I am guessing unthrottled but reading his post very similair to Andy's.Are you ok Andy?

My nom de plume is out of date now.

I chose it when I was fed up driving a BMW "god's gift to motoring" 3-series.

Chopped it for an Audi, and what do you know....I like driving again!

Maybe they had the same issue with a 3 series that i had with a Ford Focus. With all the motoring community and every journo, car tester and motoring media outlet telling you its the greatest car to have ever been built, you get it, and discover its exactly ordinary, it can become annoying.

They banged on about "terrific driving feel" and how its "unrivalled in this sector" but all i found was a slightly overpriced, lowly equipped car with a poor ride and less power than an equivalent Peugeot.

No i cant think of anything "wrong" with it as such. Its not like if someone asked me if they should buy one i'd go "dear god dont!" or anything. I'd sum it up by saying it did most things competantly, but did nothing outstandingly. And every rival gets picked it, like the Parkers/WhatCar etc reviews for the Peugeot 308 say "not as good to drive as a Focus" yet i was a passenger in one recently as a friend of mine took a test drive and it was an alright car! Its 1.6 was a nippy engine, better than Ford's 1.6, it was nicely finished, it didnt break your back on every bobble yet because its not a Focus apparently its s***. Oh well more benefit the rest of us, my friend looks likely to purchase one in the next week or so and with them being very cheap and some great deals because "focus is better" a better deal can be had.

What didn't I like about the 3 ... good question.

The engine, fuel economy and handling (in the dry) were very good of course. It is a very good car but it is irritating how the motroing press fawn over the 3-series and claim that it is streets ahead of the competition. I must admit that I liked it when I test drove it, but when the novelty wore off I started to see its faults. I'd never gone off a car that I'd owned before - quite the opposite, in fact. I get more attached to my cars.

The main things that I didn't like were:

the harsh ride (even on SE suspension), lack of support on standard seats, fidgetty steering, insane BMW indicator system, stingy standard equipment compared to rivals, some poor quality kit (e.g. stereo, trim), no hatchback option, bad handling in poor conditions, very high maintenance costs, "condition based servicing" was very inconvenient, and the numerous faults that developed on the car (worst of all being a blown turbo just out of warranty ....£3500!)