Gadgetory

it's got four-wheel drive and a lift gate but this ain't no SUV BMW 328i is one of only a handful of wagons you can buy in the US today Americans just don't seem to like wagons even more so than hatchbacks but let me tell you why wagons are great so following the wagon tradition this BMW sports wagon is built on the 3-series platform and that's the same thing they build them m3 on which adds legendary performance so of course this car is gonna benefit from that it's gonna have great hand boys so now at the same time we've got all this cargo space back here this is a gun with the rear seats down can hold 53 cubic feet so wagons are a great blend of practicality and performance now BMW only sells this sports wagon as the 328i or the 328d which is the diesel model now that means both only come with four-cylinder engines and xDrive is also standard on this model that means it's got all-wheel-drive now let's go take a look under the hood now under the hood here we have the latest example of BMWs 2-liter four-cylinder engine they use this engine and everything from the 1 Series Coupe to the x3 SUV all the way up to the 5 series sedan now this engine have some great technologies in it it's got a twin-scroll turbocharger which cuts down on turbo lag by having the exhaust gases from Soler's one through three spin one scroll and the exhaust gases from syllabus two through four spin the other scroll all that gives it more power to BMW also uses direct injection on this so that sprays fuel directly into the cylinders give it a more complete burn that contributes to efficiency all this technology helps decisions without 240 horsepower 255 pounds of torque for efficiency this engine does 22 miles per gallon city 33 miles per gallon EPA rating now let's check the cabin test BMW has all sorts of great tech features for the 328i you can get adaptive cruise control automatic parallel parking even a head-up display which I'll show your speed and some navigation information on the windshield right in front of your eyes this car doesn't have any of that BMW sent us a totally stripped-down version no cabin tech options at all so this is as base as you get even as bases you get though you do get this screen here this LCD up here which without the navigation option shows you the stereo stuff and the telephone and all that so but use this iDrive controller down here and go to the telephone menu got an iphone paired up to this thing so I can see my my phone book and I can dial numbers using this iDrive controller go back to the main menu and I've got my radio item here and that will give me am/fm HD but it won't give me satellite radio because and that's an option in the console here I've also got this Y adapter it's got a 30 pin iphone connector on the side and then also an aux input in a USB port here it's kind of old-style I hate these things because they don't work with the newer iOS devices they don't have the lightning connector so you actually have to use another adapter on top of that and the sound quality really starts to suffer with that so I'm really surprised BMW still uses this on a 2014 model now I could also get some app integration here play online sources like Pandora and MOG and stuff like that and even see Facebook and Twitter updates on this screen here but that's an option not in this car see a trend here I'm console I've got the shifter this is a standard BMW shifter for their automatic transmission this is an 8-speed automatic it's got the standard I push forward for reverse pull back for drive push it to the side for manual mode and sport gate and next to it I've got this rocker switch which takes me through the different drive modes I've got Eco Pro Comfort Sport and Sport Plus now if I move it down to Eco Pro that's going to get me the best mileage I can actually set some of the parameters for that on the screen here now climate control is going to be a big shock on your fuel economy so this will actually detune the climate control a bit if you can get away with it it's a nice way to get yourself a few more miles per gallon this car actually has the dynamic handling package so that means it's got an adaptive suspension so I can choose whether to have the chassis go into sport mode and the drivetrain go into sport mode or have them both of course I'm gonna have them go onto both sport mode for drivetrain and chassis so right now I'm in Eco Pro Mode and I pulled up to a stop put the brakes on foot brake on stop and the engine shut down that's the idle stop feature that they have on this car to save you gas in the city so as soon as I lift off the brake pedal the engine got a coughs and picks up again but now I flip the rocker switch to sport mode and suddenly the throttle gets a lot more sensitive even just holding the throttle steady and switching at the sport mode I suddenly feel this little burst of power here because the car is letting me get away with more with this throttle letting let me do more with it so yeah I really like that adaptive suspension because this I feel makes the car become more like what I expect of BMW also of course got the 8-speed automatic transmission and to complete the whole sport mode settings I might want to throw this over into the sport gate it's not a super aggressive sport mode I found it's okay it'll let me keep the engine speed up a little more especially when you drive it hard you really press down and of course I've also got the transmission in its sport mode right now but I can also use the paddles to on the wheel here to shift it manually there's a little bit of automatic transmission torque converter lag but generally it's pretty good the best thing I found about this car that I like this has electrically boosted power steering and I really like the heft of the wheel the wheels got really good weight and really good response I like that part of it and they think you know that's gonna be your sort of rubber meets the road part of the car when you're driving it you're really gonna feel that and notice that is the central BMW ness of the car now obviously I like wagons and I've been a BMW fan for years but I'm not crazy about some of the stuff the company's been doing lately they've kind of instituted sort of a a pay-to-play model now with this 2014 328i sports wagon its base price is forty one thousand four hundred fifty dollars fortunate this one came with that $1000 dynamic handling package that gets you the adaptive suspension and also the sport steering system that helps the handling quite a bit too this car also has an M sports package that's $3,850 that adds a few handling features a few sports stuff but also a lot of cosmetic stuff I don't know if I'd get that so let's start over with this car to do it up CNET style well I first would definitely still have the dynamic handling package I'd also add the technology package that's three thousand one hundred fifty dollars and that gets you the voice command the app integration even the navigation system so that'll give you a lot of the cabin tech that you want I'd also add the driver assistance package which gets you a rear-view camera that's nine hundred fifty dollars kind of pricey but good to have and on top of that I'll also add the Harman Kardon audio system $850 that's gonna make the stereo sound quite a bit better and finally for those long highway trips I'd add adaptive cruise control that's $1,200 option so all-in were just over 51,000 dollars still kind of pricey but this car is going to feel like a BMW and it's going to have seen that style technology you