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Bought a new car

Well after surviving for the last 12 or so months sharing a car with the wife, I decided that I needed a vehicle of my own again. Firstly I needed to figure out what I wanted from it. I've owned a wide variety of cars from hardcore offroaders to semi rally cars. After thinking for a while I came up with three criteria. I wanted an AWD SUV. I like going camping so I wanted something big enough to be able to throw the tent, bedroll etc in the back and head away for the weekend. Secondly I wanted it to have some grunt. As it will be pretty much a road going car, it's always good to have some urgency when you press the accelerator. Lastly, I wanted it to be fun to drive. I wanted it to put a smile on my face everytime I drove it.
After wading through the car classifieds for a few weeks, I narrowed the search down to two vehicles. Either a Mercedes AMG ML55 or a BMW 4.6IS. Both not very common in Australia. A very good BMW 4.6IS became available in Brisbane (1600km's from home) so I booked a flight and went up to have a look at it. After some negotiation I ended up buying the car. The fun part was I got to drive it home.
It's a rocket ship. 255KW's (I think that's around 350hp). Huge wide tyres so it sticks to the tarmac. Fantastic brakes etc etc. When you drive it, you easily forget that it's a 2 tonne plus SUV.
Anyway, here's a picture.


$BMW X5 pic.jpg
 

Legion

OTF jewel hunter
Staff member
Nice car John. That should be fun. Decent first drive, as well. Did you come down the coast way?
 
very nice! you couldn't go wrong with either option, though I am biased as I have family that works at MB.

(you might want to blur the number plate in your pic - or is that the QLD plate?)

congratulations - how was the fuel economy at highway speeds?
 
Legion - I came down the centre on the Newell Highway. I did Brisbane to Moree on day one and Moree to home on day two (15 hours).

chilliman64 - Yes, QLD plates. I'll wait until the rego is about to expire before sawapping them over to Vic plate. The fuel economy on the long run was remarkably good. I certainly didn't take it too easy and got 12.6l/100km's (18.7mpg). Running around Melbourne it's now around 16l/100km's (14.7mpg). I didn't buy it for it's fuel economy so I'm not complaining.
 
Nice choice.

Every time the topic of a new car comes up when the wife asks me what I want the answer is always the same and we don't get another car as she won't have what I want and that is all I am interested in getting so we soldier along with our old clunkers for another year.
 
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