The BMW 5 Series Is About To Get Big Changes, But It Won’t Fix The Thing You Hate Most

In February, the CarBuzz spy photographers captured a very surprising sight. Not even a year after the latest BMW M5 debuted, BMW was already getting ready for a refresh. With such a hasty refresh coming, it was inevitable that we would see the refreshed version of the standard BMW 5 Series sooner rather than later. Now it’s been spotted, undergoing testing and getting ready for the road.

This facelifted 5 Series is showing changes at the front and the rear. Changes that will almost certainly come to the production version of the 5 Series long before the G60 model even has the chance to hit its third birthday.

Midsize BMW Will Get New Design Before A New Chassis

BMW’s styling of late hasn’t exactly been getting a ton of compliments. A range of big and little grilles and some strange lines have all put a damper on the look of the lineup. But BMW’s upcoming Neue Klasse designs give us hope for the next generation or two of the brand’s models. Jumping to that new look, not with just all-new cars but with refreshes as well, is a bold and strange move, but it’s one that might pay off.

The photos show a very heavily re-worked front end. The nose is mostly covered, and isn’t letting us see the details, but a much wider and shorter grille is immediately obvious. That’s the Neue Klasse look, coming to the 5 long before we would normally have expected it. Riveted-on panels conspire to hide the lower intakes, and to some extent the fenders, but we think you definitely get a good look as to what BMW has planned.

From the rear, this looks more like an Accord than a BMW, but it shows that there are serious changes coming. If the rear end was only getting a light touch-up, BMW wouldn’t have hidden it so well. New taillights are coming, along with a new bumper. Even the trunklid looks to be getting some reworking with the facelift, beyond just adding some space for the new taillamps.

Cabin Is Hiding BMW’s Latest Software

Only a little bit of the cabin is visible in the shots, but just covering it up shows that there will be changes. The dashboard screen looks only slightly changed versus the current 5, but our spies say that there will be changes behind the scenes.

It is expected to get BMW Operating System X. BMW’s newest software, which was revealed earlier this year along with the Panoramic iDrive system, offers higher levels of personalization. It features more advanced augmented reality systems and will have improved voice recognition capabilities.

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While this car appears to be the gas 5 Series (there is no telltale charge door on the left fender), the electric i5 will likely see the same styling changes sooner rather than later. Our sources say that the refreshed i5, as well as PHEV models, will also come with new-generation BMW electric motors, which should boost the efficiency of the latest mid-size BMW sedans. They won’t, however, do anything to cut the weight of the plug-in Bimmers. At least not by enough to be worth a mention.