2012 BMW 328i Sedan

     This is the 2012 BMW 328i Sedan. The last of the E90 3-series BMWs. Next year BMW will be launching a brand new 3-series generation for the 2013 model year. But before they do, I'd like them to know what I've thought of their efforts so far.
     The BMW 3-series started out innocently enough. Just an entry level BMW designed to get you to work quickly and in relative comfort. The E30 generation BMWs are regarded as a triumph, and in my opinion, some of the best cars ever made. I actually owned one: a 1991 325i Convertible for a time and I absolutely adored it. However, something happened in 1992 that completely changed everything. Someone at BMW figured out that everyone, in America at least, would be perfectly fine with the company making the entry level 3-series into a mid-level 5-series clone for the same money. It's an idea that has infected every single level of BMW's manufacturing to this day. As of right now, you can get a 335i sedan with almost every single feature of a 740i (minus of course, the leg room), which to me anyway, doesn't make any sense. The list of amenities that it now includes is actually so extensive that it would be easier to list the items not included, that are on the 7-series by contrast:

• Leg room
• Trunk space
• A V8 Engine (which you have to get the 750i to enjoy, the 740 comes with the same 3.0l engine as the 335i)
• Some cup holders
• 4 zone climate control   

And I'm sorry, but that is an impressively short list of features for an extra $30,000. Sure, the ride's better, but is that really all you get with a 7-series now a days? The 3-series can now come with: active cruise control, iDrive, heated seats, a rear window sun shade, active steering, traction control, ABS, bluetooth, satellite navigation, a half dozen airbags, and "Adaptive Brake Lights," whatever those are.
     So, this car seems like it would be a great value for $36,000, but it's not. Because the 3-series was never meant to have any of those things in the first place. So its made the car roll in the corners more than it would normally due to all the extra weight. And furthermore, it takes away from the driving experience of the car itself. You get so immersed in buttons and features that you're not focusing on the one thing this car was supposed to be about: performance and style. The fact of the matter is: the 328i is just another car now. And that brings a tear to my eye because it's not supposed to be just another car, it's supposed to be a BMW for God's sake!

If you don't see the BMW badge, it looks like a Honda doesn't it?

    And it doesn't get any better when you're sitting in the thing either. The interior is bland and hard to understand. Case in point: the central door locking button has been relocated in between two vents on the upper part of the dashboard and is very small. If you're in the projects with your BMW and a car jacker tries to take your car, you'll be fumbling through the manual for hours trying to locate the button after he's already gone. The crazy thing is that the door locking button is right under the hazard lights button and next to the traction control button. These three buttons have absolutely nothing in common and should be in three very different places in the car! It's like the interior was designed by people in white lab coats and not by someone who actually understood ergonomics or general common sense.
     Even harder to understand is why someone would actually pay $40,000 for it in the first place. The viewing angles are bad, you can't see out of the rear window at all if there are people in the back, and to be quite honest: the ride is dreadful. It doesn't get good fuel economy either, the 328i only gets 17mpg city. My four-wheel drive SUV gets better fuel economy than that.
     The 328i that I drove didn't have BMW's infamous 'iDrive' system, thank God. But it's an optional extra that shouldn't be in the brochure at all. In fact, BMW has had to launch an entirely new car, the 1-series, in order to make a quick, lightweight, agile sports coupe after they realized the 3-series has become an arthritic old flop that doesn't excite even the vaguest hope of driving excellence.
     A comparable Audi or Mercedes will have most of the same features and will, more or less, be about the same price. But the BMW will not be for the driving enthusiast like it once was. Because at the end of the day, you're going to pull up to your house and park it and eventually you'll have to look at it. And that's the thing: Audis and Mercedes are beautiful cars, the BMW is ugly and looks like it goes about as fast as a fax machine. Which is probably the chief job of someone who actually owns one. BMW disagrees of course, their catalogue for the 3-series says boldly: "Designed to reward all who see it." With what? Vomit? The 2012 3-series is one of the ugliest cars on the road. It's everyone's hope that they improve it for next year, but to be honest I don't have much faith. The 3-series has been downright ugly since 1992 and it'll probably stay that way. Slow, unappealing, and uninviting: exactly the opposite of what the 3-series once was, and should have always been.

