The already-impressive 5-Series just got a whole lot more practical.
The 2017 BMW 5-Series Touring has been officially unveiled, which takes the already brilliant G30 5-Series and makes it that much more practical. It’s bigger, debuts new tech for the 5-Series Touring range, and promises all the plus points of the saloon without any drawbacks.
A hair under 5-metres long, sitting 1868mm wide and standing 1498mm tall, the new 5-Series Touring has grown in every dimension over the car it replaces. Even the wheelbase has been stretched an additional 7mm to give the new 5-Series Touring more interior space than the outgoing model. Despite its added girth, the new Touring is up to 100kg lighter than the previous generation, thanks in part to the light new platform that it shares with its saloon sibling.
Let’s talk about what matters: The boot. There’s 570l behind the rear seats (10l up from the outgoing car), with up to 1,700l on offer with the rear bench folded flat. It retains a feature we liked from the Touring that it replaces though, the separately-opening rear windscreen that allows for quick access into the cargo bay.
The 5-Series Touring comes with all the tech that blew us away on the saloon, like the advanced driver assistance (ADAS) systems that can pilot the car semi-autonomously and park itself, a gorgeous 10.25-inch widescreen that you can control by hand gestures, wireless phone charging, Apple CarPlay smartphone mirroring, and full-LED headlights (replete with daytime running lights).
The Touring will be launched with two petrol engines and two diesel engines, all of them turbocharged. The petrol range begins with the 530i Touring, with a 2.0-litre turbo-four producing 185kW & 350Nm, paired to the 8-speed ZF automatic gearbox that BMW uses ever so liberally. 6.5-seconds is the claimed nought-to-100km/h time, and it’ll hurtle toward the horizons at speeds of up to 250km/h.
The more powerful 540i xDrive Touring comes next, motivated by a 3.0-litre turbo-six making 250kW and 450Nm, with power going to all four wheels through the same eight-speed auto in the 530i Touring. Nought-to-100km/h now takes just 5.1-seconds, and it’ll get you all the way to 250km/h if you’re brave.
The more wallet-conscious readers will probably want to know about the diesels though, so we won’t disappoint. The 520d Touring comes first, with 140kW and 400Nm available from a 2.0-litre turbodiesel. Here, there is a choice between a six-speed manual and an eight-speed automatic, with drive going to the rear wheels. 8.0-seconds is needed to hit 100km/h from rest, and it’ll go all the way up to 230km/h (in the manual, as the top speed in the automatic is a slightly more reasonable 225km/h).
The 530d Touring completes the lineup, with a 3.0-litre turbo-six diesel producing 196kW and an amazing 620Nm of torque. Exclusively mated to an eight-speed automatic, drive can be sent either to the rear wheels or to all four. 0-100km/h is achieved in just 5.8-seconds, with the xDrive all-wheel drive model achieving the same speed in 5.6-seconds.
At an event last week, BMW Group Australia CEO Mr. Marc Werner confirmed to the media that we can expect the 5-Series Touring on our shores in the later half of this year. Thus far, no other details have been confirmed for the 5-Series Touring, though we expect it to be specified similarly to the 5-Series saloon range here. The 5-Series Touring will bring the fight onto the smooth Volvo V90, as our market is seemingly bereft of competitors.
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