So I went to bmw of Bellevue with a friend to test drive the 335i. We found an agreeable salesman who promptly retrieved a key. While waiting for him We closely looked over the interior and exterior.

Exterior, the front end looks very much like my a4 usp front end, except slightly thicker on the bottom. The front headlights look like they are crying. There is a plethora of chromish gunk on the upper corners of the headlight eyelids. All 335’s come with a sport package that includes 18” wheels. The standard 17 inch wheels from a 328 IMHO would look better on this car if they were 18”. That is a personal choice thing I think. Moving to the rear, the horrible **** end is gone. Well almost gone. The tail lights have been changed. Now they look like a copy of the civic, which is a copy of the b7 a4. LOL.

The interior:
It has been nearly a year since I last sat in let alone drove a BMW. This Dash is sparse, simple and plain. I think a good case can be made for a sporty car to have a sparse dash free of distractions. The steering while is nice, thick, leather wrapped and has two thumb and finger paddles for dsg style shifting. I found both the thumb and finger portions to be just out of comfortable shifting reach for my fingers. I had to adjust my hands from my preferred hand position; it was at this point I also noticed how small the steering wheel was compared to my a4 sline wheel. The shift lever was great, right at the length and height I would want it. The radio, hmm well I was busy listening to the salesman drone on. I would imagine it is the same as any other 3 series.
The seats, are comfortable and have great support. Almost intrusive support. Even at the widest the side bolsters were intrusive to me, and the other person I brought along for tag team support. The seat adjustments were not in any way intuitive. They had to be explained by the sales rep. I have owned a Lincoln,tahoe,a4, and all of them had the same basic controls. Why because they work. At our shoulders we had about 4 maybe 5 inches apart between the two of us. Both of us are around 5’8” tall. The car felt fairly claustrophobic compared to my Audi a4.
The rear seating area is very nice, 2 bucket seats with a deep foot well and storage bin area between them. As far as leg room it is nearly non existent. Our sales rep had to sit semi sideways to be comfortable in the rear seat. The two rear seats are fold down seats. Which Is a great thing as the ”trunk space is 12% larger than a Toyota corolla.” Yes I am quoting the sales rep. to give you an idea of what 12% larger than a corolla looks like take 1/3rd the space off a b6 Audi a4 trunk both in height and width. Also in the trunk you notice something truly amazing. No spare. Yep bmw did it again. They gave you no place to put a spare, and no spare to begine with. You get run flat tires. Tires that allow you to drive 150 miles at 55mph with only a driver in the car. Are you scratching your head at that one? Yep me too. I often drive 5-600 miles at a stretch with my wife, 2 kids, dog and I in the audi. I asked what am I supposed to do if I am on a long trip at nite with the family when a tire goes out. He said bmw road side assistance. Um… he must not have ever driven through Montana or the barren stretch of i-10 from phoenix to la. More on the tires later.

Driving:

So this is the reason why you started reading this. Well here it is. It’s fast, not earth shakingly fast but fast. It has a few things going against it though. For 300 bhp and 300 torque you would expect more from it in a few areas. Perticularly since it is a bmw. For instance I had hoped it would be nearly as good as the current M3. I can honestly say, aside from all the personal taste issues I related above it does not come close to an M3. Why? Some simple reasons.
Throttle response,
Different gearing,
Squidgy runflat tires
Body roll that makes a capsizing ship crindge.

First throttle response. Every time I jammed on the gas, there it was that split second hesitation before it responded. Normally I would say hey TT car. Turbo lag, but that is noticeable also, not in a huge way but it comes in that moment right after the car responds to you. Compared to my 3.slow audi which is known for ghey throttle response times. This is far worse. It makes you wonder what a decent chip can do in this area. Seriously the Throttle response makes it feel ungainly as you drive. Why is it like this, because it would intercede on the current gen M3. If it has a great throttle response it would be one step closer to beating the current model m3 0-60 0-100 numbers.
Separate gearing. Why not mate this with the current gears for the M3, why not give it the capabilities of it’s big brother. Why? Well why buy a current gen m3 with less torque when you can buy a TT 300bph 335 with more torque and with the same gearing. This to I think leads to it not nearly being as good as it should. All of the gears felt extra long. I would have loved to seen a them a bit shorter. Are you starting to see a pattern here.
Squidgy run flats. This is asinine. I am not kidding, just plain flarking stupid. When you combine the vehicle’s epic body roll with the squidgy tires it feels like you are driving on 15 inch rims and 60 serries tires. I hit 2 of the most fun curved onramps of 520 and it felt like I was driving my old 82 lincoln continental with *****. Sure it was fast as I wanted it to be, but I was floating on the road, not riding it like a train on rails.
Body roll of the titanic. I was expecting a bit of roll, a bit of squidginess. I had read 1 review out of 20 that mentioned it. Let me tell you. It’s bad. It gets really bad when you throw the weight of the car around. I expected a much tighter feel to the drive, but this was loose, and aloof. Not at all what I was expecting. So why do I think they nerfed the suspension. Well M3 if the suspension had been half as good as the current m3, this car would be fantastic. I could over look all it’s other faults. Because you could drive it like it had 300hp and 300lbft of torque. As it stands now I can honestly say, I could drive my audi faster in a curvy, straight, track situation. I was really surprised. Sure a new set of tires, 800, new set of coil overs 1500, new set of sways 700, and it would be fantastic. Why should I spend 3 grand to fix a car to what it should have been.

Final driving gripe.
The side mirrors are very small. Horribly small. They cut off your peripheral vision something fierce. Forcing you to turn sideways into the cars blind spot.

Conclusion, The 335 while a fast car with 300bhp and 300ftlb of torque is not a car that can realisticly be expected to be driven like a 300 hp bmw. You would need to think of it more like the Pontiac gto. A fast car with limitations. Bmw says it will have a 4door version with the same 300hp engine here in 07, with no real date for a all wheel drive train version. Is it fast, yes, it’s also better looking than the other current 3 series. What does price do you pay for that speed. So-so interior, intrusive seats, poor throttle response, body roll like a 500lb woman doing jumping jacks, and tires you better hope do not go flat at 3 am while traveling through the syskious.

 

Thanks for the excellent review. I was going to go for a test drive today and got busy with other things. One my local dealer has is grey with bright red interior. wtf? It's not a Lambo. That would give me a headache after a while. Anyway, I'll go check it out soon and get a first hand impression.

 

Sounds just like I expected, wanna-be Mercedes. Somewhat fast, but handles like a greased bowling ball, is that about right? Figures....

 

Hehe no spare tire? What is it with luxory car companies always douching on the simplest of features?

 

great review...kind of dissapointed that its got all that body roll / handling issues.
especially for a 2 door.

 

the Rs4 doesnt come with a spare, but i guess its weight reduction

 

Do you not consider the RS4 to be a luxory car? That was my point, and weight reduction or not its retarded to not include it. I'm sure you could save a hell of alot of wight not having any saftey features in it.

 

yes but the rs4 isnt ghey haha, and you have 4 doors in it, at least they fixed the *** of the 3 series a bit with that yuck, e46's were so much better looking imo

 

I googled 335i trying to find pictures, and found this... man, this is beautiful!

old school 335i?

 

it's because of the RunFlat tires it comes with, or alteast that's BMW's reasoning