2017 BMW 7 Series

2017 is the second US model year of the G11/G12 generation and a carry-over for the volume 740i, whose B58 3.0L turbocharged inline-six is rated 320 hp at 5,500 rpm; the 335-hp re-rate does not arrive until the 2020 LCI. Adequate rather than commanding for a full-size luxury sedan — the headline numbers in this lineup belong to the V8 and the new-for-2017 V12 above it.

330 lb-ft from a low-boost turbo six on a plateau that starts at roughly 1,380 rpm, which is why the car steps away from rest more convincingly than the 320-hp figure implies. Torque is the stronger of the two output figures against the sedan field.

5.1 seconds to 60 mph for the all-wheel-drive 740i xDrive, the volume gas configuration, with the rear-drive car three tenths behind at 5.4 — genuinely quick for a two-ton-plus luxury sedan and comfortably above the sedan-field midpoint, while a long way short of the V8 and V12 cars in the same showroom.

The B58 is one of the smoothest and quietest turbocharged engines on sale in 2017 — reviewers consistently describe seamless thrust with no perceptible lag, inside a cabin already engineered for isolation. It stops short of the top of the band because this trim has no electrified torque fill (that is the new 740e's job), stop-start restarts remain faintly detectable, and the extra acoustic glazing and revised engine calibration of the 2020 facelift are still three years out.

The ZF-sourced eight-speed Steptronic is the benchmark torque-converter automatic of its era — decisive on kickdown, essentially imperceptible in normal driving, and it does not hunt between ratios; on this generation it also reads navigation and radar data to pre-select gears for the road ahead. It sits a shade below the top of the band only because the LCI later brought a revised, efficiency-optimized calibration of the same unit.

xDrive covers the whole 2017 range — an option on the 740i and 750i and standard on the 740e, Alpina B7 and M760i — so no buyer has to give up a trim to get all-wheel drive. It is a competent rear-biased on-road system with brake-based intervention, but there are no terrain modes, no low range and no torque-vectoring rear differential, which is the practical ceiling for a full-size luxury sedan.

2017 is the year the G11 lineup filled out completely: four genuinely distinct powertrains on one platform — a 320-hp turbo six, the new 740e xDrive iPerformance plug-in hybrid pairing a 2.0L four with an electric motor for 322 hp combined, a 445-hp twin-turbo V8, and the new 601-hp twin-turbo V12 M760i — plus the Alpina B7's 600-hp V8. Only the absence of a battery-electric option and the modest 9.2-kWh plug-in battery keep it off the top of the band.

EPA rates the 2017 740i xDrive — the volume gas configuration — at 22 MPG combined on premium fuel, two MPG behind the rear-drive car. A 4,600-lb full-size sedan with a 320-hp turbo six and no electrification on this trim lands in the bottom third of the gas-sedan band; the 48-volt mild-hybrid assist that would soften this is still several years away.

19 MPG on the EPA city cycle. With no hybrid assist on this trim, auto stop-start is the only urban economy measure the car carries, and the two-MPG penalty against the rear-drive 740i is the cost of the xDrive hardware being dragged through stop-and-go work.

28 MPG highway is where the car is at its best — a slippery body and tall eighth-gear cruising leave the six barely loaded at a steady 65 mph. Respectable for the size and mass, but still well short of what the efficient mainstream cars anchoring the top of the sedan band return.

The 20.6-gallon tank at the EPA's 22 MPG combined works out to roughly 453 miles for the 740i xDrive — genuine interstate touring range for a car built to cross states in one sitting, though the middling combined figure holds it mid-pack rather than exceptional. Confidence is MEDIUM because fueleconomy.gov does not publish a Total Range row for this vehicle, so the figure is the product of two HIGH-confidence inputs rather than a directly quoted number.

EPA puts annual fuel spend at $3,450 for the 740i xDrive at standard assumptions, and notes owners spend $6,250 more on fuel over five years than the average new vehicle. A weak combined figure multiplied by a premium-grade requirement pushes it past the top of the sedan band — running cost is comfortably this car's worst efficiency dimension.

EPA lists the 2017 740i as premium gasoline REQUIRED — not merely recommended, as later B58 model years are classified — so the highest-priced grade at the pump is a condition of ownership rather than a suggestion, and every gas trim in the range shares it. It sits at the top of the low band rather than the bottom because there is no plug, no charging logistics and a large 20.6-gallon tank, so keeping it fuelled is otherwise as simple as motoring gets.

