Test Drive: 2010 BMW 750Li xDrive

2010 BMW 750Li xDrive. Click image to enlarge

Related articles on Autos Test Drive: 2009 BMW 750i BMW unveils ActiveHybrid 7 concept 7 Series to premiere in Montreal BMW announces 2009 7 Series pricing Buyer’s Guide: 2010 BMW 7 Series Buyer’s Guide: 2009 BMW 7 Series Used Vehicle Review: 7 Series, 2002-2008 BMW reveals new 7 in Moscow BMW reveals new 7 Series Manufacturer’s web site BMW Canada Join Autos’s Facebook group Follow Autos on Twitter

Review and photos by Chris Chase

Find this vehicle in Autos’s Classified Ads

Photo Gallery:
2010 BMW 7 Series

Ottawa, Ontario – During my week in this BMW 750Li, a friend of mine asked me a great question. He wanted to know if I thought uber-luxury cars like the 7 Series represented a diminishing return of sorts, as far as value for the transportation dollar is concerned. It was a good question because it made me wonder how many buyers in this segment even give value for dollar a second thought.

Ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of the time, a $15,000 car will get you where you’re going just as well as one with this big Bimmer’s $136,000 tab. There’s no way anyone needs a car like this, but suggesting that everyone only drive as much car as they need is akin to going all communist on automotive enthusiasm, and we all know that communism only looks good in theory. In practice, if you can afford a car like this, why shouldn’t you have it?

2010 BMW 750Li xDrive. Click image to enlarge

The 7 Series is in its fifth generation now, having been redesigned in 2009; new for 2010 is the availability of BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive system. The 7 Series’ starting price is $105,200 for the 750i, while the long-wheelbase 750Li opens at $113,600, and choosing xDrive adds a significant $3,400 to each. And don’t forget the V12-powered 760Li and gas-electric motivated ActiveHybrid 7, both of which are set to join the 7 Series line-up later this year.

As such, my 750Li xDrive tester was worth $116,600 to start. To that number, BMW added nearly $20,000 in options, for a $136,600 7 Series.

A better question than “why not” might be who gets more out of a car like this: the driver, or the rear seat passenger? Those in coach get more luxury here than those riding up front in most vehicles, including near-limousine legroom, three-step heated seats and automatic climate control, not to mention the power sunshades and lighted vanity mirrors.

So, if you’ve bought one of these to be driven around in, is there anything for the chauffeur to be excited about?

Of course there is. This is a BMW, after all. For all of this car’s size – the 750Li is nearly 76 cm longer and 7.6 cm wider than a 3 Series sedan – it’s just as entertaining to drive as any of the company’s cars.

The 7 Series comes standard with BMW’s Dynamic Driving Control. Cycle through its four settings – Comfort, Normal, Sports and Sports+ – and you can adjust the car’s Dynamic Damping Control suspension and Dynamic Stability control as well as the automatic transmission’s manual shift control, throttle response and steering assist.

2010 BMW 750Li xDrive. Click image to enlarge

The system’s effect is most obvious on the suspension. Normal feels like it, while Comfort might be the preferred setting for when royalty (or your mother-in-law) is riding in back. The Sport modes firm the ride up. It’s the last and stiffest setup, Sport+, that most effectively makes this big sedan drive like a much smaller car. It also increases the effective ratio of the Active Steering System and reduces the amount of steering assist. Whether you like this sort of electronic driver “aid” (for lack of a better term), Dynamic Driving Control really works to improve the car’s responsiveness in spirited driving, without taking away from steering feel, which is what I find most impressive.

My tester had the $6,500 M Sport Package, which includes BMW’s Dynamic Drive active roll stabilization system, which BMW says helps the 7 Series corner flatter and reduces under- and over-steer. To put it in more tangible terms, I found myself hustling the 750Li through gaps in highway traffic like a car half its size.

The brakes are as aggressive as they look, filling up my test car’s M Double Spoke 20-inch wheels. Pedal feel is terrific, and the brakes are never grabby, despite being able to haul this heavy car to a stop in what seems like no time.

The 2010 7 Series is the first to be offered with BMW’s xDrive all-wheel system, so that all three of the company’s four-door sedan models – 3, 5 and 7 Series – can be had with it. No doubt this is an effort to compete more closely, model for model, with Audi, whose quattro system is a household name. Not quite so for xDrive, but it’s an excellent setup that routes 60 per cent of the engine’s power to the rear wheels to maintain the brand’s trademark rear-wheel drive performance. In slippery conditions, though, all of the engine’s torque can be sent to either the front or rear axle via a multiplate clutch “power divider.” And xDrive and the car’s Dynamic Stability Control system (DSC) work together to shift power side-to-side if necessary, so that the car will still move if only the wheels on one side of the car have traction.

2010 BMW 750Li xDrive. Click image to enlarge

The roads were clear for most of my week in this car, but in the few opportunities I had to play in the snow, xDrive proved as handy in this big 7 as it has in any BMW I’ve had the pleasure to drive in the winter. Key to xDrive’s performance, says BMW, is its interaction with the company’s Dynamic Traction Control (DTC) system, which actually allows the drive wheels to spin briefly before stepping in, in the interest of enhancing traction. DTC will also let the car drift around slippery corners, creating a sportier driving experience than you’d perhaps expect in a car with this much electronica packed into it.

