Talk:BMW 5 Series

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This article says that the 5-Series is manufactured in Germany. Has there been any exceptions to this? SamH|Talk 18:07, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There are probably CKD models assembled in countries with high tariffs for imports. --202.7.190.131 12:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Competitors 2 E60 (2004-present) 3 E39 4 Assembly is Dingolfing 5 5er image

[edit] Competitors

Ive added the CTS-V. But Im having 2nd thoughts. Is it a competitor ?

To be honest, the competitors sections have always made me a bit nervous—they're subjective and generally suffer from list bloat. In fact, looking through my Watchlist, something similar has just happened to the Audi A4 page. It takes a keen editor to keep these trimmed and meaningful, and in general, I lean towards dumping them altogether.

That being said, the CTS-V was designed to compete directly with the M5, and the entire CTS line seems positioned similarly to the 5. The CTS seems like a reasonable addition here. --Milkmandan 13:12, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)

The 550i is now a reality in the E60 line but I don't know enough about it to add it.

[edit] E60 (2004-present)

The "Active" or "Active Comfort" seat, already available on the flagship 7 series, is made available on driver and front passenger seats of the newly engineered 5 Series in many markets. The Active seat is an innovative motion comfort system invented by Richard D. Harza, renowned civil engineer and former Chairman of the Harza Engineering Company (now known as MWH Global), and developed by Robert Kallman. The invention was conceived to provide Mr. Harza's daughter with relief from lower back pain while seated for prolonged periods of time due to her struggles with cystic fibrosis. A pair of bladders inside the seat base alternately raise and lower the pelvis from left to right to impart a natural walking-like motion to the lower back in order to provide many comfort and health benefits of walking without the need to stand up and walk about.

In my opinion the "Active Comfort" system is hardly such a revolution that it should be included here and in any case there is no reason to elaborate on who the inventor is and why he invented it. Numerous engineering miracles happen each time a new car is invented, I don't see why this one should get such special attention. This paragraph really comes off as an advertisement for Mr. Harza and MWH Global. The exact same paragraph can also be found in the article about the BMW 7 Series.

The I-drive would be much more suitable for inclusion because it has been so controversial. It is however already covered in the article about the BMW 7 Series.Hamstro 16:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Hamstro:

I agree that the name of the inventor and development history of the Active seat don't need to be included in this, or any other Series section. The background information was not intended to be an advertisement, and in fact serves no advertising value to Mr. Harza nor to his company. As a retired engineer and builder of many of the world's largest dams, neither his own nor his company's commercial interests are impacted by Wikipedia knowledge of this automotive seating feature. It is only to BMW's benefit to include mention of this innovation, not as advertising but as one of many descriptions of the various features, technologies and innovations available on BMW automobiles. I included the background information because I found it to be a compelling story about the nature of invention and the sort of story not often known by the general public. It was published in an internal company document. Perhaps this is the sort of information one could only find on Wikipedia and part of why this encyclopedia is so special.

It is not granting special attention to include mention of an engineering advance in seating comfort introduced to the automotive industry by BMW. Please note that the Active seat feature was deemed worthy of recognition by Popular Science magazine as one of the best inventions of the year in 1998. Also, the migration of features from the flagship 7 series to the 5 series reveals much about the marketing and development of BMW's technologies. There is no reason to exclude mention that a feature is available on any particular series, and in fact many other feature descriptions are repeated in sections for the various series.

Rather than remove the all mention of the Active seat, you had the option of just removing details about the inventor. If you feel that other BMW features are more deserving of elaboration, then do some research and add information and enhance the knowledge base held within Wikipedia. To completely remove all mention of the Active seat unnecessarily restricted the availability of accurate and detailed information about features available on the 5 Series.

As I stated above it didn't seem noteworthy to me - I haven't seen it mentioned as a technological breakthrough anywhere. Furthermore the elaborate description of how the seat was invented made me think that it was advertising - this is after all an article about the BMW 5 series, not every new feature brought to life along with it.

Because I still wasn't completely sure that it wasn't worth keep, I made the comment on this talk page and waited. After noone came around to comment for a while I decided to remove the information.

I have just looked over the new section in the article about the BMW 7 Series and I like it now. It's short and to the point and as such doesn't stray too far from the main topic of the article.

I suggest that you make a page about the Active Seat and link to it if it is such a technological leap. Verifiable stories about how it was invented would be ideal to put in an article like that. Hamstro (Talk) 20:59, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear Hamstro:

Thank you giving consideration to my reasons for including mention of BMW's use of the Active Seat feature. If you are satisfied with the new section in the article, then so am I.

