Gadgetory

way back in the day the 3-series was a simple car then it got real fancy and quite a bit bigger except for this one it's gotten quite a bit simpler let's drive the 320i the baby 3-series and check the tech now BMW doesn't really punish you for being parsimonious this 320i looks really good basically as good as all the other three sedans out there unless they're heavily trimmed so you can't spot one of these all that readily from a distance notice these are only available as either a four-door sedan rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive you can't get a 320 convertible or wagon and the coupes of course have moved on to become 4 Series now all the 3-series are basically for doors or convertibles now inside the 320i it's the way I think it should be this reminds me of the first 320 I back in the late 70s lean and spare you also notice that the seats on this car are manual every single adjustment for aft height altitude and my seat back those are all levers you don't see that very often even cheap cars have power adjusters but not this one stock now to go with this LCD display which is standard you've got this iDrive controller that is standard but it's kind of stripped down the new iDrive controller has a touchpad right here for navigating and pinching and zooming like on the map for example don't have that here I point that out because one of my gripes about BMW nav systems is to move around the map or to zoom in and out is kind of a drag going over to this little stack of icons on the left the new knob would have pinch and zoom like you have on your smartphone you do have the shortcut buttons and the back button it's an excellent button arrangement because not everything is done by a turn a kick and a click but one area where they actually even thinned it out more is you don't go up and down on this knob all it will do is left and right it's really the bare-bones version of their controller but it works pretty well as we scroll through here you see your sources are pretty straightforward I've got an aux plus USB Jack and here you've got to use this little BMW pigtail to get into your iOS device I tried it USB only not working optical disc slot right here obviously and that's about it for sources you don't have bluetooth streaming here only bluetooth calling and you do not have any apps on this car as its configured it's a real bare-bones BMW radio however is am/fm with HD but satellite is an optional upgrade the dashboard is similarly classic you do have the BMW fuel efficiency gauge which I find to be comically kind of loose but it's an old-school thing for them the wheels traditional it's got the three spokes the way they did a long time ago this is a very heritage looking wheel one choice on the gearbox you'll always see this paddle shifter here no paddles are available here though you do have a shiftable gate on the left now down here this comes on the cars it's not optional sport comfort Eco Pro you'll see those echoed up here on the dash and this car has by default auto start/stop technology your defeat button for it is right there unless you press that this guy's going to die at a stop sign and then a restart when you lift off the brake and along those lines when you get into Eco Pro it's going to do several things it's going to ease back on throttle tip in it's going to run the whole powertrain more gently it's going to run the AC compressor more judiciously now in the engine bay we've got a little motor it's the first time they've had a 4-cylinder least in the US market since 1999 I think this is a 2 liter what they call a twin power turbo that is not a twin turbo nut for an engine this small instead it's a twin scroll single turbo it's got two phases built into it some numbers 180 horsepower 200 foot-pounds of torque the car weighs 3,300 pounds gets to 60 in 7.1 seconds you have a choice of transmissions we saw the automatic just now that's an 8-speed you can also get a six-speed manual which has the exact same 0 to 60 times and gives up just 1 mpg on the fuel efficiency and that's 24 City 36 highway on this automatic that's why they put a small engine in here now notice that this car also has in addition to turbo charging direct injection variable valve timing all the modern tricks as the Big Brother 328i which uses the same 2-liter n20 engine but gets a whole lot more power out of it we'll talk about which of these cars makes more sense when we look at our pricing on this 320i at the end of the piece okay first thing I'm going to do here is turn off the auto start-stop because I hate that in gas engine cars it only seems to work elegantly to me in an electrified car which this obviously isn't so that's defeated there we go getting into it now I'm in sport mode automatic shift there's not ample power here that's the first thing I come away with that's the biggest misgiving I've got after that the suspension is soft and not quite as sharp as I'd expect in a 3-series that's sort of a lesser complaint but it's on there the handling is very predictable though rear-wheel drive on this car and the engine up front you know it kind of goes where I expect it's going to go as you knows it through a corner little understeer there for the most part as you'd expect it's really a classic 3-series from back in the day which I'm not sure was their goal but I love it okay let's price our cheap and cheerful little friend thirty-three seven basically base 2,000 more for xDrive all-wheel drive 6-speed manual that's a $0 pick hello I'm in now is where it gets interesting do you take this guy's seen that style at all or do you enjoy its simplicity if you want to go see that style here's what you do 21:50 gets you nav with that cool new touch pad version of the iDrive controller the driver assistance package just under a grand that'll get you Park distance control and the rear camera you may have noticed we were missing Sport Package is a steal 1300 bucks for these cool wheels the M steering wheel sport seats and sports suspension that's like robbery and then to add a moonroof which we don't have here either that's a little over a grand all in you're still under 40,000 CNET style but I just wonder if it's gilding the lily the bigger question is do you buy this or a 328 let's compare them on some salient details the 328 has 60 more horsepower 55 foot-pounds more torque shaves 1.3 seconds off 0 to 60 but does give up 1 mpg average it also includes some nice extra equipment and the 328 is $4,500 more not trivial money still I tend to lean that way as a smart buyer because you're going to end up with more of that BMW performance that that badge promises and I think you're going to get quite a bit better resale value on the other hand this 320i speaks to me as well because it is all about what 3-series used to be