Hello everyone,

Picked up our very first BMW, a 2006 530xiT, in Jan 2006. And after driving it for over a month, both my wife and I are so amazed this car is so well balanced among performance, handling, luxury feeling, and utility. Exactly the same as many expert/user review we have seen on various websites and car magazines.

The more we drive it, the more we appreciate this combination. I guess that's the main reason makes people getting a BMW into their garages. Although we must admit the good leasing program from BMW FS on this model was one of the main driver. And that deal contributes some weights to my comment above.

Anyway, so far, I am extremely satisfied except one thing. Nope, it is not the iDrive nor the inconsistent Comfort Access. Actually, the iDrive for the 5 series is considered simple if you compares to the first version of iDrive in the 7 series. Besides, I think with iDrive, it makes the dashboard less busy and clean. And the reaction of the CA is far more predicable than it was before. I am talking about the direction of downshift/upshift of the Steptronic.

Probably I do not accumulate enough driving experience yet. But at least for all other cars I've owned/driven, which have auto/manual slot setup in the vertical direction, they all have +/- instead of -/+. Cars I refere here are Lexus/Toyota, Honda/Acura, Subaru, Mazda, Porsche,..., etc. Hay, Even the volume control buttons on the steering wheel is +/-, also the CD/MP3 track buttons is Next/Previous.

So you do not feel this is annoying? Or this is one of the things makes BMW a BMW and is another learning curve I have to go through? I only hope the next generation of iDrive allows people to "program" the way how they want Upshift/Downshift it. That would be the real Utimate Driving Machine for me.