2009 BMW 535 Review by David Thomas
In the world of luxury station wagons, there isn't much sense in trying to justify the price tag. Normally, a wagon is a practical choice for families looking for utility with improved mileage versus a similarly sized SUV. If, however, you're shopping the all-wheel-drive 535i xDrive or its competitors — the Audi A6 Avant and Mercedes-Benz E-Class wagon — you clearly have an entirely different set of priorities.
Those probably include a high level of luxury, features, performance and, yes, some utility thrown in. BMW's 5 Series wagon provides plenty of each and elicited raves from our staff, my family and even me. It's hard to fathom why anyone would purchase a $55,000-$75,000 station wagon, but if you're going to, it would be hard to go wrong with this one.
The 5 Series wagon comes only in all-wheel-drive 535i xDrive form. Its sedan counterpart can be had in 528i, 535i or 550i configurations; the 528i and 550i are covered separately in Cars.com's Research section. Click here to compare the whole lineup.
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5 Series in the Market
The things that trouble me about the 5 Series — high price, fewer standard
features than some competing models — are things that sort themselves out. If
BMW is asking too much for too little, cons ...
Interior
Drawing cues from the 7 Series, the 5 Series' climate-control readouts use
BMW's Black Panel technology to appear out of dark panels without the brightened
look of traditional electroluminescent d ...
Controls
Activating
Switch position with the
ignition switched
on.
The turning lamps are automatically switched
on depending on the steering angle or the use
of turn signals.
To avoid blinding onco ...