The 7 Series’ base engine is a 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 that makes 400 horsepower and 450 lb-ft of torque, the latter of which peaks at 1,750 r.p.m. It’s that torque that helps the 2,140 kg (4,640 lb) 750Li xDrive lunge off the line when the throttle is floored. At speed, the car’s heft is both a blessing and a curse. The car has a wonderful, planted feel on the highway, but there’s less full-throttle thrust than I expected in passing manoeuvres. This isn’t to say that the car isn’t quick, but I’d call it swift and smooth, rather than fast and furious.

For all that BMW has disguised a driver’s car in limo-esque livery with the long-wheelbase 7 Series, this car is about as far from furious as it gets. Coddling is closer to it, with BMW’s typically comfortable front seating, with heating and cooling functions, and thanks to the $7,700 Executive Package in my tester, a massage function to reduce fatigue during long drives.

2010 BMW 750Li xDrive. Click image to enlarge

The Executive Package also includes an automatic trunk, soft-close doors and a leather-covered upper dash panel. It also brings a few safety-related features, including a rear-view camera, front side-view camera and a head-up display.

The Technology Package, worth $5,500, adds lane departure warning, active blind spot detection, automatic cruise control with stop and go, and night vision with pedestrian detection. I found the blind spot detection system to be one of the most effective I’ve tried: as well as activating a warning light in the side view mirror as other such setups do, BMW’s sends vibrations through the steering wheel rim to warn of a car in your blind spot if you signal a lane change.

The automatic cruise control system works as well as any of these setups in that it reliably maintains a set distance between your car and the one in front. Beware, though, the car’s reaction to the lane in front of it opening up: rather than leisurely accelerating back up to the set speed, the system throttles way up, and the sudden burst of power is unsettling for the uninitiated.

I didn’t need the night vision system to avoid any errant pedestrians, but it’s fun to play with just to see how it displays an image based on the temperatures of the objects it picks up. I could see this being very handy on rural night drives where deer and other wildlife wandering into the road are a collision risk.

The front side-view cameras, one in the leading edge of each front wheel arch, are handy for peeking out into the traffic lane in parking lots before driving out of a spot, or, in my case, peering around the tall snowbanks on either side of my driveway to check for approaching cars before pulling out into the street. But out of all the gadgets in this car, the head-up display, which beams the car’s speed onto the windshield, just below the driver’s line of sight, was the one I appreciated the most in a car whose smooth and swift comportment on the highway makes it easy to lose track of just how fast you’re going.

2010 BMW 750Li xDrive. Click image to enlarge

EfficientDynamics is BMW’s overarching drive to proclaim its concern for all things ecological, without diluting the brand’s long-standing commitment to driving enjoyment. It makes its most prominent appearances in the company’s hybrid models (the ActiveHybrid X6 and 7 Series), but it gets some play in the regular 7 as well. A small section in the fuel consumption gauge indicates when the Brake Energy Regeneration system is active. It sounds like something straight out of a Prius, but it’s actually BMW’s new take on the tried-and-true alternator, the (normally) belt-driven device charged with generating electricity to power a car’s electrical accessories while preventing the battery from going dead. In BMW’s system, electricity is only generated when the car is coasting (but monitors the battery’s state of charge and will cut in if the battery voltage drops below a certain point), a feature the company says is designed to reduce drag on the engine. This, says BMW, both improves performance and lowers fuel consumption by up to three per cent.

Whether the three per cent claim is true I can’t say, but in cold weather, my tester averaged 17.5 L/100 km in mostly city driving, against official ratings of 14.4/9.1 L/100 km (city/highway).

BMW’s iDrive system remains an integral part of the 7 Series’ dash, but the latest version is a real improvement over the previous generation of the interface, with fewer steps required to carry out most adjustments. The primary climate controls and radio preset buttons on the dash, as well as the buttons surrounding the iDrive knob, eliminated the need to go into the system itself for much at all. I still don’t love these electronic control interfaces, but I’ve made peace with this one. Like them or not, an iDrive-style device is a necessary evil in a car that packs this much technology, lest you wind up with a dash loaded with difficult-to-decipher buttons.

The climate control system includes BMW’s “rest” function – indicated by the three wavy lines next to the temperature readout – which allows the heater to supply warm air to the cabin even with the engine off.

2010 BMW 750Li xDrive. Click image to enlarge

Regarding the rest of the interior, fit and finish was excellent. My only quibble – a minor one – is the lack of LED interior lighting. The use of incandescent lightbulbs that can probably be replaced at any auto parts store is incongruous in a six-figure car that seemingly includes every other bit of modern automotive technology.

The fully-lined trunk measures 500 litres (17.7 cu. ft.) in volume and is a useful enough shape, but the rear seats don’t fold; in fact, there isn’t even so much as a pass-through for skis or other long objects. I wonder, though, if a typical shopper in the 7 Series’ segment would even give these minor quibbles of mine a second thought.

Certainly, even luxury car buyers take value into account, which is why some might be swayed by the fact that a long-wheelbase Audi A8 L, with its 350-hp V8, starts at “just” $100,000 (including standard all-wheel drive), while a 382-horsepower Mercedes-Benz S550 4MATIC comes with a price of $123,500 before options, and that doesn’t take into account the different driving experiences that each of these big Teutons offer.

Which brings me back to my original question: you could not, in a million years, convince me that a car like the 750Li is a necessity, at least not compared to innumerable more affordable cars that come with the basics in modern safety kit and are arguably as comfortable and entertaining to drive.

So, yes, the 750Li is a diminishing return on wheels, but it’s impossible to deny its appeal. Indeed, if you can afford something like this, why shouldn’t you have it?