NHTSA carries both 2017 7 Series drivelines in its database but has never crash-tested either: every frontal, side, pole and rollover sub-rating returns "Not Rated". Per the framework's allowZero definition of this item, the value is the sentinel for absent data, not a zero-star crash result. Low-volume German luxury flagships are routinely skipped, and this is unchanged across the whole G11/G12 run.

IIHS has never published a crashworthiness result for any model year of the G11/G12 7 Series — no small overlap, moderate overlap, side, roof strength or head restraint rating exists, and the car appears on no Top Safety Pick list. BMW's own 2017 award announcements name the X1, 2 Series and 3 Series, never the 7. There are no adverse findings either, so this is an absence of independent verification rather than evidence of weakness: a buyer gets zero third-party crash data on an $82k sedan. Held just below the untested-peer benchmark because neither US crash-test body has touched the car.

None of the five checklist features is standard on the 2017 740i. Automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, blind-spot detection and the surround-view camera all sit inside the $1,900 Driver Assistance Plus package; adaptive cruise, lane keeping and Traffic Jam Assistant sit inside the separate $1,700 Driver Assistance Plus II. The as-delivered base car has stability control, airbags, a reversing camera and front/rear park distance control and nothing else — a genuine gap on an $82,495 flagship, and the reason MY2019 later made Active Driving Assistant standard. Scored in the low band as "significant safety features locked away," lifted off the floor because everything is at least orderable on every trim and the parking hardware is standard.

The system is capable but neither fitted as standard nor independently verified. Frontal Collision Warning with City Collision Mitigation and Daytime Pedestrian Protection is a $1,900 package item, and it is calibrated as a city-speed autonomous-braking function with warning and brake assist above that rather than a full-speed-range AEB; pedestrian recognition is daytime only. IIHS has never run front crash prevention on the 7 Series, and the nighttime pedestrian evaluation did not exist in 2017. Bottom of the middle band: adequate daytime capability when ordered, no night/pedestrian strength, no third-party result, and absent entirely from a base car.

Active Blind Spot Detection — rear radar with a mirror indicator and a haptic steering-wheel warning if the driver signals into an occupied lane — is orderable on every 2017 trim but only inside the $1,900 Driver Assistance Plus package, so the volume car as configured has no blind-spot coverage at all. Cross-traffic warning is a further step up: it belongs to Active Driving Assistant Plus in the separate $1,700 package rather than travelling with the blind-spot hardware the way MY2019's standard Rear Cross-Traffic Alert does. Available on every trim and alert-only puts this at the bottom of the middle band.

Nothing lane-related is standard, and the two halves are split across two different packages: Lane Departure Warning rides in the $1,900 Driver Assistance Plus, while Active Lane Keeping Assistant with side collision avoidance and the Traffic Jam Assistant that does the actual centering are in the $1,700 Driver Assistance Plus II — roughly $3,600 of options before the car keeps its own lane. When fitted, centering was the weakest part of this generation's assistance suite: instrumented press evaluation of the same system generation found persistent ping-ponging, with continuous left-right corrections on dead-straight freeway. Optional twice over, plus documented wander, places it at the top of the low band.

The capability is the right one — Active Cruise Control with Stop & Go, full speed range down to a standstill and back, paired with Traffic Jam Assistant for hands-on lane centering below roughly 40 mph. Two things keep it out of the top band. It is not fitted equipment: a base 740i has plain cruise control until the buyer adds the $1,700 Driver Assistance Plus II package. And the combined highway assist is less integrated than what BMW later offered, since the 2017 car has no Extended Traffic Jam Assistant tier tying centering, following and driver monitoring together on mapped highways — that arrives on the 7 Series only with the MY2020 update.

No hands-free driving is available on the 2017 7 Series at any price. BMW's Extended Traffic Jam Assistant — the driver-facing-camera-policed hands-off system — did not launch anywhere in the range until the 2019 model year (3 Series, 8 Series, X5, X7) and did not reach the 7 Series until MY2020. The 2017 car's ceiling is hands-on Traffic Jam Assistant inside a $1,700 package. Scored in the low band as an outright absence.

This is the one part of the 2017 car's safety equipment that is genuinely standard and genuinely good: every 7 Series leaves the factory with Adaptive Full LED headlights — variable light distribution, cornering function and automatic high beams — with BMW Laserlight optional, the G11 having been among the first production cars offered with laser high beams. Strong hardware across the whole range is what the top band asks for; what it lacks is verification, since IIHS has never published a headlight rating for the 7 Series, and the US regulatory beam-range cap blunts the Laserlight option's advantage relative to the same car elsewhere.

