BMW M5 - long-term review

There are some pictures on this page, but they were all taken at least a month ago. Sorry about that. Unfortunately that’s the last time I saw the M5. Remember the fuel issues? A recap: the car stalled a few times in traffic, I blamed water in the fuel, Shell investigated but found nothing amiss, the car went back to BMW, the diagnostics were clear, so back it came and on I went.

And then it happened again. And again. And again. So much so that I managed to identify a pattern. Coming into urban driving after long motorway journeys triggered it. Fine at higher speeds, but once down to a town trundle, the engine light would come on and I had about 10 seconds to find somewhere to get out of the way before it stalled. It would restart, do another half mile and then the same would happen again. And so on. Irritating and stressful.

Off back to BMW went the car, while I started hunting on forums. Ah. Here we go – US sites reporting F90 M5s with fuel pump issues. Pressure drops after long consistent running. Sounds familiar. The new fuel pump was on back order, but while BMW was poking about they heard the faint noise I’d been ignoring. Which turned out to be coming from the front diff. Which has now been replaced. Should never have bothered fitting them in the first place. Kidding.

How do I feel about this? Surprised, mainly. You don’t expect new model bugbears from BMW...