So last week we decided to go Switzerland in search of snow and I figured the best way to do this would be to fly to Germany and rent a car with winter tyres and drive on down. Had an enjoyable time and figured you guys might appreciate my experiences of the car - a 320d auto.
I won't bore the rest of the forum with my tedious ramblings so I'll keep it in here for those who are interested in BMW.
I've driven the F30 before - I've had a 320d a couple of times as a loan car for the odd day here and there but on this particular trip I got an opportunity to really get to know it as we covered about 1000km in total.
The car was well specified as all German cars are - they are not big on bling but they are very big on spec, consequently you will find the majority of BMW's in Germany are heavily optioned SE spec cars and not M Sport's. Seeing an M Sport is a genuinely rare sight. This particular car had Xenons, business nav, leather and of course everyones favourite ZF8HP gearbox though not in Sport Auto form.
So the interior then. I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone but I am not a fan of the F30 interior and sadly this trip has done nothing to fix that really. It's not that there is anything inherently bad about it, it's just that there is nothing inherently good about it either. It is simply a larger version of the interior found in the 1 Series whereas the 3 Series of old tended to have a smaller version of the interior found in a 5 Series.
As a result nothing inside the car really feels that premium or special. You do not feel like you are sitting in an expensive car. The interior does not wrap itself around you. There is black plastic everywhere - the centre console for example is almost entirely black plastic, the gearshift gaiter is black plastic, etc. The dashboard grain is a cheaper looking and feeling plastic than you'd find in a 5 Series - some of you might think 'Well duh, it's cheaper' but this never used to be the case, the dash material in an E46 is the same as that in an E39 and the dash material in an E90 is the same as that in an E60.
The plastic doesn't feel especially nasty - it's solid enough - but there is just loads of it and I'm not keen on the way the interior doesn't really 'flow' if that makes sense.
Oh, and why on earth has it got an old-school handbrake? Absolute nuisance, kept almost driving off with it engaged. Which also means that unlike the 5 Series the gearbox has no auto hold function. Irritating.
But it's ok - there are good bits. The electronics and infotainment is luckily shared across the entire BMW range so the fact this is a 3 Series hasn't stopped it being very good, IMHO nobody does infotainment and user interfaces like BMW does. The car has 'full black panel display' which is really the partial black panel display from the F10 rather than a genuine full black panel display but it's still very nice. The car had Business navigation so sadly no navigation instructions in the instrument panel.
It drove well - the handling was tidy, the ride was very compliant despite being on RFT's though the higher profile of the small wheels and winter tyres did help. Performance was everything you'd ever need - it was never fast but never slow. I took in quite a lot of Autobahn mileage on the trip and the car happily cruised at about 180kmh and got there quickly enough. Above about 180 and it started to feel very noisy and far less refined so it's not as happy at higher speeds as my 5 Series is, but then I guess thats fair enough. I didn't take it beyond 200kmh as the big sticker in the window warning me not to exceed 210kmh due to the winter tyres was forever in view
Now for the genuinely impressive bit - fuel economy. I am a big critic of diesel fuel economy. It is generally nothing like as good as people would have you believe. My 530d isn't bad, I can just about get it to 50mpg on a long and steady motorway run but a trip to Cologne and back at Christmas yeilded just 42mpg average despite being mostly at 70mph.
No such disappointment with the 320d. My overall average over 1000km was 52.4mpg. This included the Autobahns at high speed, mountain roads and driving through the centre of Zurich and Lucerne. From Lucerne to the German border near Basel, a distance of some 150km, the car averaged an astonishing 64mpg with the cruise set to the speed limit. From Freiburg to Stuttgart, all Autobahn and all driven how you'd want to on the Autobahn it was only just under 50mpg.
Very, very impressive. I have driven many E90 320d and none of them ever came even slightly close to this. This is the first time I have been very impressed with the fuel economy of a diesel.
So there we go, a mini review of the 3 Series. I really want to like the 3 Series - on paper it's an excellent ownership proposition. Low cost warranty, low running costs, not particularly expensive for nearly new examples (Considerably cheaper used than 5 Series) and a great range of engines but I just can't gel with it. It just feels like a decent enough normal car. Which I guess it is.
Winter tyres...
Despite the plethora of snow absolutely everywhere the Germans and the Swiss are irritatingly efficient at clearing it away therefore not once did any road I had to drive on actually have any snow on it. As a result the winter tyres were mostly a bit of a nuisance - the noise at lower speeds was particularly intrusive.
However we did take a few trips up some minor roads where invariably carpark access roads etc were covered in snow. Genuinely impressive - you could simply drive around up hills etc etc as if there wasn't any snow there. No traction issues at all.
So, very very useful when snow is on the ground. A nuisance when there isn't any. No wonder they don't catch on here, though I can't say the Goodyear Ultragrip 8's we have on the Mini are anything like as irritatingly noisy as the Bridgestone Blizzaks on this car.
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