The Upcoming Reviews

Just wanted to take a moment and tell you about the upcoming car reviews that I am going to be doing!

1. The 2012 BMW 3-series
2. The 2012 Chrysler 200C
3. The 2012 Suzuki Kizashi 
4. The 2012 Fiat 500

If you know of a car that I should review, please post a comment telling me which one to do!

Hope you're all having a pleasant weekend!

 

The 1994 Toyota 4Runner

     This is, as I'm sure many of you are aware, a Toyota 4Runner. But it's not just any Toyota 4Runner, it's mine. I've owned it for nearly two years now, and I'm going to tell you what I think of it.
     Before all that, however, I figured I'd explain why I've chosen to do my car first because I'm sure a lot of you are wondering: "This car came out ages ago, who cares about it." And you're right, but before I start reviewing new cars, I thought it'd be clever to start with my own; for the same reason that you wouldn't expect to start with sodomy first and then move into oral sex.
     That being said, lets move it on to the car I've chosen to buy. Back in 2009, I had a Toyota 'Nameless Wonder' 4WD pickup, (a Hilux for some of you well-read viewers) that was a single cab. And I decided I needed more room to haul things like: people for example. So I opted for the 4Runner pictured above. I test-drove a lot of them before finally landing on this particular one, and now that I've owned it for a while I can tell you a lot about it. First of all, as of right now, it has 171k miles on it, it's a 5-speed manual, four wheel drive, and has the 22R-E 4-cylinder engine in it. And as you'd expect, it's very very slow. Because when it was shiny and new, it had 117 horsepower. Which is kind of like trying to power a space-shuttle with a hamster wheel, as it weighs close to 2 tons. If you try to go up hill at all, you'll be lucky to get out of 3rd gear. Which sort of makes it very annoying if you live in, oh lets say, Colorado for example.
     Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it has absolutely nothing in it. Which has its benefits that I will explain later, but the cons outweigh the plusses very severely. To start, it has only one powered accessory: which is the back window. The back window has to be powered because that's how you get into the trunk. Which made perfect sense on the 1st generation 4Runner because you could take the top off and it would become a pick-up truck. On the 2nd generation however, it made absolutely no sense at all, because the top is fused to the rest of the car so there's no point in having a 'tailgate.' And it becomes even more ridiculous and difficult if the key on the tailgate doesn't operate the rear window anymore, like it doesn't on mine.
     The list of non-ammenities doesn't stop there, however. No air conditioning, manual windows, manual locks, no cruise control, no ABS, manual door mirrors, not even a CD player. So one has to ask the question: "Why is there an 'SR5' badge on the back?" The 'SR5' is supposed to be the highest available trim level. Truth be told, it's classified as an 'SR5 Base,' which the Toyota enthusiast will regard as nothing more than an oxymoron. But some rather nice things were standard in 1994: Shift on the fly 4WD, power steering, a manual transmission, and a clock. Also some fog lamps that I put on.
     So why, you ask, did I buy it? Because it didn't have any of those things to begin with. If you look at a car that's been driven on and off the road for the better part of 19 years, things are going to go wrong. This 4Runner, however, doesn't have anything TO go wrong on it. And at the end of the day, when you're desperately poor and living in it, you can't afford to fix something like a window motor or a cruise control actuator.
    Also its legendary reliability cannot be taken out of the equation. The 22R-E was one of the best motors ever put into production. Even the 3.0L V6 (nicknamed the 3-Point-Slow) that came with most of the 4Runners wasn't that bad. Sure there were some head gasket issues, but Toyota eventually came through on that one. And the thing is: having a 'not so good' Toyota engine is still better than having a really great Chevy engine in my book.
     To sum up then, I'm glad I bought the car that I did. Sure I'd like air conditioning four months out of the year, but it's a small price to pay for a car that has served me well... after I completely rebuilt the damn thing a month after I bought it because the timing chain snapped. Which goes to show that even the most informed of us can make a mistake. Also, it proves that even the most reliable cars can suffer the strain when presented with idiotic owners who don't perform routine maintenance.