Luxury V-8 midsizers: BMW 550i vs. Infiniti M56 vs. Jaguar XF - Boston Globe
"I want to sleep in here," said my girlfriend Eliana, nestled in the BMW's cream leather seats. Indeed, our 550i had the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in, save for the same "multi-contour" seats in the bigger 7-Series. For $78,825 — a sky-high price for a midsize luxury sedan — BMW should include a real mattress. Yet not even the larger Audi A8 or the feather-sprung Mercedes S-Class coddle occupants like this BMW. And our car had a lot of silly trinkets, like soft-closing doors and a distracting night vision camera. The oddest feature has to be the regenerative braking system, something hybrid cars use to recharge their battery packs while coasting and stopping. At an observed 14 mpg, this 550i is no hybrid, and all the system does is make the car feel like it's dragging dead weight. Maybe the older, lighter 5 Series cars are the ones to have, like the E39 540i sport with the six-speed manual. The previous Infiniti M marked the last of the company's disjointed models that had tried and failed to imitate BMW. Source: www.boston.com
