| i have 530i. i love the car's looks and handling. i blow cars away on freeway turns all of the time - not many sports cars can hang with this sedan when it comes to hi speed turns. wish i had the 545 for off the line power, but the 530 is ok considering the cost and points of tickets in maryland. got a ticket for 87 first day i owned the car. i was on the brakes so hard - i figure i knocked at least 10-15 mph off my ticket by braking.
none the less here are my issues (i am not wasting my time w/ getting anything fixed):
1. I have received the DDS error once from going around a 90 degree turn floored from a dead stop. the system reset itself after a restart. however i notice my friends 545 has much tighter steering at low speeds like mine used to be...i don't think my low speed turning works any more.
2. Occasionaly when windows are going up on auto, they stop and go back down about 3/4 of the way up.
3. Once the radio quit working and the cd volume would not go up. after parking the car and taking the keys out of the ignition, the radio made an am sound that would not stop. i started and turned off the car three times and nothing would stop the noise. the next morning everything worked fine.
4. twice my instrument cluster has turned off while driving. doing 60-70 mph my speed said 0, the rpm said 0 and the electronics went out. i bet the lease milage was still working!!
5. this is what pisses me off the most...when i bought the car i was told by two dealerships that the new 5 had a "fiber optic modular network" that allowed components like nav, sirius and bluetooth to be loaded at any time. when i ordered my 5 i wanted the black interior w/ black wood - silver or grey exterior. the inventory at the time was low, so my options were slim to none. so i got one w/o nav knowing i could add it. i am now told the following from bmw:
1. you can never add nav to an 04 5 if it did not ship with nav
2. 04 5's with nav will never allow sirius to work
3. bluetooth does not have a release date
6. and last but not least is the idrive. it sucks. for example, while driving, try to adjust the level and temperature of the air blowing on your dates/passengers feet?? or, note that everytime you start the car the idrive does not know where you were last. so if you want to change the radio station via the idrive, you have to go through the entire menu system to get to the radio. the controls on the sterring wheel always remember. so somehow the sterring wheel without the computer is smarter than the new idrive system. nice job. not sure if this is the idrive or not, but you can't stop the cd. when you turn off the stereo via the dash dial the cd still plays?? try it and let me know if i'm iDrive challenged?
i am glad i leased this car. i would not want to own it once the warranties up!!! i am going to see if i can get another car over the nav problem. i get lost all of the time, so i would have never spent $55k on a car w/o nav. mercedes allowed all 03 e class owners to trade thier 03 cars in on 04s for free because thier nav never worked for that model year as promised when it released.
good luck to all. u have to admit the car is hot and handles better than 70% of of two door sports cars on the market. the 04 5 is ever bit of the ultimate driving machine when it works. | 
