A police officer pulled up next to me at a red light in Chicago, rolled down his window, and asked what the car was and what color that was. Not a ticket, not a warning, just curiosity. That hasn’t happened to me since the BMW i8, and it happened twice in the first month with the Touring. That alone tells you something about how differently this new M5 registers with people, whether they know what an M5 is or not.
This is my second M5 in less than a year. I spent a few months living with the G90 sedan before it went back, and now I have the wagon version, the G99 Touring, finished in Dakar Yellow II with black extended Merino leather. It replaces a BMW iX 45, which I still think is one of the best family SUVs money can buy. So this long-term test is really two comparisons running at once: M5 sedan versus M5 Touring, and performance wagon versus family SUV. Neither comparison has an obvious winner yet, but the early impressions are already interesting enough to write down.
The Build: Dakar Yellow II and $144,600 of Options
Our test car is loaded. The window sticker includes:
- Dakar Yellow II metallic paint
- Black extended Merino leather
- Driving Assistance Professional
- Executive Package
- 20/21-inch M dual-spoke wheels in bi-color black
- M Carbon Ceramic Brakes
- Bowers & Wilkins Surround Sound
- M Driver’s Package
- A handful of smaller options
All in, it stickers at $144,600. For context, the M5 Touring starts at $125,300, just $2,000 over the sedan’s $123,300 base. That gap barely moves the needle on a car in this price range, which is part of why BMW ended up selling roughly as many Tourings as sedans in the US, despite originally planning for the sedan to outsell it two to one.
Sedan to Wagon: What Actually Changes
The short version, after a few months in the sedan and a few weeks in the wagon: pick the sedan if you want the slightly sharper, lighter, more traditional M5 feel. Pick the Touring if cargo space and everyday versatility matter to you, because the driving penalty for choosing it is small enough that you will forget about it within a week.
I felt that gap most clearly not on a back road but in my garage. I needed to haul a broken 77-inch LG OLED to be disposed of, and with the rear seats folded, it slid into the Touring’s cargo area cleanly, both in length and width. That is not a trip I could have made in the sedan without strapping the TV to the roof.
My colleague Steven Paul spent a week with a Touring for BMWBLOG’s review and came away comparing its ride more to an ALPINA B8 Gran Coupe than to the F90 M5 it replaces, and he graded the steering a B. I do not disagree with him on the steering feel. But I would something else related to the daily driving experience: adding the four-wheel steering does a lot of work disguising the car’s size at low speeds, parking lots and tight Chicago streets included, even if it cannot fully disguise the extra mass once you are actually leaning on the car in a corner.
The Touring also sits slightly taller than the F90 M5 because of where BMW packaged the battery, and you notice it getting in and out. Combined with the ride, it reinforces the idea that this generation of M5 is less of an old-school sports sedan and more of a high-performance limousine, in either body style.
Replacing an iX: Family Duty Without Giving Up Character
I want to be upfront about why the iX keeps coming up. It is the only frame of reference I have, since it is the last family vehicle I drove daily before this, not because the two cars are actually comparable. A five-seat electric SUV and a plug-in hybrid performance wagon do not compete for the same buyer or the same budget, and I am not pretending otherwise. I am also not trying to build a case against the iX here. It remains one of the best family vehicles I have driven, full stop. But the M5 Touring is proving to be a genuinely good daily driver and family car in its own right, which is not something I expected walking in.
It does not ride like the iX. There is no air suspension on this car, and Chicago’s roads are not kind to stiff setups. Potholes and expansion joints come through more than they would in an air-sprung SUV. But “more than an SUV” still leaves room to be comfortable, and on most days, most streets, it is. I would not call the M5 Touring plush. I would call it composed.
The Mini-M7 Theory
I have said this before about the G90 sedan, and it applies just as much to the Touring: this feels like the M7 BMW never built. Compared to the F90 M5, this generation shifts the balance meaningfully toward usability and comfort, away from the pure sportiness the F90 leaned on. That will bother some longtime M5 owners. It has not bothered me yet, though I reserve the right to feel differently once I get this car onto a proper back road.
Power That Never Stops Being Fun
However you feel about the shift in character, the power is not in question. This thing is addictive on straight roads. Overtaking is a non-event, one squeeze of the throttle and you are past, and in Dakar Yellow, the car makes a statement to whoever you just left behind. It is a brute when you want it to be.
Around town, I drive in hybrid or full electric mode most of the time, which is one of the real advantages of this generation of M5 over the F90. The disadvantage, of course, is the weight everyone already knows about. In stop-and-go Chicago traffic, you do not feel it, the same way you mostly do not feel it in a large SUV. It shows up under hard braking at higher speed, where it takes noticeably longer to stop than a lighter car would. The carbon ceramic brakes on our car might make a difference there. I have not run a proper back-to-back test against the standard M Sport steel brakes to say for sure. On tighter, twistier roads, the weight is there too, something I noticed on a stretch of German back roads rather than anything in Chicago, where the roads do not really give you the chance to find that limit.
The S68 Engine and a Hybrid System That Behaves Itself
The S68 is turning into a genuinely great engine for this brand, in the same way the B58 already is. It is smooth, has plenty of torque low in the rev range, and works well with the ZF transmission. The bigger surprise is how well BMW sorted the hybrid integration. You can feel the handoff between electric and gas power, but it never feels clumsy or intrusive the way it can in the XM. This system is a clear step ahead of that one.
Living With the Interior
The M Sport seats are the best part of this interior. I am tall, and I spend a lot of time complaining about seats that do not support taller drivers properly. These do, with good back and thigh support. The extended Merino leather feels as good as it looks, which at this price point it should.
The interaction bar is a hit with my kids, and I get why it exists even if I understand why purists roll their eyes at it. It makes the interior feel more distinct without becoming a gimmick you notice every day. Yes, you can turn it off if it bothers you.
iDrive 8.5 is exactly what we already know. Voice commands miss more often than they should, and the touch interface can be clumsy while driving. I have gotten good enough with the physical iDrive controller that I default to it for almost everything except adjusting the climate controls. One interior complaint that has nothing to do with tech: the piano black trim. I am still not a fan. It scratches easily and shows fingerprints almost immediately.
The Bowers & Wilkins system sounds good, but it is not on the level of the setup you get in the 7 Series or the iX. Decent is the right word for it here.
EV Range, and What Is Next
Real-world electric range on the Touring has been landing in the low 30s for me. The sedan did better, over 40 miles on a charge, but I was hypermiling so it’s not a fair comparison yet.
This is the introduction to a longer test, not the final word. Up next, we will spend real time on curvy roads to get a proper read on how the Touring’s performance and handling hold up against the sedan I just spent months in. After that, we will shift focus to what this car is actually built for in my life right now: hauling things, hauling kids, and figuring out whether a 717-horsepower wagon can really replace an SUV for daily family duty.
First published by https://www.bmwblog.com
