I've had a 2007 E91 320d SE since new (may 07). It replaced an E46 330d.
IMO the E46 was a far superior product - the E91 has leather and loads of electronic 'features' however when I use this car for it's purpose (transport) I find that on runflats it is dire.
It skips sideways when any imperfection is encountered on a bend.
The engine is asthmatic and weak - even after 15K.
A wise man once told me "a proper BMW has more than 4 cylinders", I now wish I'd listened to him.
Ergonomically it's rotten also - I can almost kiss the windscreen when sat normally - I'm 5'10" - no adjustment on the seatbelt height - even Astras Circa 1990 had this!
Faddy features - push button start, daft indicator controls, Climate Control that plays 'hunt the fan speed' without settling for ages.
Cheapskate award of the year - no seat back pockets/nets on a £29K car!
Wish I had never changed.
Considering a BMW 320d - save your cash and get a six cylinder engine, ditch the runflats and specify petrol. Better still get a late model (petrol) E46 instead.
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Do BMW really spend more on Engineering or is it just marketing hype . . .
They make much more profit per car, spend a lot on marketing and rwd is reputedly more expensive to build so to me that would indicate that they spend the same on the engineering as the others! Posts on here also indicate they are not cheap to run - good engineering?
Those I have driven have left me wondering why the press go mad about them, and FIVE MONTHS to get the seat set correctly - imagine going 15k in that period, the car would have gone.
Engineering is all about getting it to do a job and my experience (96k in a VAG car with only battery issues, and 119k to date in a Honda with NO significant issues) indicate that their engineering (not marketing) does what matters. When it snows, or a tyre de-laminates on you, you find out how good, or bad, the BMW engineering is - I don't want to find out!
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Oilyman- why did you buy it in the first place then? Wouldn't all of the above gripes have become apparent on a test drive!?!
My dads just bought a nearly new 318d Msport and loves it to bits. Its an ex Bracknell car so specced to the hilt, but even so he still doesn't share any of your moans. He only wishes the alloys weren't so easy to kerb.
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I test drove a 320 touring (M sport) when looking to buy my new car. The runflats alone put me off. It just felt 'odd' and I knew I could never live with it. Even looked into putting 'normal' tyres on it, but was told this was a strict 'no no'.
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That'll teach me to read the whole thread and not just the 'new' ones. I've already posted with the same comment...doh!
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Oilyman- why did you buy it in the first place then? Wouldn't all of the above gripes have become apparent on a test drive!?!
Possibly.... I didn't get a chance to test drive as this was a last minute change (Co. Car).
My employer changed from owning the cars we use to leasing them - trying to get a test drive of any length (several days) from a dealer that isn't going to end up providing the car is pointless.
My *choice* was either the BMW 320d (I'd had several 3 and 5 series in the past) or an Audi A4 1.9 Tdi. I went with the BMW because (get this) I don't like the Audi 'image' - too many collarless shirt wearing, Mac using, Ipod owners working in "meedja".
So, I went with the BMW (without a test drive), thinking that it would be a natural progression from the (imo) superb E46 - wrong.
I have read that ditching the runflats can improve matters - not an option for me running a leased vehicle.
I should have opted out and got that Chrysler 300C instead.
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That says it all about us Brits and the importance for so many of image, or even lack of negative image in this case.
Mind you, as a Mac user but not in the meedja, what do I do? Anyone who's willingly bough a PC over a Mac is likely to go for a Skoda - i.e. cheaper and does the job, but the engineering quality ain't there. But of course that presumes an equal interest in computers and cars.............
No mention of Subaru here [re priority of engineering], although I guess the Lagacy isn't really a Beemer equivalent as it's 4x4, etc.
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Mind you, as a Mac user but not in the meedja, what do I do? Anyone who's willingly bough a PC over a Mac is likely to go for a Skoda - i.e. cheaper and does the job, but the engineering quality ain't there.
Slighltly O/T, but if the world relied on Apple products - you probably wouldn't have forum
to write to. Macs are fine for whizzy windows , smooth graphics & emptying your head by endless listening to Arctic Monkey 'records' - but for serious work, in the real world of servers & widely available software, MS PCs & associated servers are the only realisitc options.
Apple concentrate on what you'd have to call 'consumer PCs' - I 'willingly' bought a PC (albeit with a slighlty more 'work' orientated operating system & development environment) because there's no direct analogue anywhere else - be that in hardware terms or software.
That's how I define quality - the 'quality' of it being able to do the job at all.
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Apple make a range of computers including rather expensive jobs, that most users don't need, but intensive graphics users do. The media world are Apple Mac by choice, as a rule. I use Mac and MS Word and the other suite contents. Just not a PC, which have been, from my limited personal experience, highly unreliable and rather slow:)
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trying to get a test drive of any length (several days) from a dealer that isn't going to end up providing the car is pointless.
It's annoyingly (compared to being a private motorist) easy if you have a company car, and even easier than that if you lease, as your lease company will arrange the whole thing for you.
Most manufacturers have a fleet of cars ready to loan for corporate demos. Mercedes asked me what spec I wanted and then drove a brand new car 200 miles to my house for me to try for a few days. With Honda I collected the car from the local dealer (who a week previously had flatly denied any such scheme existed).
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Well well, the OP takes an idle dip into the Backroom and finds his thread revived!
Coincidentally the thought of chipping the 320d for a bit more power crossed my mind earlier this morning, but then there?s the warranty issue? Probably not a good idea.
So here?s an update on the original report, with the car 13 months old:
The load space cover creaks a bit ? noticeable in an otherwise very quiet car. There is the occasional creak from the transmission tunnel and over by the front LH door, but that doesn?t fuss me. Otherwise nothing amiss. One thing I didn?t say originally was that the body panel gaps are surprisingly wide.
