Have you driven a F10 535DXdrive? You will get almost identical performance as the 535i and much better economy. I bought a loaded (LED Adaptive, Multi-Contour Seats, Luxury Line, and more) with 49K for $21.5 in August of this year. I immediately purchased a Rt66 warranty. Good Luck.

 

What Nosteroids said.

With my driving around 1k miles per week between my 100 mile per day r/t highway commute and having a life outside of work, whatever I own and drive absolutely HAS to be DIESEL powered. Gassers including hybrids are not an option at all. I am a former 3x VW TDI owner who migrated to BMW Advanced Diesel a couple of years before the VW Dieselgate scandal. I own a 2014 535dx with 149k miles and a 2012 X5 35d with only 252k miles and climbing. The X5 35d was a CPO in 2014 at 52k miles where the first owner threw a perfectly good car away by trading it in as soon as the factory warranty and free maintenance ended. Both cars have needed their share of regular maintenance but have been very reliable. Both cars are long term keepers (10+ years) and won't be for sale anytime soon. I have been driving less this year due to working remotely because of all of the Covid stuff.

The 535i has a spec'd 0.1 second faster 0-60 mph time than the 535d. The 1/4 mile time and speeds are similar. 0-60 times and 1/4 mile times and speeds really only matter when drag racing and don't tell the whole story. They say nothing about driveability. How the two cars drive are different. And while I like to drive spiritedly, I care more about overall driveability under normal everyday driving conditions than winning drag races.

I have driven a 535ix as a loner car for a day while my 535dx was in for service at my BMW dealer. I got to put the 535ix through its paces in a mixture of city and highway driving conditions on roads I'm very familiar with. I drive my 535dx in Sport mode all the time so I used Sport mode in the 535ix. With the i, the slightest application of power always required a downshift, whereas the d was better at holding the gear it was in and simply driving the diesel's torque. When pushed, the i required no less than 2 downshifts and crazy high RPMs to find some torque, whereas the d required only a single downshift. In the mixture of changing city and highway driving conditions, the i was all over the place with what gear it wanted to be in and had to constantly change gears to keep the engine in the power band. The d was overall more civilized and better at holding whatever gear it was in and simply driving the diesel's torque. Overall both cars got the same job done but the i was a lot busier in the process and consumed a LOT more fuel compared to the d. Needless to say, I was glad to get back into my 535dx at the end of the day.

The 535dx gets great fuel economy without having to use Eco mode or drive it "hybridly". The car doesn't need to "train the driver" to drive it for fuel economy. Just DRIVE it. I have also driven a 530e as a loaner car for a day and found it to be a gutless heavy pig compared to my 535dx. As for driveability, the 530e had nowhere near the low end grunt that the 535dx has because of the diesel's low end torque. The 530e got the job done but I came away feeling very underwhelmed by the 530e's performance.

Don't overlook a 535d if you want torquey performance and better fuel economy as a bonus.

 

If you're worried about deprecation, the 2016 is the way to go. Most of its deprecation of that car has already happened. The catch is that it's out of warranty and maintenance costs go up as cars get old and have more miles on them. If you bought the 2016 535i and put the extra $8300 aside for future maintenance and repairs, you'd be probably be money ahead by the time the 2018 530e's extended warranty ran out.

I guess the 530e is a plug-in. Non-plug-in hybrids don't get you anything in highway driving. Plug-ins help only if you have a place to plug them in.

Sam's Club Bottom Tire Gas, 87 AKI was $1.799/gallon yesterday when I drove by there yesterday. I paid $2.60/gallon for Top Tier Gas, 91 AKI the last few times. Fuel costs are a trivial part of the cost of driving a BMW. I have a 2014 535i, highly optioned ($73k MSRP), which as got 25.8 MPG since new. Here's what my costs have been for the first six years and 66k miles:

Running Total - Maintenance	$ 4,281.89
Running Total - Depreciation	$ 54,580.14
Running Total - Interest Cost	$ 3,541.66
Running Total - Property Tax	$ -
Running Total - Fuel Cost	$ 7,219.68
Running Total - Insurance Cost	$ 6,445.66
Running Total - Misc. Costs	$ 8,992.56
Running Total	$ 85,061.58

Depreciation on a newer BMW is the 600 pound gorilla in the room. I also got a 5% rebate ($360) on those fuel costs from credit cards.

Another thing to consider is "The Law Of Diminishing Returns" MPG is a bad metric. The higher the MPG, the less you accomplish by improving it further. If you drive 10k miles/year, going from 20 MPG to 30 MPG would save you 167 gallons of gas per year. But, going from 30 MPG to 40 MPG would only save you 83 gallons/year. VW built about 200 diesel-hybrids, the XL1, that got 260 MPG on the highway and probably over 100 MPG in town. But, they lost money on them, even selling them for $130k each. The CEO of VW didn't understand the Law Of Diminishing Returns, or more accurately didn't care.

Because of that 600 pound gorilla, I'm keeping my 535i a few more years. But, then I will likely replace it with a 530i, not a 530e. I don't want to give up the option of having a spare tire under the trunk floor. With G30's, you get choice of one: cavernous trunk, a spare tire, or hybrid batteries.

Four-cylinder BMW's get amazing fuel economy if you drive them in EcoPro mode, and you drive "hybridly." EcoPro's not used when getting the EPA fuel economy and emissions certifications though, since to do that they'd have to make EcoPro the default mode when you start the car up. Most people test driving a BMW with EcoPro as the default mode would ask the BMW salesman "WTF?" and then go buy an Audi.

I had a 2021 330i loaner for a week. Based on the one fill-up I did, the actual MPG was 6% lower than the displayed MPG. But, even accounting for that, I averaged 35 MPG, and got almost 40 MPG on the interstate at 78 MPH. I figure a 530i's MPG would be about 3 MPG less. I liked the size of the 330i for parking. But, I'm 6' 5" and the car is cramped for me. Also, I'm a big fan of the 5's Multi-Contour seats. The 330i's seats were nowhere near as comfortable. That'd make me pay an extra $10k to get a 530i.

Vehicle	Segment Description	Starting Trip Odometer (M1)	Starting MPG (E1)	Ending Trip Odometer (M2)	Ending MPG (E2)	MPG Correction Factor (%)	Segment MPG	Segment Distance	Segment Fuel Used
2021 BMW 330i	House to Cracker Barrel (PC) (AC)	0​	0​	16.6​	43.3​	-6.00%​	40.70​	16.6​	0.41​
2021 BMW 330i	Cracker Barrel-Bunker Cove Rd.-CVS-House (AC)	16.6​	43.3​	40.3​	41.4​	-6.00%​	37.76​	23.7​	0.63​
2021 BMW 330i	Total trip	0​	0​	40.3​	41.4​	-6.00%​	38.92​	40.3​	1.04​
2021 BMW 330i	331 & I-10 to I-10 & I-110, 78 MPH, AC	49.7​	40​	121.9​	41.3​	-6.00%​	39.71​	72.2​	1.82​
2021 BMW 330i	Total loan period	0​	0​	524​	37.4​	-6.00%​	35.16​	524​	14.90​

However, the most important considering is your wife's disposition. If she wants the 530e, that'd probably be the way to go. I don't now how it is in the SOL household, but I've found that Frau Putzer's unhappiness is highly contagious.