Rental Car Ruckus 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Jake]

So I had that 328xi M-Sport a few weeks ago, right? Joey said something about the 320i:

So it becomes quite possibly the slowest $39k car on the market.

...and I was #blessed enough to get one as my next loaner while the dealership uses an impact gun to change my oil and front brakes.

2014 BMW 320i xDrive

I made friends with the loaner guy yesterday, and he told me that in the future, I can call him ahead of time and he'll set aside keys to something more interesting, like a 535d. Unfortunately, all he had last night were 320i non-sport cars. I got to choose my color, though, so I picked "Imperial Blue metallic" - which is quite pretty in the sun (and florescent lighting of your friend's parking garage).



The paint color is about the only thing I like about this 320. Things I dislike include the super-cheap-looking tan interior, the flat-as-Kansas non-sport seats, and the fact that someone thought 180 crank horsepower was sufficient to spin four wheels and 3,600 lbs.

It's not. It's slow. Not "I think I might die driving this" slow - that honor was awarded to the 1.8L Z3, years ago - but "I'd like to pass someone on the Beltway and the trans dropped from 8th to 4th and I got nothing here" slow.

Since this car encouraged absolutely zero spirited driving, I decided to focus on how it drove in "Comfort" and "EcoPro" modes. Comfort is absolutely fine. It is A Car and it will take you Places. You'll impress the ladies at Zumba because you show up with a blue and white badge on the hood of your car.

I chose to commute today in EcoPro mode... which was both nice and frustrating, as traffic was horrendous and it took me 1hr 40 minutes to go 17 miles. Really.

So, EcoPro! Leave the transmission in Drive, put the "drive mode" thingy in EcoPro and drive to work. It re-maps the throttle so that 0-80% throttle becomes 0-20%. The transmission wants to be in 5th gear at 27 mph and you can access a screen on the iDrive where you are awarded blue stars for driving like a Toyota owner. I earned this many, until I had to brake exiting the off-ramp, at which point the car admonished me for not looking ahead and coasting. Never mind I would have coasted right into a CR-V... I'd have earned another star!



The lack of full throttle application was nicer than I thought it'd be, for the moments where I was smushing through stop-and-go traffic. It made it much easier to take the perfect Snapchat and scroll through Pitbull's extensive library on Spotify without worrying about my right foot. It became frustrating when I wanted to accelerate at a rate beyond "glacial" - you have to prod the pedal quite a bit, and then the transmission kicks down and you hnng up to 5k rpm.

The other nice thing was the navigation. I've used iDrive nav before, it's great in my 2009 BMW and the graphics got better in the 2012+ cars. Easy to program routes, blahblah. Well, now the car shows your next turn in the LCD screen that's under the gauges. It's a nice touch, and I know it's not exclusive to BMW. Just a random "new cars have nice things on them" thing.





I think I get to give this one back after lunch today. Thank goodness.

Other than "because I want the badge," I truly don't know why anyone would buy one of these. This particular car stickers at $42k - has the Premium package and real leather (vs. "Sensatec") and nothing else. You can get more standard features for the same money on an Audi or Benz, or you can get a fully-loaded Fusion AWD for $36k... and all of those cars will have 220-240 hp.

Sigh.