And all the subjective impressions of driving and owning that I described before still hold good. Mixed usage gives an indicated mpg of 42-44 (reality is 2 or 3 mpg below that). Maybe that?s not bad for a 1.5 tonne car with circa 165 bhp, but the ?official? figures suggest much better consumption.
Should I have got a 330d? Or a 325d? Or even a 320/330i? Don?t know. I suspect (though this is founded on no real evidence) that the 6-cylinder diesels also would have been disappointingly thirsty (or, put another way, not satisfyingly economical) and that the petrols would have been more economical than one might have thought.
To put the fuel consumption in perspective? Golf Mk IV GT TDI 110: indicated 45-50 mpg. Roughly 20% heavier BMW 320d, 165 bhp: indicated 40-45 mpg. What one might expect? But I haven?t been using the extra 55 horses on a regular basis, have been driving with reasonable economy in mind (always have done), and actually the BM feels no quicker than the Golf, even foot-to-the-floor. I?d rather hoped that diesel technology might have upped the game in seven years. And I agree with DeeMac, accelerate and the consumption according to the ?swingometer? plummets.
Would I have another? No. Am I put off BMWs? No, but another unmoving ownership experience like this would put me off.
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Quest for better mpg...
I've changed my driving style - now changing up at 2000 rpm rather than 3000.
Will let you know if this improves things.
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MM, my experience of this lump, albeit in the smaller and I assume lighter 1 series is that it is deceptively quick. It doesnt feel it because of the more composed way it delivers the power with no nonsense coming through the steering wheel, its only when you look at the rear view and the speedo that you actually realise how quickly you are moving. The power delivery is more linear than the VAG so you dont get the thump in the back.
I am back in an older petrol FWD car now for various reasons, but I am surprised quite how much I'm missing the BM.
P
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..... it is deceptively quick. It doesnt feel it because of the more composed way it delivers the power with no nonsense coming through the steering wheel its only when you look at the rear view and the speedo that you actually realise how quickly you are moving. The power delivery is more linear than the VAG so you dont get the thump in the back.
Excuse me for reviving an old discussion, but I own an E91 320d and would like to comment, starting with the observation by Pezzer. You are spot on! It is deceptively quick. It is a shame, really because it adds to the disappointments.
My observations are on my own car, but I have driven four other E90/E91s as hire cars and they all have the same characteristics, so my own vehicle is typical.
This is a car that almost makes you feel guilty in criticising it. It does have a lot to be said in its favour.I've done 48k miles with only some minor problems, the dealer has been the best that I have encountered in 30 years of motoring, and the car drives every bit as well as all of the glowing reviews in the car mags say. It feels solid and the internal materials feel high quality. I've no doubt that the engineering matches the high reputation that BMW have in this department.
The fuel economy is almost as stated in the official figures. The automatic gearbox changes gear smoothly and at appropriate speed to match a relaxed driving style. (Shame that it is an old fashioned planetary gearbox, rather than a modern dual clutch job, though)
The parking sensors work OK. The bleeping is not very informative about where the obstructions are, though. (The Mercedes system of having a visual display for parking sensors seems more logical to me, anyway)
But on the other hand so many things niggle about this car! They add together like straws that just about break the camels back.
1. Comfort is very disappointing for an executive level car. The SE suspension is overly firm, and the Sport model even worse. OK. Our roads don't help, but most other cars cope with them better. The run-flat tyres no doubt contribute to the ride problem, as well as needing replacement more frequently than normal tyres AND at greater cost.
The seats (standard ones) are not supportive. Even driving sedately I get little lateral support, so it dissuades me from any spirited driving down twisty lanes.
As for refinement, this car is way over-rated. It's noisier than my old Primera on the motorway, and the standard stereo is poor if you want to use it to drown out the noise. At the lights, you are in no doubt that this beast is a diesel!
2. The E91 just doesn't work. It is not a real estate car. The sloping roof and rear wheel arch intrusion severely limit the practicality of the cargo area. However it still obviously looks like an estate from the outside (i.e. relative of a hearse). Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose, but I think it is ugly. I could put up with it if it did the job - but it doesn't.
3. The interior is light and pleasant (Grey leather), but the dash is bland and unimaginative. It looks like they just slapped all the buttons for the stereo and aircon down in a big row, because they couldn't think where to put them. Added to which, at night every dial and display glows in the same hideous reddish-orange light. It looks like a cheap digital watch from the 1970's. (Yes, I know that there is some scientific thought behind the choice of orange for the lighting - but it still looks awful!). SWMBO's car makes the BMW dash look very poor indeed.
4. The driving controls are not relaxing to use at all. They demand the drivers utmost attention to operate. I feel very drained after an hours drive in the E91. The steering wheel is very fidgety, and you can easily find the car wandering about when you adjust the stereo or aircon. (I've been driving hire cars recently and don't have this problem - so it is not me).
The indicators were designed by a lunatic. No wonder BMW drivers have a reputation for not using them. How they could make something so important so hyper-sensitive to the touch and so fiddly to use is beyond me.
Finally the brakes, though reassuringly powerful, have to be used very, very carefully. Just the slightest too much pressure on the pedal, and you find yourself slowing down far too quickly and giving the guy behind you heart failure. (In one case, I even suffered a rear-end shunt due to the over-reaction of these wretched brakes).
SUMMARY
I should add that I only came into ownership of the car due to a set of unusual circumstances (long story) - which should pre-empt any questions along the line of "Why did you buy it then - if you don't like it?"
If you are a keen driver, I suppose you will forgive the car its faults, as it does drive so well. However, these days I'm more interested in cars which are comfortable, practical and easy to drive, and by my reckoning the E91 fails in all three areas.
Edited by Webmaster on 17/06/2009 at 02:08
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