Gadgetory

when the three series first hit the u.s. it was a two-liter for guess what it is again let's drive the 2012 328i and check the tech I love the look of the new three as I do the new five it resembles heavily BMW has mostly shaken off those bad days of some really ugly cars and delivered a three that it once presents both upscale and sporty now let's get a look around the cabin of this new three a couple of things will stand out to you it's mostly familiar but check out the screen that's different it's not a pop-up it's not a swivel up it's a different design you'll see on just about any other car maker it is a stand-up fixed sort of a sort of a tablet now what is interesting about this to me it's still a widescreen still the same I Drive interface but notice how high it is the midline is actually at the top of the gauges it's the highest thing in terms of eye line in the car this seems to dovetail nicely if only by sheer coincidence with those new federal guidelines that have been suggested saying everything in the car that is interface oriented should be as high as possible on the eye line and as centered as possible over the steering yoke to keep that driver looking where they're going this goes a long way to get there but here's what's really new connected drive this gets us into a lot of stuff first of all BMW apps that is a connect to drive up you put on your iphone that brings you Facebook Twitter web radio streaming of kind of a generic sort it's not Pandora it's not Spotify it's not MOG and you've got plug-in technology like iPod out which lets you connect your iPhone for example here in the cradle and get a really nice not exactly faithful but very similar Apple like interface for accessing it in here in the console standard aux as well as the USB for thumb drives and or iOS devices there's the cradle of course where the iPhone lives now all we also have on this car a head-up display optionally installed I can get my navigation prompts I can get speed I can see media info Meishan I can see warning messages but the state of the car the thing that's interesting is in the website materials and their promotional stuff they show that being full-color this one's just either white in the day or orange at night not sure if I'm missing something we recognize this goofy looking BMW paddle shifter these days it's all pretty standard stuff it also gets over here to a gate for manual shifting and right next to that are those drive profile buttons but look how they've changed now we've got Eco Pro and then you've got comfort which is the standard setting and then you've got sport the eco ones the most interesting this gets us Tennille chases you can set speed warnings limits on speed that you drive and also tell the climate control to behave in a way that puts less drag on the engine now this thing here it shows your eco potential it's kind of like what you've seen a lot of the Asian cars where they'll let you grow leaves or forward let you do that - as well as Hyundai and then over here you've also got sort of a dynamic current eco driving bar graph at the bottom when you're not an eco mode it goes to a more conventional instantaneous MPG display and finally we have efficient dynamics that means that when you brake in this car it helps to regen the battery allowing the alternator to spend less time dragging on the engine to regen the battery and once we start driving you're going to find out why I love this button it became my best friend real fast this is the one that turns off the automatic start/stop technology okay here's where things get really interesting on this car we're back to a four cylinder on the 3-series this is a 2-liter turbo twin power turbo means a single turbo charger that's a twin scroll so it can work optimized at different bands of the RPM range direct injection that's all the rage as well this is the combination of tech that is making the gas engine a rock star again here are the numbers 240 horse 260 Rorty foot-pounds of torque it's this 3400 pound car 260 in a very trim in tiny 5.7 seconds while delivering 2430 six EPA estimates and one of the first things you're going to notice when you're driving this 328 with its four-cylinder is the start/stop technology not unheard of in German cars these days but it was for the longest time so I'm coming to a stop here and the engine should shut down there it goes okay when it does that the car bucks back and forth what the hell is that then when I lift off it'll restart Rome makes kind of this engine starting sound and you'd say well sure it should make an engine starting sound the engine is starting the problem is I just drove the Camry Hybrid a few days ago that also has auto start/stop the difference is you don't notice it it's quicker than this quieter and smoother and that car costs as little as half what this one does depending on configuration so yeah I got tired of that real quick and that's why my best friend is the auto start/stop off button on the plus side the comfort mode is very nicely tuned in terms of throttle response the way the car behaves overall the whole powertrain behavior becomes just where I would want it for everyday driving and then when you go to sport mode this guy's got some guts that 260 foot-pounds of torque is all there with very little turbo lag in fact I'd almost say none this car stays on cam really nicely for a turbo when you do tap into the power of this engine like this it's kind of a grindy sounding affair put it this way and they're going to hate to hear this and ain't no Audi that smoothness isn't in this engine it's not characteristic of a 3-series which has become kind of a mid-level very nice car finally that interface screen the one right there in front of you that is really outstanding ly well engineered it's now in the periphery of a proper driving view whereas to have that a little lower a little more central in the console takes it out of your periphery that's a key step toward reducing driver I off the road distraction all right now at 2012 328i this turbo 4 is gonna hit you about 36 bass and they go well up from there this car is about 50 grand it doesn't even have every option but here are the key ones I look at the BMW apps that's two hundred and fifty bucks if you've got an iPhone you've got to get that there's a tech package for about 2,500 that's going to bring you their excellent navigation system even though I'm kind of cool on factory nap and the head-up display which is done so well