Our last weekend with the 3 Series and it was all mine. I'd like to say we spent it all on yellow-striped blacktop, but the truth is we went to the laundromat (and by the way, it wasn't the only luxo car in the lot... this is LA after all), Toys 'R Us and the grocery store, while making a few laps up and down the freeway. Not that it mattered much...
I hadn't been behind the wheel in 10,000 miles (not since my summer road trip to British Columbia), but after a good 5 minutes, everything felt natural again -- the shape of the seats, the grip of the steering wheel, the utter legibility of the orange-lit gauges, the smooth ease of a heel-and-toe downshift.
I still think the inline six is incredible. It feels as smooth and unflustered at its 6,750-rpm redline as it does right off idle. But is it perhaps too potent, smooth and quiet? I bet most people who buy automatic 330s never experience the upper reaches of the tach -- there's no great need to work the engine past 4,000 so it gets off living a life of leisure. And as much I like this 3.0-liter, I wish BMW offered smaller engines in U.S.-market 3 Series cars so I could afford to buy one new... I'd take a 320d any day.
Not that I wouldn't be willing to buy a 330i on the used market. After almost 25,000 miles, the only sign of wear in our long-termer is some peeling of the coating on the plastic trim on the driver-side door grip/storage pocket.
This definitely shouldn't happen in a car this expensive, but as commentors are likely to note, had this car been in the care of a single, doting owner, this deterioration probably wouldn't have occurred so quickly.
Erin Riches, Senior Content Editor, 24,831 miles
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