Natural sightlines are ordinary for the class — a tall beltline, thick C-pillars and a shallow backlight pinch the over-shoulder view, and 207 inches of body make placement in tight spaces a guess without help. The 2017 car's standard compensation stops at a reversing camera plus front and rear park distance control; the Surround View 3D camera and Parking Assistant are bundled inside the $1,900 Driver Assistance Plus package, so unlike the MY2020 car (which made Parking Assistant Plus standard) or even the 2019 car (a $700 standalone Parking Assistance Package), a buyer here cannot get the 360-degree view without also buying the whole driver-assistance bundle.

Space is the strong suit: about 44 inches of rear legroom and wide rear door openings make a rear-facing seat easy to load and still leave room for a tall front occupant, and the standard bench seats three abreast. Hardware and configuration hold it out of the top band — LATCH is the usual two outboard sets with lower anchors buried in the leather seat bight rather than on easy-access rails, IIHS has published no LATCH ease-of-use rating for the 7 Series, and the optional $3,900 Luxury Rear Seating Package replaces the center position with a console, cutting the car to two rear seats.

The volume 740i carries the standard three-place rear bench for five occupants, the maximum a full-size sedan offers. Buyers who option the rear-console packages trade the centre seat for two reclining thrones — a capacity downgrade and an everything-else upgrade.

Just shy of 40 inches and near the top of the sedan band, and the figure is honest in a way many are not — BMW publishes it with the moonroof in place rather than quoting a sunroof-delete best case, so it is the headroom a real 740i buyer gets.

The one interior dimension where this car is merely ordinary — the US-only long-wheelbase G12 body put its extra length behind the B-pillar, so the driver sits in roughly the space a mid-size sedan provides. A long seat track and power column make it workable for tall drivers, but the number itself sits low in the sedan band.

38.9 inches puts the second row at the top of the sedan band, achieved despite a tapering roofline and glass overhead. Adults over six feet sit upright in back without ducking, which is the whole point of the car.

Limousine territory, and it tops the sedan band outright because the only 7 Series BMW sold in the United States for 2017 was the stretched body — there is no short-wheelbase version diluting the figure. This is the car's single strongest measured attribute.

18.2 cubic feet is a genuinely large trunk with a wide, square opening and a power-closing lid — four large suitcases fit without stacking. Well up the sedan band, though the rear seats are fixed on the standard car, so the published volume is all the volume there is.

Ordinary for the money. There is a covered console bin, a cupholder pair, useful door pockets and a standard wireless charging cradle in the armrest, but nothing inventive: no underfloor cubbies, no fold-flat surfaces, no household outlet, and fixed rear seatbacks so the trunk cannot be extended. The rear storage cabinet and the removable 7-inch Touch Command tablet arrive only with expensive rear-seat packages that also delete a seat.

Power-adjustable heated leather front seats with memory and a power column are standard, on a car whose second row is the reason it exists — 44.4 inches of legroom, deep cushions and a reclining backrest. It stops short of the top band because on the volume 740i the multi-contour seats, ventilation, massage and rear power recline all live in the Executive and rear-seating packages, so a base car is comfortable rather than indulgent.

Two-axle self-levelling air suspension with Dynamic Damper Control is standard on every 2017 740i, and reviewers describe a ride that erases broken pavement without the float that afflicts soft luxury sedans. The optional camera-based Active Comfort Drive with Road Preview reads the surface ahead and retunes the dampers in milliseconds. Near the top of the segment, held back only because sharp impacts still register and the S-Class retains the edge in outright isolation.

Acoustic glazing, the Carbon Core body structure and thorough sealing give this car a hush reviewers describe in absolute rather than segment-relative terms. It sits just below the class ceiling because the pre-facelift car lacks the extra laminated glazing BMW added with the 2020 LCI, and standard run-flat tires transmit more coarse-surface roar than conventional rubber would.

Four-zone automatic climate control, heated front seats, a moonroof, soft-close doors and ambient lighting in six colours are all standard on the base 740i — an unusually complete comfort baseline, and the standard-for-2017 Display Key pre-conditions the cabin without a phone. What holds it out of the top band is that the heated wheel and heated rear seats need the Cold Weather Package, ventilation and massage need the Executive and rear-seating packages, and the Ambient Air fragrance system and Sky Lounge glass roof are separately priced.

The 2017 entry trim is the rear-drive 740i at $81,500 plus BMW's $995 destination charge. That is the floor of an unusually wide ladder — 2017 is the model year the lineup reached full width, topping out at $153,800 for the new M760i xDrive.

