Thought I'd drop in some ownership thoughts following a month of ownership of an E90. It's actually my wife's car, but I've probably driven a similar number of miles overall since purchase.
For background, used to have an E46 330i sport saloon, and more recently a Volvo S60 D5, so a lot of comparative comments will be aimed at those.
The car is an E90, 330i SE touring, with iDrive, SatNav, sports seats (VERY rare in an SE), Xenons etc
Lets get the bad things out of the way first:
- Fuel economy is as bad as expected. Almost all in town mileage, and it's on 18mpg, which is very similar to the E46. As it uses the same N52 engine as the E46, not at all unsurprising. We don't do many miles/year so frankly, I'm not worried
- Wasn't originally specced with Ipod control or Bluetooth, despite some of the other options chosen. Both would have been useful, but neither are killers. Unfortunately they're ridiculously expensive from BMW as an aftermarket fit, so I'll be investigating Parrot bluetooth options. There is a workaround for the Ipod with a mini-jack input in the centre console, but that does mean you need to change tracks using the Ipod itself
- I cannot believe that the SatNav doesn't accept postcodes, there's not even an firmware update to add it, which IMO puts it as worse than my 7 year old TomTom. Taking into account the cost to originally fit, and the first owner must have been nuts to pay all that.
- As it has iDrive, there appears to be no option to replace the existing factory fit stereo with something better from say Alpine. So if you're thinking of buying an E90, I'd consider suggesting you buy a non-iDrive unit
Excluding the above, frankly, it's bloody brilliant. I did try an E90 sport to understand the differences in ride quality, and MUCH preferred the ride of the SE. Additionally, I found the steering to be better in the SE. No idea if that's down to the steering wheel, suspension or maybe the use of electric rack in the sport I tried.
So the SE we have has the biggest engine you can get in an E90 without having to have the Sport suspension. I think the 335i comes automatically with sport suspension.
Let me try to cover some of the good points now:
- Seats are very very close to the comfort of our old Volvo, more different than worse
- Ride quality even on runflats is pretty good, not far off the Volvo and miles better than the E46 sport
- Just a wonderful engine. Seems to have a bit more snarl than the E46 had when your press the loud pedal. Ticks over rock solid, and sounds completely glorious almost all the time. It's worth the fuel costs just to listen to it. Being a fairly unstressed simple engine, hopefully it will also be reliable
- I really like the interior. I know that Fox had big issues with the 335i he owned for a few months. Ours has zero rattles. Maybe Fox's was built in Longbridge. I also rate the quality of how it looks, and little things like the higher quality alloy trim (ours is black with "Titanium" finish, though being fair, my bicycle probably has more Ti than our car). I've sat in the new F10 and some Audi's recently. IMO the E90 is no worse than an F10 or A4 and in some ways is better than the A4.
- It might well have a 256hp engine, but also has a degree of practicality being a touring and most certainly has been to Ikea recently to be filled. Sure, it's not a Transit van, but it's massively more useful than any normal saloon
- Split opening tailgate like a Civic. Cool for shopping with
- Massive and I mean massive feelgood factor. Open the door (keyless entry, was never bothered about it, but it's a nice to have), slip into those lovely seats, fire up that glorious engine, pootle away knowing it has far more than "adequate" levels of performance.
- The six speed auto is definitely better than the 5 speed in the E46. The E46 would sometimes take to having fairly rough changes if you drove it hard (apparently it had a learning ECU controlling the box). The E90 is almost always perfectly smooth
So overall, and taking into account our low annual mileage, nearly the perfect car.
For background, used to have an E46 330i sport saloon, and more recently a Volvo S60 D5, so a lot of comparative comments will be aimed at those.
The car is an E90, 330i SE touring, with iDrive, SatNav, sports seats (VERY rare in an SE), Xenons etc
Lets get the bad things out of the way first:
- Fuel economy is as bad as expected. Almost all in town mileage, and it's on 18mpg, which is very similar to the E46. As it uses the same N52 engine as the E46, not at all unsurprising. We don't do many miles/year so frankly, I'm not worried
- Wasn't originally specced with Ipod control or Bluetooth, despite some of the other options chosen. Both would have been useful, but neither are killers. Unfortunately they're ridiculously expensive from BMW as an aftermarket fit, so I'll be investigating Parrot bluetooth options. There is a workaround for the Ipod with a mini-jack input in the centre console, but that does mean you need to change tracks using the Ipod itself
- I cannot believe that the SatNav doesn't accept postcodes, there's not even an firmware update to add it, which IMO puts it as worse than my 7 year old TomTom. Taking into account the cost to originally fit, and the first owner must have been nuts to pay all that.
- As it has iDrive, there appears to be no option to replace the existing factory fit stereo with something better from say Alpine. So if you're thinking of buying an E90, I'd consider suggesting you buy a non-iDrive unit
Excluding the above, frankly, it's bloody brilliant. I did try an E90 sport to understand the differences in ride quality, and MUCH preferred the ride of the SE. Additionally, I found the steering to be better in the SE. No idea if that's down to the steering wheel, suspension or maybe the use of electric rack in the sport I tried.
So the SE we have has the biggest engine you can get in an E90 without having to have the Sport suspension. I think the 335i comes automatically with sport suspension.
Let me try to cover some of the good points now:
- Seats are very very close to the comfort of our old Volvo, more different than worse
- Ride quality even on runflats is pretty good, not far off the Volvo and miles better than the E46 sport
- Just a wonderful engine. Seems to have a bit more snarl than the E46 had when your press the loud pedal. Ticks over rock solid, and sounds completely glorious almost all the time. It's worth the fuel costs just to listen to it. Being a fairly unstressed simple engine, hopefully it will also be reliable
- I really like the interior. I know that Fox had big issues with the 335i he owned for a few months. Ours has zero rattles. Maybe Fox's was built in Longbridge. I also rate the quality of how it looks, and little things like the higher quality alloy trim (ours is black with "Titanium" finish, though being fair, my bicycle probably has more Ti than our car). I've sat in the new F10 and some Audi's recently. IMO the E90 is no worse than an F10 or A4 and in some ways is better than the A4.
- It might well have a 256hp engine, but also has a degree of practicality being a touring and most certainly has been to Ikea recently to be filled. Sure, it's not a Transit van, but it's massively more useful than any normal saloon
- Split opening tailgate like a Civic. Cool for shopping with
- Massive and I mean massive feelgood factor. Open the door (keyless entry, was never bothered about it, but it's a nice to have), slip into those lovely seats, fire up that glorious engine, pootle away knowing it has far more than "adequate" levels of performance.
- The six speed auto is definitely better than the 5 speed in the E46. The E46 would sometimes take to having fairly rough changes if you drove it hard (apparently it had a learning ECU controlling the box). The E90 is almost always perfectly smooth
So overall, and taking into account our low annual mileage, nearly the perfect car.
I think the E90 interior quality is rubbish compared to the E46 and the F10 is far nicer (as it should be) than the E90 (and E60) but the material quality remains better on the E46 (and E39). Stuff like the trim panels that are on the B pillar below the front seatbelts are flimsy plastic on newer BMWs as are the kickplate trim panels.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
