Opinions on E90 330i ?

[lazerblue]

Looking for info from any owners of new 330i saloon.

Road test reports seems pretty positive although styling is not completly to my tastes it seems a well built powerfull car with a great engine and good handling.

Looking for a performance car that is good to drive capable of high mileages (aprox 20k per annumm) a suitable for occasional track day fun

[PeterS]

While I don't own an E90 330, I did do 7,000 miles in one last summer, recently after the launch. It was a BMW (UK) car, so had a lot of options thrown at it. Actual spec was 330i SE in sparkling graphite, with the major options being auto/dakota leather/professional nav/bluetooth/elllipsoid alloys - over £6Ks worth

I enjoyed driving the car, mostly A/B roads and motorway, not a lot of round town driving. Performance was good, and the engine was a cracker. Handling was also good on the whole, but I did feel it was a little more skittish at the back, when pushed hard through corners, than the E46. It seemed to be knocked of course by small bumps/potholes much more readily, but I think the combination of 18" wheels, runflats and standard suspension had a big part to play in this though, as a 325 on 17" wheels I've driven subsequently did not exhibit the same characteristics Despite the 18" wheels it didn't show any of the E46s tendancy to trammline of motorways which made it a much more relaxing car on long journeys. I wish I'd had a manual though, the auto is good, but I think a manual transmission would have suited the car better.

I think the car looks good from the side/front perspective, especially the way the front wings flares out. The back is very disappointing IMO though, bland and nondescript, though the the M Sport pack does improve it a bit.

The interior was the biggest dispapointment though; it's undoubtedly well put together, but the materials didnt feel that special to me. The leather seems to be of far lower quality than that in the E46. Interestingly enough, a number of people I've spoken to at BMW admit that they've managed to pull of the dubious feat of making an expensive interior (to make) feel cheap, where as most other manufacturers try and make a cheap interior feel expensive...

WRT to using it as an occasional track day car, definitely take the M Sport verison, but I think it might feel a bit 'clinical' if you see what I mean. I'm sure it'd perform well, but I don't know how much fun it would actually be. Only one way to find out though

HTH

Peter

[gizze]

Well I had a 330d loaner today and this is what I posted on bmwland....

[ QUOTE ]

Thought I would post my report of the 330d in here as I don't want to upset any 3 series owners! :roll:

Took my 535d in this morning at 9am to have the software updated for MP3 and Voice, and I was given a 330d SE Touring as my loaner.

The spec of the car is Silver with black hide and Brushed Aluminium trim, PDC, dimming mirrors and that is about it by the looks of things.

First thing I noticed was how tight the cabin is, it feels tiny compared with the 5 series, amazingly so in fact, my left knee is pushed up against the centre console and the whole cabin feels really cramped, however, I thought that maybe this was a good thing, smaller car better handling!

First thing I noticed as I pulled away was just how hard the ride was, the BMW delaer has just moved to a new location and the road leading in and out is a little uneven still, on the way out the ride felt very crashy, then coming off the roundabout 200 yards later the back end skipped out over a bump in the road like it used to on my 535d with the run flats, I pulled over and had a quick look at the wheels, bloody runflats on, the wheels are only 17" ones but with those runflats the whole ride is worse than my 5 series with sports suspension and 18" non runflats!

Had to go and pick a friend up and get to the tool hire shop, so I decided to go across country as there is 6 miles of fairly smooth but very twistie lanes that are great fun to drive on in the 5, and even more fun in an M3!

The 330d is a manual and I was looking forward to getting back with a stick (for our US readers that one! ) for the day, however I soon remembered why I like autos with a diesel, the rev range on diesels is rubbish!

1st gear is a joke and you may as well not bother as by the time you are at 15mph or so you need to change, god that would get tiring quickly in any sort of town driving, and second gear doesn't quite let you get to 60mph, more like 55mph which didn't help my 0-60mph tests, but more on that in a minute. No the real problem I found is when you are on back roads having some fun the car is usually between 50 and 70mph, so you are constantly having to change gear, in a petrol you would leave it in third all the time and it would be fine, but do that in the 3.0d manual and you put your foot down at 50 and sod all happens! Nothing exciting anyway, however, I am sure a remap could help alot there to give you more oomph at 2000rpm and let it rev slightly higher.