All-wheel drive arrived on the 740i for 2017 (2016 offered xDrive only on the 750i), making the 740i xDrive the volume US gas configuration at $84,500 + $995 destination. Virtually none were delivered at sticker: BMW's à-la-carte option model left adaptive cruise, surround-view cameras, Apple CarPlay and the Executive/Luxury Seating content all on the order sheet, typically pushing real window stickers into the low-to-mid $90,000s.

2017 is the model year BMW cut included maintenance from 4 years/50,000 miles to 3 years/36,000 miles, so a 2017 owner is exposed a full year earlier than a 2016 owner of the identical car — and years 4–5 are where a full-size German flagship gets expensive: run-flat tires, big-rotor brake service, and out-of-warranty air-suspension and electronics risk. Near the top of the sedan cost band, which is the right place for this car.

The 7 Series is among the fastest-depreciating vehicles sold in the US, and the early G11 years were the worst of it — the 2017 car shed roughly two thirds of its delivered price by 2022 and has kept falling since. This is the single largest dollar cost of owning the car and the reason a decent warranty and free maintenance cannot rescue the category.

BMW's New Vehicle Limited Warranty ran 4 years/50,000 miles for 2017 — a year longer than the 3/36 mainstream standard and the norm among German luxury rivals, but nothing exceptional against the scoring band.

BMW offers no separate longer powertrain warranty; engine, transmission, transfer case and drivetrain coverage simply expires with the bumper-to-bumper term. Against a 5–10 year scoring band that is below the floor — a real and consequential weakness on a car whose out-of-warranty repairs are among the most expensive in the market.

Still comfortably in the top band — 3 years/36,000 miles of included scheduled maintenance under BMW Ultimate Care, plus 4 years of unlimited-mileage roadside assistance and BMW Assist/ConnectedDrive service trials. Held below the 2016 car and below where this would otherwise land because 2017 is precisely the year BMW cut the program: an identical 2016 7 Series came with 4 years/50,000 miles of BMW Ultimate Service, and BMW additionally charged $300 for Apple CarPlay on a car costing north of $85,000.

$93,000 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (37% retained, or about $34,410) leaves about $58,590 in depreciation. Add the projected $8,000 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $66,590 in total.

Sources land on "average to slightly above": J.D. Power gives the 2017 7 Series 3.5/5 predicted reliability, Consumer Reports rated the then-new generation average, and RepairPal puts it at 3.0/5 and 19th of 48 luxury full-size cars. Held in the middle band because 2017 is the second year of the G11 and the failure modes owners actually report are the expensive ones — air-spring and compressor failure, iDrive freezes and reboots, B58 coolant seepage, and parasitic battery drain from a car carrying gesture control, a Display Key and remote-control parking in their first production years.

The dependability study that surveys this exact model year is one of BMW's better ones: the 2020 VDS, fielded on three-year-old 2017 vehicles, put BMW at 123 PP100 against a 134 industry average and 8th of the industry — the strongest German result after Porsche, and far ahead of Audi (16th) and Mercedes-Benz (23rd). Comfortably above average and best-in-class among the 7 Series' direct German rivals, but outside the top five that the upper band requires, and BMW's initial-quality standing in the same period was only around par.

The recall record is genuinely clean — NHTSA lists zero safety recalls against the 2017 7 Series under any of its trim designations, where the 2019 and 2020 cars each carry one or two. What keeps it out of the top band is the service-bulletin record rather than the recall record: G11/G12 air-strut leaks were widespread enough that BMW issued a VIN-notified limited warranty extension to 8 years/80,000 miles, and the generation also accumulated iDrive software and battery-drain bulletins.

The volume 740i and 740i xDrive run the 3.0L B58 turbo inline-six through the ZF 8HP automatic — the most durable modern BMW combination, with a closed-deck block and an over-built bottom end that regularly clears 200,000 miles on routine oil changes, and nothing like the failures that dogged the N54 or the N63 V8 fitted to the 750i above it. A notch below the 2019 car only because 2017 is an early B58 build, before the TU revisions, and the known coolant-hose and expansion-tank seepage and crankcase-ventilation wear show up on these first-series engines.

BMW reserves its best materials for the flagship, and even the base 740i ships with leather upholstery plus genuine wood and aluminum trim, with quilted leather and heavier wood available above it; reviewers consistently describe the cabin as awash in high-end material. It stops short of class-leading because the contemporary W222 Mercedes-Benz S-Class was widely judged the more special-feeling room — a gap BMW itself addressed with the 2020 LCI.

