my experience, longer runs will give you something approaching the claimed economy figures, but short runs don't. (Other engines are available, so they tell me!)

The start-stop function takes some getting used to and I am not sure the whole life saving of stop/start wear on the engine/starter/battery are going to be there. You have to select off every journey if you don't want to use it. All cars are the same now of course.

There is one achilees heel, although not fundamental to the car per se - the navigation is lame and VERY expensive. If you can choke having it stuck to your window (which is so uncool), a £150-£200 Tom-Tom with IQ routes is streets better (no pun intended).

The option worth the money is the Pro-Audio package - at £700 its not that expensive for BMW or compared to other B&O and Bose options with some other makes. But it's very good. Few fancy controls, no bling, no badging, just great music. Wonderful, if only the iPod interface didn't keep crashing every few days (perhaps a 2nd achilees heel, but BMW blame my iPod, of course)

Fix the nav and iPod and its the perfect car, at a price of course.