2011 BMW 535i xDrive - Car and Driver
We’ve sampled a bunch of configurations of BMW’s latest-generation 5-series since it debuted about a year ago, but they’ve all been rear-drivers. Last fall, BMW launched the all-wheel-drive 535i xDrive, fitted with the most recent iteration of the company’s all-wheel-drive system. With the trailing edge of the Midwestern winter dropping the season’s last snow on us, we buckled up our test gear and set out to see how this all-weather sleigh stacks up against its predecessor and its current rear-drive siblings. Be it the V-8–powered 550i automatic or manual , the 535i automatic or manual , or the entry-level 528i , all members of the 5-series family are generally swift, cushy cruisers, with a competent chassis that connects all the dots, with one... This test car demonstrates what a vast improvement the new generation of BMW’s xDrive hardware represents over the last. The new version employs similar hardware to last year’s, but the car now sends more torque to the rear wheels during cornering and has adopted a much-faster-acting computer system. Like the old system, the 2011 535i xDrive’s has a default front-to-rear torque split of 40/60 percent. During cornering, the old all-wheel-drive 535xi maintained that split, but the new system moves to a 20/80-percent split to. Source: www.caranddriver.com