Assembly is tight and the structure exceptionally solid — the G11 is built at Dingolfing on the Carbon Core passenger cell, a CFRP/high-tensile-steel/aluminium mix that cut 40 kg from the body while raising rigidity, and owner reviews show no pattern of rattles or panel-gap complaints. Held out of the top band because BMW's initial-quality standing in these study years is only around the industry average, with infotainment the dominant complaint category and G11 owners reporting iDrive freezes and unexpected reboots.

Roughly 340–350 BMW centers give dense metropolitan coverage nationwide, and routine service is prepaid — though 2017 is precisely the model year BMW cut included maintenance from 4 years/50,000 miles to 3 years/36,000 miles, so a 2017 owner leaves the free-service window a year earlier than the owner of an otherwise identical 2016 car. Service satisfaction is mid-pack rather than strong: BMW placed outside the luxury top five in the J.D. Power CSI of this period, and rural coverage thins out.

Parts are readily available and the independent BMW specialist and aftermarket network is large, but this is among the most expensive cars in the catalog to keep running, and the parts that fail on a G11 are the costly ones. Air struts, the self-levelling compressor and the iDrive/electronics modules are four-figure jobs and largely dealer-channel, and the 8-year/80,000-mile air-strut warranty extension that covered the known failure has long since lapsed on a 2017 car.

The G11/G12 was the first BMW with a touch-capable Control Display, and 10.25 inches was competitive in 2017 — a contemporary S-Class ran 12.3. There is no larger screen at any price on this car: the 2020 facelift kept the same panel and only the next generation moved to 14.9 inches.

iDrive 5.0 is quick and crisply rendered, and — unusually for 2017 — the standard car offers four parallel input methods: console rotary controller, the new touchscreen, voice and BMW's 3D-sensor Gesture Control, all included rather than optioned. That redundancy plus iDrive's well-drilled menu hierarchy is why it ranked among the best systems of its era. Below the later iDrive 6.0 cars because the graphics and tile personalization are a generation older, and gesture control is more party trick than daily tool.

Half the ecosystem, and it costs extra. 2017 is the first model year a US 7 Series could be ordered with Apple CarPlay at all — BMW's implementation was wireless from the outset, with no wired option — but it was a roughly $300 standalone option on iDrive 5.0 cars rather than standard equipment, and it only became standard on the 7 Series for 2019. Android Auto is simply absent: it required BMW Operating System 7.0 and arrived in July 2020, so no iDrive 5.0 car can ever have it. An Android owner gets nothing at any price.

Native navigation is the strength — standard full-map guidance on both the Control Display and the 12.3-inch cluster, with real-time traffic and send-to-car destinations, plus a head-up display repeat when optioned. Voice is the gap: iDrive 5.0 uses command-and-control speech recognition with limited natural-language handling, three model years before the 'Hey BMW' Intelligent Personal Assistant, so most owners fall back to the rotary controller. Functional rather than class-leading.

The base system is not a base system: a 16-speaker Harman Kardon surround setup is standard on the 740i, which is the paid premium upgrade in most rivals. Above it sits the Bowers & Wilkins Diamond Surround Sound system — 1,400 watts and 16 partly illuminated speakers, widely regarded as one of the two or three best factory installations sold in any car at any price. A point below the later cars only because the standard system's specification is documented secondhand rather than in BMW's own 2017 order guide.

A 12.3-inch fully digital cluster is standard on every 2017 7 Series, reconfiguring its layout and colour with the drive mode and able to carry a full navigation map alongside the gauges. Crisp hardware and a legible, conventionally-shaped gauge layout — arguably clearer than the pentagonal redesign the 2020 facelift brought. Short of the top only because the graphics are the pre-LCI generation's.

Real but narrow. The NBT EVO hardware behind iDrive 5.0 supports over-the-air map and connected-services updating, so navigation data refreshes without a dealer visit or a USB stick. BMW's Remote Software Upgrade — the whole-vehicle OTA that adds features to a car already parked in the driveway — requires Operating System 7.0 hardware, cannot be retrofitted, and did not reach the 7 Series until the 2020 facelift.

The BMW Connected app covers the core set — remote lock/unlock, vehicle locate, climate pre-conditioning and send-to-car destinations — and 2017 is the year the BMW Display Key became standard rather than an option: an LCD touchscreen fob that reports fuel and service status and pre-conditions the cabin with no phone involved, which nothing else in the class had. Held to the middle band because there is no phone-as-key (BMW's Digital Key launched July 2020 and excluded this generation), no remote surround view, and remote services lapse to a ConnectedDrive subscription after the included trial.