The SE suspension is a real let down, far too wallowy to really push the car and combine this with the bleedin' runflats and you are on a hiding to nothing! There is a small humpback bridge near me that has a sharp right corner directly after it, in an M3 CS you can take it at 60mph+, in my 535d it used to skip out at the back doing 45mph with the runflats and I can now easily take it at 55mph+ with the piriellis on. However in the 330d I had to slow to 40mph and it still felt too fast and the tyres started to skip! :shock:

I was really surpised at how poor the handling was and it only made me more grateful I had gone for the sports set up on mine not that I would ever choose anything else, but nice to know what you have is the better option anyway.

I thought I would try the 0-60mph as the car felt considerably slower than mine, so we found and open stretch of road and did a run with my mate timing me, first run was pretty poor at 7.4 seconds, but to be fair I was trying to get to 60mph without changing up to 3rd and you can't.

Second run was better at 6.7 seconds but I could not beat that, even with three more attempts, I can do 0-60 in under 5.5seconds in mine for comparrison.

Then we tried 0-100mph, and to be honest this was even worse, it took 20seconds to reach the 100mph mark, a third longer than it takes in mine and you really do feel like you are egging the car along try to shuffle it along to get it to go just that litlle bit faster, in mine I feel I have to repect the power that is available.

At this point I was pretty disapointed, they have a nice LeMans Blue 06 plate M-Sport Touring coming up with all the toys including Nav and bluetooth that I was considering, but it is definitely crossed of my list of maybes now. All in all nice to have something new to try, and nice that it has made me appreciate the 5 even more than ever, but if I ever go back to a 3 series it will definitley have to be seriously tuned or be wearing an ///M badge.

I had to go and do a couple of errands so decided to take the dog with me, how small is the boot?! This is definitely a design choice and not a practical choice going for the touring, the bootspace is tiny, I am sure it is smaller than the saloon?

Also when I got back the diesel light came on to warn me I had 40 miles remaining, I had filled put a tenner in this morning as it was showing 21 miles range when I collected it (cheeky buggers) and reset the mpg reader, so I thought I would see how economical it had been, 22.4mpg. To be fair I had been hacking it around abit in it, but I had also done 20 miles crusing at 75mph with the needle on the 50mpg mark for most of the way too, so all in all not that impressive at all. When I reset it this morning it was showing 29mpg from memory, but I would have hoped for 35mpg + in a manual.

Edit: Forgot to mention the brakes, they were quite frankly shocking, trying to stop hard was near on impossible, not sure if the are different to the ones I have or if they get uprated if you go for the sport model, but these were so poor the bordered on dangerous.

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Now this is not to say you wouldn't like the 330i, but I would seriously look at the 335Ci, taking orders now for the september delivery I believe, nicer looking and far better residuals.

[lazerblue]

Agree about interior specially the leather wich was undewhelming to say the least ... other cars I'm considering are Golf Gti / R32 and Porsche Boxster must say for looks and interior feel prefer Gti & Boxster.

Coupe looks sweet but not sure I would buy one without Test Drive although would assume it will drive similar to saloon.

New Audi S3 due out Sept too but again no Test drive available till then

[gizze]

I have had an S-Line DSG A3 and would buy an S3 without a test drive, it is an excellent little car and if they do a DSG S3 or RS3 I will definitely have a go with one.

GTi is OK, but worse interior than the new 3 series imho, and it feels really high when you drive it, I would be bored of that within a month.

Boxster is a great car, would you be getting a new one, or at least a 997??

[lazerblue]

Will be new car whatever ... my little new born baby

987 boxter with a few toy's is about my limit.

Got a test drive arranged this Saturday !!!