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Hartge’s Kit for BMW 528i Gives You a 4 Second Advantage over Stock Cars

Now that BMW’s line-up is made up entirely of turbocharged cars, the tuners all over the world can rejoice and prosper, offering piggyback upgrades. Some of them have been doing this for quite a long time, like our friends over at Hartge.
BMW 5 Series by Hartge 1 photo
Photo: Hartge
They’ve been dealing with BMWs for 43 years even back in the day when every car the Bavarians made was using a naturally aspirated engine. All that level of expertise is translated into some of the best upgrades you can get for your Bimmer, in the world. That’s because the tuner ships worldwide and installing the upgrade is really easy to do.

Their latest Youtube video is showing, quite clearly, how much better their upgraded 528i car is compared to the stock model. BMW will sell you such a 5 Series for $49,500 with the sport automatic gearbox included in the US.

For that kind of money you get a 2-liter, 4-cylinder turbocharged engine making 245 HP and 350 Nm (258 lb-ft) of torque that is quite capable on everyday driving, turbo lag being reduced to a minimum. We sampled this unit on a 4 Series Convertible that has almost the same weight as the 528i model and we found it pretty satisfactory.

However, the ‘level-up’ model, the 535i requires quite a hefty premium over this one. Starting at $55,100, you’ll have to pay nearly $6,000 more for the extra 2 cylinders, 60 HP and 50 Nm of torque you get. That leaves a pretty wide gap between the two, one that could be filled by a tuned model, just like the one in the video below.

Hartge offers a kit that takes your 528i up to 286 HP and 410 Nm (302 lb-ft) of torque, right in the middle between the two BMW models from the horsepower point of view.

The performance gain is best observed in an all-out sprint between 80 and 200 km/h (50-124 mph), as shown below, where the Hartge car is faster by 3.97 seconds than the stock one.

The best part is that the German tuner asks only $2,300 (€1,687.5) for the plug and play kit and not $6,000 as BMW does for the 535i. Sure, you don’t get to play around and listen to 6 cylinders but you do get more torque to trash the rear wheels.

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