Wireless phone charging in the console armrest and a 4G LTE WiFi hotspot are both standard, which was ahead of the class in 2017, and rear passengers get their own console ports. The limits are that the rear ports are charge-only with no data, the front data ports are USB-A rather than USB-C, and there is no household AC outlet anywhere in the car. Adequate rather than abundant for a flagship.

Comfort Access proximity entry with push-button start, a hands-free power trunk lid and soft-close power doors are standard, and 2017 is the first year every US 7 Series shipped with the Display Key. Above that sits Remote Control Parking — the world's first production system that lets the car creep itself into a garage space with nobody aboard, operated from the key. Short of the top band only because phone-as-key never came to this generation.

Standard equipment is a rearview camera plus front and rear park distance control — competent, but for a 206.6-inch car the electronic view is the difference between parking it and guessing. The Surround View system, which on this generation added a 3D View and a Panorama View of cross traffic, plus the automated Parking Assistant, live in the Driver Assistance packages; the facelift later made them standard. Slightly below the 2019 car because the standalone parking package pricing was not yet as accessible.

The full-colour head-up display is excellent — BMW enlarged the projection area 75 percent for this generation, and it mirrors speed, navigation and assist status in the sightline — but it is standard only from the 750i up. On the volume 740i it cannot be ordered alone: reaching it means the Executive Package, which bundles it with Nappa leather, ventilated multi-contour seats, power sunshades and ceramic controls. Available and class-leading in quality, gated behind the most expensive comfort package on the trim most buyers take.

The raw space is outstanding — 44.4 inches of rear legroom and long, wide rear doors on the long-wheelbase-only US body make a rear-facing seat easy to fit while still leaving a tall front passenger room, and the standard bench takes three abreast with two LATCH sets outboard. What holds it mid-band is everything around the seats: anchors buried in the leather seat bight rather than on exposed rails, a low sedan floor that means lifting children down into the car, an 18.2 cu ft trunk that cannot be extended because the rear seats do not fold, and console and door storage too small for the bottle-and-snack overhead of daily family duty.

A family buying on published safety evidence gets none — neither NHTSA nor IIHS has ever crash-tested any G11/G12 7 Series, so there are no ratings at all on an $82k car. Worse for 2017 than for later years of the same car: the standard equipment is the Active Protection System (belt pre-tensioning, window closing, post-crash braking) and little else, because BMW did not make Active Driving Assistant — AEB with city collision mitigation, pedestrian warning, blind-spot detection, lane departure and rear cross-traffic alert — standard on the 7 Series until 2019. On a 2017 car every one of those, plus adaptive cruise with stop-and-go, is a Driver Assistance package option, and there is no rear-occupant reminder at any price.

Once everyone is aboard this is close to the ideal four-person tourer: the biggest trunk in the class at 18.2 cu ft swallows a family's luggage with the rear seat still occupied, quad-zone climate and a serene air-sprung ride keep everyone comfortable for hours, and a rear entertainment system with headrest screens and a removable Touch Command tablet is available. It stops short of the top band because the rear amenities that matter — heated rear seats (Cold Weather Package), rear ventilation and massage, sunshades, the entertainment screens — are all separately priced, and the fifth passenger in the middle seat is the one who suffers.

In moving traffic it is close to effortless — the B58 turbo six pulls its full torque from about 1,380 rpm so nothing requires a downshift, the eight-speed automatic is imperceptible, and the standard air suspension isolates broken city pavement. Two things keep it out of the top band: 206.6 inches of car in a lane makes low-speed placement a constant low-grade task, and the congestion tech that would fix the rest is optional — adaptive cruise with stop-and-go and Traffic Jam Assistant both sit in the Driver Assistance Plus package, so a base 740i crawls through traffic on plain cruise control.

Expensive per mile by any measure, and the worst of the four missions for this car: 24 MPG combined on required premium fuel works out to roughly $3,100–3,300 a year at 15,000 miles, and the consumables match the car rather than the commute — big wheels and tires, large brakes and BMW dealer rates once the complimentary maintenance period ends. The 740e xDrive PHEV added for 2017 exists precisely to fix this, but the gas 740i being scored here gets none of that benefit.

