2012 BMW 528i Long-Term Update 3 - MotorTrend Magazine
Now that our long term BMW 528i has wound over 17,000 miles onto its odometer and we have all of our track test numbers in hand, we're finally in a position to address what I've called this car's Big Trade-off: Is it really both Efficient and... Recently I'd begun to address the car's mileage when its overall mileage (since arrival) had settled-down at 24. 8 mpg. And when I say 'settled down' I really mean it. Despite its seeing a bunch of mileage-helping long-distance highway drives since then, these have only fractionally elevated overall number, now at 25. 1 mpg. In other words, the 528i, in our hands, is basically a 25 mpg car (the EPA's combined number is 27). Here's a graph I showed you last time (updated with our latest figures), but I'm presenting it again because I think it's a nice reminder of why... And notice again that it's taken until about the 7000 miles before we have a number we can confidently point to. So here's the question: is a car that returns 25. 1 mpg, and scoots to 60 mph in 6. 2 seconds, a car that's simultaneously 'Efficient'... And so in the next two graphs I've plotted the cars' EPA combined mpg's (along the bottom, X-axis) against their. Source: www.motortrend.com
