320d 190 Luxury 5dr Estate

A Capable long distance tourer but abysmal MPG, soft paint, ridiculous runflat tyres, cramped pedal box and clunky gearbox

Having bought the car new, my big mistake was not insisting on test driving a manual - only autos were available. The pedal box is so small there's insufficient room between the transmission tunnel and the clutch for my foot. It may be that as it's an Xdrive the tunnel is larger - so the 2wd version may be better. The gearbox is very stiff, and it's impossible to make 'quick' gear changes - the car has done 33k miles so it's unlikely to loosen up with more use. BMW tell me 'they're all like that'.

The clutch bite point is very low - I've been told they're not adjustable, really?

The paint seems very soft, I've picked up loads of stone chips and the nearside has multiple scratches from hedges. The bonnet also has a number of cat claw scratches where they've jumped up to sit on the warm bonnet (the cats are not mine!)

My previous car was an A4 Avant - that returned 55MPG consistently, this does well to return 44MPG a huge difference.

While I can understand that runflat tyres provide some valuable security, allowing you to 'limp' along for a while I can't understand why a spare tyre is not also provided. In under two years of ownership I've had one rim smashed by debris - resulting in 2+ days out of action waiting for a new wheel and tyre to be found, and another puncture resulting in another 2 days off the road. This is not acceptable. I drive to southern France three times a year and it feels like I'm gambling each time that I'll not be stranded somewhere on the Autoroute - that's not a good feeling.

I could buy either a space saver or full sized spare - but there's nowhere to put them except in the boot - which means I can't travel with dogs - so that's not a solution. I might be able to lift a space saver into a top box - but I doubt I'd be able to put the deflated full sized tyre up there. I do have European breakdown cover - so I wouldn't be completely stuck - but if you're heading for a ferry and you get a flat you're very unlikely to get there in time. All this would be solved if a full sized spare was supplied.

The tyre pressure warning system is also suspect - it's now started reporting false positives - which is rather annoying as it's only sensible to drop your speed, limp to the next service station and check the tyres. It did that twice to me on the last drive back from France.

If I was to be very picky the indicators seem to have a life of their own (and yes, I know we BMW drivers are reputed not to use them) and the rear parking sensors are slow to identify obstacles - fine if you know to reverse slowly.

On the positive side it's a very capable long distance cruiser with a large boot capacity, is very comfortable.

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