It's easy to tell, in a lot full of cars, which one is the press car. It's usually the cleanest, and it's parked near the office. The 2009 BMW 750i sedan that I would be test driving for the next few days was both the cleanest and nearest the office -- and probably the most expensive in the lot.
I got the keys and stowed our luggage in the huge trunk -- three bags of varying sizes fit with lots of room to spare. While I programmed the nav system using the much improved iDrive system, the lot attendant described to my husband in the passenger seat all that he would do with the car, if he had the chance: take full advantage of the turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 and its 400 hp, for one thing. He used his hands like wings to demonstrate the car's ability to surf through traffic.
First Drive
As we drove from Chicago to Milwaukee, though, I wondered where he thought he was going to perform these driving feats in the 750i. Traffic in the city was awful, and construction kept us at about 65 mph. The stability control and traction control, along with the double-wishbone front and multilink rear susupension, came in handy when dodging near accidents in the lanes next to me.
The seats are adjustable six ways to Sunday, including headrest, side bolsters, and lumbar support -- a nice change after four hours in a coach airplane seat. The nav system is widescreen, with your choice of views and a calm woman's voice telling you what to do. The iDrive input system is much better than the last time I was in a BMW. The knob itself is easier to access, and the display makes clear what choices are available. More intricate searches required the copilot to take over iDrive duties, though, as the driver's eyes would have been off the road for too long.
We picked up my in-laws for dinner in Milwaukee, and they marveled at the size of the silver metallic BMW 750i. It is a large car, though I found it easy to park for being so big. The turning radius is a bit wide, but it can make a U-turn around a median without scraping the opposite curb. The napa leather seats won acclaim from the in-laws in the back seat, as did the soft-close automatic doors and rear seat climate controls.
Testing the TPMS
That first night, the tire pressure monitoring system told me I had low pressure in the left front tire, which I thought was strange. I stopped at a Meineke the next morning. While one guy added air, another chatted with me about the car.
"Is this an i or an Li?" he asked in a Russian-sounding accent.
"An i," I said.
"What's this run, about $95,000?" He was spot-on, and I told him so. "I almost bought one for $30,000," he said. "It was a few years old; these things lose value." Again, he was spot-on. A quick check of recently completed eBay sales shows that a 2006 BMW 750i goes for about $30,000.
Despite the helpful Meineke guys, the problem persisted the next day on a long drive up the coast of Lake Michigan, but the ride was still smooth and the handling fluid; I had it set on "comfort" for the in-laws this time, rather than one of the sportier settings. I even got a few free moments to press the pedal a bit.
"It holds the road at eighty," my mother-in-law said. "Put that in your report." Consider it done. And this despite the fact that the tire was slowly leaking air all the way home. On the advice of my press fleet contact, I filled the tire and added fix-a-flat to get me through the next few days.
Still it leaked, still the TPMS message flashed on the widescreen. We kept quarters handy and added air whenever we had to. And still despite the low pressure, the 750i handled beautifully in a rotten thunderstorm strong enough to knock out the power at our hotel. No hydroplaning, graceful stopping, responsive steering.
The Comparison
Finally, I took the car to a tire shop, where they found out I had a hairline crack all the way through the 18-inch alloy wheels, though the run-flat tire itself seemed undamaged. Strange all around. But the press fleet guys drove up a prebalanced tire and rim that afternoon, and the shop (Firestone in Greenfield -- thanks, Heath!) bolted it on with a quickness. I had the car back the next morning after breakfast.
In the meantime, I was at the mercy of my in-laws' Ford Focus four-door sedan -- a great car for the money, with good gas mileage to boot. But oh, how I missed the comfort setting on the BMW 750i on the notoriously bumpy streets of Milwaukee. Every strip of tar, every chunk of missing concrete, went straight from the suspension into my spine.
Glad to have the leather-wrapped wheel of 750i back in my hands, I did have to drive it back to Chicago and return it to the fleet. With four perfect wheels and light traffic, the 750i made short work of the trip, even rerouting the nav system around construction and traffic jams when necessary.
If you're thinking of buying a BMW to impress the masses, you can get away more cheaply. Car nuts who know what the BMW 750i is capable of will be impressed with it when they see it, but the average non-car-type will see a BMW badge and be impressed no matter what series it may be. While the 7-series is the utmost in BMW luxury and performance, there's no shame in a 3-series.
Key Facts
- 2009 BMW 750i
- 4.4-liter 32-valve turbocharged direct-injected V8 engine
- 6-speed automatic transmission with manual shift mode
- ABS, stability control, dynamic traction control, dynamic brake control
- Double-wishbone front suspension, multilink rear suspension
- iDrive to control HD radio, satellite radio, on-board computer, nav system
- Expanded Check Control vehicle monitoring system
- Rear and side-view cameras, park distance control, lane departure warning, blind spot detection
- Heated front and rear seats, heated steering wheel, front ventilated seats