The footprint is the problem: 206.6 inches long on a 126.4-inch wheelbase with a 42-foot curb-to-curb turning circle means three-point turns on ordinary streets and genuinely tight parking structures. Standard help is only a rearview camera and front/rear park distance control — the 3D Surround View camera and Parking Assistant are package options, and the Integral Active Steering rear axle that actually shrinks the circle is another. Remote Control Parking, which drives the car into a tight space from outside, is a real and unusual answer to this, but it is optional and was restricted to the upper trims.

Not a work vehicle in any sense this item measures. BMW publishes no US tow rating for the 7 Series and offers no tow package on any 2017 trim, there is no bed or open load area, the cargo space is a sealed 18.2 cu ft trunk that cannot be extended because the rear seats are fixed, and the payload is people. The only credit is a powertrain that would never be strained by a load it is not permitted to carry.

The B58 inline-six and the eight-speed automatic underneath are genuinely durable units with a good long-term reputation, and that is the whole of the case. Everything wrapped around them is the opposite of work-tolerant: standard two-axle self-levelling air suspension with adaptive dampers, dense electronics, soft-close doors, a CFRP-intensive Carbon Core body whose repair requires certified facilities, and leather and wood surfaces with no wear-friendly alternative. No fleet presence and no commercial configuration exists.

Effectively nothing here: no bed, no tie-downs beyond a trunk net, no roof rails or published roof load rating, no hitch or upfit ecosystem, no onboard AC or exportable power, and no washable surfaces — the standard finish is leather under glass. The trunk's intrusive wheel houses further limit what bulky rigid objects will even go in.

This is what the car is actually for, and it is close to the best in the field. A 20.6-gallon tank at 24 MPG combined gives roughly 490 miles of EPA highway-weighted range, the standard air suspension keeps the cabin serene at speed, and the seats hold up over long stints in a cabin reviewers call tomb-quiet. It sits below the later cars of this generation for two specific reasons rather than any comfort shortfall: the 2020 facelift added acoustic glazing this body does not have, and the driver-assist half of the equation is optional here — full-range adaptive cruise and lane keeping both cost extra on the volume 740i.

xDrive all-wheel drive is available on the 740i and 750i and the air suspension can raise the body slightly, which covers a snowy driveway or a well-graded gravel road — that is the entire adventure case. There is no meaningful ground clearance, no terrain modes or low range, no roof rails or published roof load rating for a box or bikes, no US tow rating for a trailer, no onboard AC power for camp, and the rear seats do not fold flat for anything long.

Volume is genuinely good — 18.2 cu ft is the largest trunk in the full-size luxury sedan class and takes four large suitcases without argument, loaded through a hands-free power lid. Flexibility is where it collapses: the rear seats are fixed on the volume car with only an optional ski pass-through, the wheel houses intrude so long or rigid items will not lie flat, there is no underfloor storage, and with no roof rails or hitch there is no way to add capacity outside the car. Fine for luggage, poor for gear.

Impressively composed for a 4,225 lb car on a 126.4-inch wheelbase — the Carbon Core body is stiff, the standard two-axle air suspension with Dynamic Damper Control keeps it flat, and the optional Integral Active Steering rear axle and Active Comfort Drive roll control sharpen it further. Mid-band rather than high because the composure is engineered rather than innate: reviewers of this generation note the comfort settings leave it feeling loose in quick lane changes, and getting the agility means Sport mode and surrendering the ride the car is bought for.

Accurate and well weighted for the job — light at parking speeds, settling to a stable weight on the highway — but essentially devoid of feedback, and contemporary reviews of this generation call it numb even in the sportiest drive mode. Reviewers also flag the Sport setting as almost too direct for a car this long, needing constant small corrections at highway speed. The optional Integral Active Steering adds agility without adding information: precise but uncommunicative is the definition of the middle band.

Hardware and tuning are appropriate to the car's mass and speed: large vented discs at all four corners, a firm and progressive pedal, no fade complaints in period testing, and stopping distances for this generation measuring in the high 150-foot range from 70 mph. Upper-middle rather than top band because no instrumented 70–0 result was published for the 2017 740i specifically, so the assessment rests on other variants of the same platform and on qualitative press impressions.

Among the best-calibrated conventional drivetrains of 2017. The B58 turbo six delivers its full torque from about 1,380 rpm with no perceptible lag on tip-in, and the eight-speed Steptronic shifts imperceptibly in normal driving and decisively on kickdown without hunting between ratios. Two small deductions: stop-start restarts remain faintly detectable, and the later facelift brought a revised, wider-spread calibration of the same transmission this car does not have.

