Gadgetory

in a world event to the gills with every permutation of crossover and SUV imaginable suddenly wagons are cool again let's drive BMWs entry and their most accessible version of the art form the 2014 328 D X Drive and check the tech now our 3-series wagon has dual claims to coolness one it's a wagon that's resurgent Lee hip right now - it's a diesel also resurgent Lee hip right now I'll be honest I'll be curious to come back and watch this video in five years and see where both of those are in terms of the trend meter in the meantime the face of this car is virtually indistinguishable from a 3-series sedan it's around the back that things were done really well I think BMW brought a very graceful sporty end to the sentence and they've also got an interesting dual tailgate of sorts back there you can lift the whole gate which by the way is available power for the first time on a three wagon or you can just lift up the actual glass lid with a cleverly hidden button underneath the base of the wiper stalk now inside are 328d is a very basic cabin this is not loaded up with all the CNET style tech but a quick glance here shows you familiar BMW DNA notice even on a very basic car you still have this sort of sticking up display on top of the dash but it doesn't have a lot in it it's basically your media and phone and contacts display a few settings in there ConnectedDrive doesn't work and you've got just basics here in a very nice interface and you're still using an eye drive controller basic eye drive is so basic it doesn't even have bluetooth streaming just bluetooth calling now we happen to have a sport wheel because we have the M Sport Package so know that this is different you got some nice paddles here for shifting our automatic transmission control is very familiar in BMWs right now we also sports seats in this car which are quite hugging again these are all along with that rather lofty redline cues that this is not the old style of diesel that just kind of lugs and tugs all the time this one's got some sporting pretensions great panoramic roof overhead by the way for a smallish car it really covers all rows of occupants very nicely and you can open up a full half of it to the sky now these BMW three wagons come with two two liter engines you can get the two litre inline-four gas motor or in this guy of course our 2 litre inline-four but it's a diesel the twin turbo or twin power technology on this car is BMW calls it is not a twin scroll turbo but it's a variable geometry single turbo a little different than the gas engine car beyond that of course it's longitudinally mounted driving all-wheel drive in this case and you've got the usual direct common rail injection that is really revolutionized Diesel's lately your numbers 181 horsepower but 280 foot-pounds of torque welcome to turbo diesel and the car weighs about 3,800 pounds but gets up to 60 in about seven point seven seconds now no that is 1.7 seconds slower than the gas engine car it's a dramatic difference but I will tell you when we get on the road I'll be able to report to you that Diesel's feel faster than they print and your mpg is the ringer that's the big story here 31 City 43 highway for an average of 35 estimates now controlling that engines output is a fairly simple set of drivetrain controls here is the key to the operation of four position rocker all the way up is Sport Plus and then sport comfort and then the most interesting to me is Eco Pro especially in this vehicle I don't think anybody buys a diesel without having eco pretty high on their shopping list now all these modes affect engine transmission steering traction control and in our car suspension because we have the optional adaptive underpinnings the Eco Pro Mode of course dampens throttle response up shifts occur sooner down shifts later air conditioning gets dialed back and you can set this car to coast to decouple its powertrain when you lift off so it really glides without drag even the heating of the mirrors and the seats gets tuned back a little bit to put less load on the engines alternator and battery combine that with brake energy regeneration that's on almost every BMW now as well as auto start/stop technology up here and you've got about a 10 point plan to bring down this cars fuel consumption now the last drive control I'll show you in here is actually not an ear at all and that would be any settings for the all-wheel drive there's nothing to do with it no controls that change its modes or behavior it's just in there and it works now the silvers taking a diesel for a gas engine in terms of that at tone of its engine and that's going to turn some people off even when the windows are up it comes through the base and the firewall of the car this is a relatively inexpensive car by BMW standards and so there's less isolation of that than let's say in a 5 Series diesel however as I mentioned this car is really only slower on paper yes it is slower in reality but it doesn't feel slower when you're behind the wheel that nice accessible torque makes the car feel quick not necessarily fast there's a subtle difference you've got a decent in fact a very good yellow and red line to work with here so getting onto it and shifting is no longer an absurdity like it was with diesel cars a few years ago you've got some rev range to work with and it does make a difference in perkiness you're not going to miss the manual transmission that you can't get I don't think this is a good alert automatic as BMWs tend to be and because of the torque the vehicle doesn't get buried under its upper gears like so many cars do today you can be in 6th or 7th stomp on it and get something German diesel wagon with a M Sport kit and adaptive suspension I like it ok pricing our 3-series wagon while it is a small wagon doesn't necessarily have a small price because to get it seen that style you know how it is with BMW you got to tick off a lot of boxes we start off at about 44 to base with destination but then there's another rough sixteen thousand dollars in add-ons that I'd want to see here to truly give it the old CNET stamp we're ending up around sixty thousand two hundred now the other cost a 328d wagon costs fifteen hundred more than a gas engine 328i based on us fuel price trends so far this year the 328d will save you maybe six hundred thirty dollars a year at the pump compared to feeding the gas wagon premium that means diesel payback will take a little under two and a half years longer if you're okay feeding your 328i mid-grade which it will run on quite happily the d is also 17% cleaner in terms of tailpipe co2 but trust me they don't get that question a lot in us car showrooms you've got to like it for more than just its native fuel efficiency at least as long as prices stay where they are you got to like it for it's torquey fun