Friday 10th February 2012

PH Blog: The new 3 Series as mile-muncher

Part one, in which Riggers makes a half-day lope from Malaga to Valencia

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Hola from sunny Spain...

We all know that Speed Matters, so when BMW got in touch to ask us if we would like to drive a new 3 Series back to the UK from its press launch duties in Spain, our first question was 'what's the fastest one you've got?'.

...Mind you there's even snow down here

The answer was a 335i, which for now tops the new F30 3 Series range with its familiar but thoroughly excellent 306hp Twin-scroll turbocharged 3.0-litre straight six. Excellent. Better still, it was a display model and the only 335i out there, so until we got our hands on it, would be untouched by journalistic hands.

We'll bring you a full first drive of the new 335i once we get back to Blighty, so we'll only deal with a few first impressions here. So what are they? Well, the new F30 3 Series is, er, very much like the old one, only a little bit better in almost every respect. Faster, cleaner, more 'athletic' (both in the way it looks and the way it drives), but very, very familiar. So much so that more than once I've already forgotten that it's an all-new car I'm driving - but I mean that as the highest of compliments.

335i covering ground

In 335i guise it's also an epic mile-gobbler. Okay, so the 328i might have the edge when it comes to balancing power and economy (245hp, but 44.1mpg on the combined cycle), but the 335i counters with the fact that it's the only six-pot 3er available for now (and it's only a tad behind on economy, claiming 39.2mpg in automatic guise). And the new 3 Series, any new 3 Series, is a sufficiently comfy, pleasant place to be that the miles just fly by.

It's a good thing the 335i can devour big distances, though, because my initial plans for this trip had me in France by now and yet, as I type, I'm in Valencia. That's still 370-odd miles in half a day, mind, including an hour or two where I got bored of motorways and headed into the back-roads of Murcia, so call it bad planning on my part rather than the car's fault.

That does mean, however, that tomorrow (Saturday) will be a pretty mammoth trek, because Mrs Riggers is arriving in Poitiers in the afternoon. And that's 700 miles north from Valencia. Should be quite a test. I'll let you know how I get on...

Riggers

[rajkohli81]

Now these guys produce allrounders

[rajkohli81]

MrGeoff said:

It is just anoter saloon and doesn't really set the world on fire. Skoda would be just as good and cheaper for the job of a motorway cruiser.

Edited by MrGeoff on Saturday 11th February 14:29

Saw a new 320d in the flesh today and it looked great.

My daily runner is 320d M Sport Coupe and I bought it for the £90 road tax and hoping it would get near the claimed 60 mpg...

I drive it hard everyday and in the past 3 months and 15k miles its still averaging over 49mpg and putting a big smile on my face....I've driven an array of VAG products in the past and nothing has come close in terms of B road handling/motorway refinement... the economy's a bonus. I think that's the point, its more of an allrounder than it's rivals and they are much better specced as standard than BMWs of past.

[rajkohli81]

Max_Torque said:

But the 3 series is not really a car for "keen" drivers...... (that would be an Elise for example, or a Boxter etc etc etc). If you stopped 100 BMW drivers in the street and asked "what do you think about the steering feel in this car" I expect that less than 2 would actually be able to give a sensible answer.

BMW had to make a choice, better CO2 or some more steering feel. In 2012 that is a no brainer.


I take it you have benchmarked EPAS / EHPAS / HPAS both in the real world and over the mandated drive cycles in order to come up with your 2mpg figure? (the fact you have put "less" on the Mway suggests you don't understand the mechanism for fuel economy benefits with EPAS?)

(and of course it's not just an improvement in CO2 from EPAS, it's a cheaper BOM, shortened build time/complexity and the potential for improved electronic feature content (which a lot of buyers want) that the manufacturer are after)

BMW sold something like 1.2M cars last year, and i'm pretty certain that they gained more sales by their low CO2 emissions than they lost due to "poor steering feel".

Unfortunately, in 2012, this is the world we live in. Petrolheads, people who place driving dynamics above everything else are a dying breed imo. Luckily enough for those people, cars like the Elise still exist.
(However, sales of such cars suggest that no matter how many people come on a forum and type "i wouldn't buy that new 3 series because its steering is crap) the number who back that statement up by then buying a true sports car is tiny?)

Agree with you there and despite the fact that steering feel on the straight ahead has been lacking in every 3 series since the E30, I still think they are streets ahead of their rivals from VAG and Benz...it's actually a great car to throw around..on the way to work. The point being, there is no better allrounder