tranzlucent
01-07-2007, 06:00 PM
I just test drove a new 335i 4 door automatic (with no paddle shifters) at Santa Monica BMW. Wow, new cars are great. Everything just works and is nice and clean, dare I say perfect. Quite the difference coming from my 'old' M3. Before I took out the sedan, I sat in the new coupe (but didn't test drive it) and really liked how everything felt - really nice build quality and solid doors. So it was perhaps with that lingering impression that upon getting settled into the 4 door, I couldn't quite get comfortable. Granted, I didn't spend too long adjusting the seat, but still it didn't fit my body as well as the coupe's driver seat. FWIW, I'm a pretty average 160 pound 5' 10" guy. The seat back seemed to be somewhat stiff and pressing into my back. I asked Vince the salesman if there was a lumbar adjustment. The gold chain jingled on his wrist as he pointed and said, "yeah, its on the side there." I found some buttons behind the forward-backward seat controls and fiddled with them, but couldn't quite get anything to work - so I gave up on it. That set the tone for the rest of the drive.
Immediately I felt disconnected with the road, we seemed to be floating just above the street. We went around corners at moderate speed with ease, no body roll at all, just a nice seamless ride. The brake pedal didn't feel right at all. It grabbed too quickly and was very light and touchy and also too close to my foot, whereas the accelerator pedal seemed to be in the right spot. However I found the gas pedal also strange and very distant in its relation to throttling the engine. Is this the famous drive-by-wire at work? Meanwhile I could still barely hear the engine. Fair enough, I know its not a race car. But it is a BMW, isn't it? Then I got to a nice open street - or as open as metropolitan Los Angeles gets.
I looked at the odometer - 120 miles. I asked Vince if the engine was still breaking in and if it wasn't a problem to open it up at all. He said, "nah, have fun with it." I processed this for a moment: either 1) the engine is already broken in upon leaving the factory and he knows this and would probably make a point of telling me this. 2) The salesman doesn't know that engines have to break in. Or 3) He simply doesn't care if the car gets beat on, despite the fact that this is the very car he is trying to sell me. Well I put my processing on hold and nailed it.
Anyone ever played a really good XBox or Playstation driving game on a flat panel the size of a car windshield? It was like that: just the soundtrack of the radio in the background and the landscape suddenly blurring past the big screen in front of me. I did a quick lane change to get around a slower car - wow, very nimble. There was a gentle push at my back so I knew we were accelerating, but I was waiting to feel the transmission shift. I checked the speedometer and was shocked to find we were doing 65mph. This is probably the best designed drive train I've ever encountered. The engine's torque curve was flat enough to ice-skate on. And the tranny was pure butter - astoundingly smooth. This car has the potential to be more speeding ticket inducing than a Ferrari - you simply have no idea how fast you are going unless you look at the speedometer or see red and blue lights reflecting in your mirror. It really takes all the fun out of speed if it doesn't actually feel fast.
I jumped on the brakes knowing that Murphy and his law would present me with a ticket on a test drive. Vince chimed in, "got a lotta juice, huh?". I nodded, confirming my hunch that he had only recently moved from a Dodge dealership to join BMW.
Well, perhaps the coupe will be more inspiring.
Immediately I felt disconnected with the road, we seemed to be floating just above the street. We went around corners at moderate speed with ease, no body roll at all, just a nice seamless ride. The brake pedal didn't feel right at all. It grabbed too quickly and was very light and touchy and also too close to my foot, whereas the accelerator pedal seemed to be in the right spot. However I found the gas pedal also strange and very distant in its relation to throttling the engine. Is this the famous drive-by-wire at work? Meanwhile I could still barely hear the engine. Fair enough, I know its not a race car. But it is a BMW, isn't it? Then I got to a nice open street - or as open as metropolitan Los Angeles gets.
I looked at the odometer - 120 miles. I asked Vince if the engine was still breaking in and if it wasn't a problem to open it up at all. He said, "nah, have fun with it." I processed this for a moment: either 1) the engine is already broken in upon leaving the factory and he knows this and would probably make a point of telling me this. 2) The salesman doesn't know that engines have to break in. Or 3) He simply doesn't care if the car gets beat on, despite the fact that this is the very car he is trying to sell me. Well I put my processing on hold and nailed it.
Anyone ever played a really good XBox or Playstation driving game on a flat panel the size of a car windshield? It was like that: just the soundtrack of the radio in the background and the landscape suddenly blurring past the big screen in front of me. I did a quick lane change to get around a slower car - wow, very nimble. There was a gentle push at my back so I knew we were accelerating, but I was waiting to feel the transmission shift. I checked the speedometer and was shocked to find we were doing 65mph. This is probably the best designed drive train I've ever encountered. The engine's torque curve was flat enough to ice-skate on. And the tranny was pure butter - astoundingly smooth. This car has the potential to be more speeding ticket inducing than a Ferrari - you simply have no idea how fast you are going unless you look at the speedometer or see red and blue lights reflecting in your mirror. It really takes all the fun out of speed if it doesn't actually feel fast.
I jumped on the brakes knowing that Murphy and his law would present me with a ticket on a test drive. Vince chimed in, "got a lotta juice, huh?". I nodded, confirming my hunch that he had only recently moved from a Dodge dealership to join BMW.
Well, perhaps the coupe will be more inspiring.