Please understand that I do not consider myself to be an individual arbiter of what is noteworthy. I thought that the Best Invention recognition of the technology by Popular Science magazine supported the notion that it the Active seat is, in fact, noteworthy. In addition, in its first year of introduction in Europe, the Active Seat received widespread acclaim in numerous European newspapers and magazines. The feature was introduced as standard equipment on the 750/760 Series and according to Bloomberg was selected as an option on more than 70% of the 740/745 Series at prices up to $2,500 for drive and front passenger seats. This feature was not treated as a gimmick, but rather as an innovation which provides substantive benefits. BMW advertisements in Forbes and other magazine featured the Active Seat, as did an impressive two-page spread the BMW printed brochures. I know some of the people in Germany involved in this project and know how important this feature was to seating comfort and competion with other auto manufacturers.

Thank you for the suggestion that there be a page about he Active Seat technology. I will ask someone who worked on this project at BMW or Johnson Controls (the other automotive OEM supplier of the device) to write for me a brief account of Mr. Harza's development of the invention prior to its license to BMW.

On a related matter, in case you're interested in the technology, there's a link at the end of this article to the bmwworld website that describes the Active seat's function. Another page is on BMW's 7 Series web pages worldwide and the 5 Series web pages in most countries other that the US.

BMW supplied a 7 Series car that was displayed at an international private and business jet convention to demonstrate the Active seat feature alongside a Gulfsream seat into which the Active seat, (AKA. Aerovit for aviation) was also installed. Although the feature used in aviation is called the Aerovit, Mr. Harza is cited as inventor and the motion is identical to that provided on the BMW.

The technology is marketed by auto and aviation industry leaders as a genuine technology breakthrough that provides a substantive comfort benefit. As someone who has test driven the BMW Active Seat, I can tell you that my lower back and rear-end have never before been so pain-free after a 6 hour drive. When I reached my destination and got out of the car, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I felt none of the pain and stiffness I would normally experience after sitting for so long, Let me add, I'm usually quite stiff and uncomfortable after even just one hour in the same seat. Previously I thought that only standing up and walking would ease the pain, but this Active seat device provided the same walking benefits without the need to get up and leave the seat. I don't know of any other seating product on the market that works to provide the benefits of walking. Thanks again for the idea of an Active Seat page. Please let me know if you learn anything you would like to add.

Please sign your posts by following your edit with four tildes. Nicholas SL Smith^chatter 15:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] E39

The article states that The very first E39 BMW 5 Series rolled off the assembly line on June 18, 1996.

Since I own an E39 BMW 523iSE made in April 1996, I have to say I disagree with that statement. It may be that the first one bound for the USA was made on that day I guess. 195.212.29.83 10:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

According to RealOEM.com[[1]] (for the European E39 523i), which is fed by BMW parts databases, the first E39 was produced in Feb 1995. This marks a slight overlap with E34 production, but is not too far a reach. I'll add this. Nicholas SL Smith 01:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assembly is Dingolfing

The fact box says that assembly is Munich, Germany. This is not correct. Current 5 series are built at BMW's Dingolfing plant. Dingolfing is about 100 KM northeast from Munich.

[edit] 5er image

Shouldn't the 5 series page header contain an image of the most current 5 series model? I like the E39 image (the E39 is by far my favorite 5er ever made, we have two) but it's not appropriate to pick that particular car as an example of a current 5er. Nicholas SL Smith^chatter 15:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Generally the best available image is used for the lead info box. It looks like both the E39 and E60 are of similar quality (the E60 is slightly better lit in my opinion) in this case I agree that we should use the most current model. I will switch it if no one objects. --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 20:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't object, but this is has been a sensitive issue as of late. I agree with a current image, and would like to give deference to it because image quality can become very subjective when images are of a very similar quality. I by no means wish to offend anyone by judging the quality of images, and a survey doesn't seem appropriate, so let's stick with a current image. Nicholas SL Smith^chatter 23:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The way the page is now, the same image is twice in the article, which is much less helpful than a better variety. Even if you do think the E60 image is better quality (I don't, because of the reflections from the parking lot stripes), I don't know of any other particularly good E60 images to fill that infobox. IFCAR (talk) 23:42, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

That's also a good point (about the image redundancy), but it is still more helpful than displaying an arbitrary model simply because the image isn't on the page yet. I think we really ought to go out and take a better image (and use it when we take it) -- Nicholas SL Smith^chatter 04:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)