2002 BMW 5-Series Pros and Cons at TrueDelta: Owner Pros and Cons by pcdoc54

Handling

This car is a sleeper ... it looks like any average 4 door sedan, and then you put your foot on the gas and POWER! My 530i has over 127000 miles on it and it still delivers amazing performance - acceleration, handling, you name it, BMW definitely deserves the catch-phrase "ultimate driving machine". Sadly the cost of keeping it running at 127000+ miles is getting ridiculous, so I have to start thinking of replacing it.

Exterior styling

I love the exterior styling of the 2002 530i. Really not a fan of the changes they made after that model year. It is very understated but also very classy.

Reliability & durability

I picked the above "reason" because it's the worst feature of an otherwise perfect vehicle. The durability of the interior is quite frankly an embarassment. I've lost the buttons for max for the heater, up for the driver side temerature, and the top button for the airflow direction .... don't ask me where they went, they just disappeared! I've broken the drivers side cup holder (and come on ... how pathetic are those cup holders!), and once it breaks, it no longer clicks back into the closed position so now I have a half a cup holder sticking out. One other grievance relating to interior durability ... the plastic footrest (left foot) down below the hood lever also fell apart. The plastic just broke away in

Controls and instruments

One other pet peeve, ever since I got this car ... if you want to put the windshield defogger on, it has one setting ... FULL BLAST! Try to turn it down a tad and it switches to cabin ventilation instead.

Front seat support & comfort

This is technically not front seat comfort, but the heated front seat leaves something to be desired. At the lowest setting it actually gets uncomfortably hot below my left thigh, while the rest of the seat and back stay perfectly fine. This may be age related (the car not me) but again ... I've had other cars with heated seats and never noticed this issue.