The inline-six is inherently balanced and this installation is isolated to near-inaudibility at a cruise; under hard throttle it produces a smooth, cultured note rather than strain, and nothing reaches the controls. It scores just below the facelifted cars of the same generation because the 2020 LCI added acoustic glazing and further insulation this body lacks, and short of the ceiling in absolute terms because the character is muted rather than rewarding — there is little here to listen to on purpose.

42 feet is outside the sedan band entirely, the direct consequence of the US market getting only the 126.4-inch long-wheelbase G12 body for this generation. The optional Integral Active Steering rear-axle system meaningfully reduces it, but it is a package option rather than part of the volume configuration.

Adjustability is a strong suit — power front seats with memory plus a power tilt-and-telescoping column accommodate a wide range of body sizes, ingress is easy through long doors onto a seat at natural hip height, and the standard 12.3-inch digital cluster keeps information in the sightline. Three things hold it below the top band: the console iDrive controller and its surrounding switchgear divide opinion on intuitiveness, the head-up display is locked inside the Executive Package on the volume 740i, and the tall beltline and thick pillars want the surround-view camera that is also an option on this model year.

Satisfying rather than fun. The 740i is quick — about 5.4 seconds to 60 in rear-drive form, 5.1 with xDrive — effortless and quietly impressive at speed, and there is real pleasure in how little the car asks of you. But with numb steering, a long-wheelbase-only body and a powertrain tuned toward serenity, it is a car you enjoy arriving in rather than one you take the long way home in. The character that would lift this score lives in the M760i V12 and Alpina B7 above it, not in the volume six.

A base 740i arrived with adaptive air suspension, adaptive LED headlights with auto high beams, a dual-pane panoramic roof, four-zone climate, leather and 10-way heated power front seats, power-closing doors, a hands-free trunk, the touchscreen Display Key, and 10.2-inch iDrive with a touch-enabled controller — genuinely well-equipped for the money. Kept out of the top band because the driver-assistance content that defined the car's marketing was almost all optional: adaptive cruise came only via the Driver Assistance Plus packages, surround-view cameras and night vision were extra, and Apple CarPlay cost $300.

On the window sticker the 740i is good value: it undercut the S-Class by roughly $15,000 while including the carbon-core chassis and air suspension as standard, and it transacted well below a $81,500 MSRP set against a $76,475 invoice. Over an ownership term the picture inverts — worst-in-class depreciation, no powertrain warranty past four years, and top-of-band maintenance and repair costs give back the purchase-price advantage and more.

2017 is the year this lineup reached its full width and about as wide as the segment gets: seven US variants from $81,500 to $153,800, four distinct powertrains plus the ALPINA, and rear- or all-wheel drive newly available on the entry car. The M760i xDrive V12, the 740e xDrive plug-in hybrid and the ALPINA B7 were all new for this model year.

9,276 US units in 2017, down 28.2% from the 12,918 of the 2016 launch year — a steep sophomore drop even allowing for launch-year pull-forward, and the start of a slide that continued into 2018. Respectable mid-pack volume for a shrinking full-size luxury sedan class, but the trajectory is the wrong way and the model never recovered its 2016 peak.

BMW is an aspirational global luxury brand with strong owner loyalty, but the halo sits with the 3 Series and the M cars rather than the flagship. In this class the S-Class owns the statement role, and the G11's deliberately restrained styling drew persistent criticism from launch for looking like an enlarged 5 Series — brand strength high, model-level desirability mid-pack, and the 28% sales drop in 2017 is consistent with that.

Strongly in the buyer's favor. Roughly $5,000 sat between MSRP and invoice on the 740i before any factory money, volume fell 28% against a 2016 comparison that left dealers long on inventory, and full-size luxury sedans carried the heaviest discounting and lease support in the US market through 2017. A notch below the 2019 run-out year only because the G11 was still current with no successor announced, so the discounting was ordinary rather than desperate.

A genuine strength of this model year and the clearest separation from the later pre-facelift cars. 2017 is only the second year of the G11 generation, and rather than a carryover it is the year the range filled out — the V12 M760i, the 740e plug-in hybrid, the ALPINA B7 and 740i xDrive all arrived. The platform tech was current-to-leading: carbon-core body structure, gesture control, wireless charging, the Display Key, and the LCI was still three years away.

The strongest press position this generation ever held, though still short of a class-winning consensus. The G11 took the 2016 World Luxury Car award — the top honor available to it — and reviewers rated it highly for ride, refinement, technology and the driver engagement its rivals lacked. It stops below the top band because in head-to-head comparisons the S-Class kept the crown on powertrain response and cabin theatre, and critics faulted the car for reserve rather than presence.