[r3dbimmer89]

Originally Posted by 宝马.e90

LOL @ everyone who's making excuses and using their opinions as criteria for which is the better car. Yes, you should buy the car that makes you happy but to compare all cars using the segment as the criteria, I don't know why people find it so hard to believe that BMW got trumped. For as long as I can remember, BMW always won because of one thing, driving feel whether that be stiff steering and hard suspension. Now Cadillac took over that role. You guys can argue about how the exterior or interior can't match the Germans, who cares. BMW's were never judged on that so that shouldn't even be used against the Cadillac, sure it might matter to you - good but not for comparing as to see which is the better car in this segment.




Yes, so what? Again, BMW's always won for that fact. This is nothing towards you personally, but everyone really need to take off the fanboy shades and go back and see why BMW's won all those comparisons, I'll tell you one thing, it wasn't because of their plain interior, sometimes bad exteriors or iDrive...

+100000000000000000000000

[Rich@GTBPerformance]

Not a big fan of the Journalist. He is pretty negative about most aspects of every car.

It's only until you realize how badly he rips the ATS' interior and CUE system that he is actually "praising" BMW.

Would it kill him to say something positive? Oh by the way genius, if the inside of the car is too dark, order the beige interior.

Sheesh.

[Imola.ZHP]

I stopped at 8:55, this guy is an idiot...

He likes the Benz because it has red seatbelts?

lol

NEXT!

[Robin_NL]

Originally Posted by filmoreslim

How does the 328i beat the ATS but not the 335i?

The more I watch this guy, the more his opinion becomes just what it is, an opinion that I probably give less credibility to.

If you want credibility from a real driver's point of view , watch Tiff Needel, Jason Plato, Vicky BH , Chris Harris and Tim Schrick or even Matthias Malmedie. (And forget Liebermann and Lago). But they haven't tested the F30 yet....

Cheers
Robin

[MaDoNiOn]

id consider that Cadillac if it wasn't so hideous!

Merc looks great inside and out!

[DoD74]

Originally Posted by fireline43

exactly, only the transmission has been it's shortfall. The mercedes is technically in the same category also. You get more luxury instead of sport is the tradeoff. The c350 amg package is a hot looking car to me. i wouldn't put it's performance against the bmw, but it's a car that looks sexy.
I think the ats is the worst looking of the 3 though. I wouldn't buy it for that reason.

That's odd to me, because every review I've read said the ATS made great strides but still edged it to the 3 Series. I agree with the Mercedes comment though: I love the look but the driving experience just isn't there.

[F30AM]

Originally Posted by Robin_NL

If you want credibility from a real driver's point of view , watch Tiff Needel, Jason Plato, Vicky BH , Chris Harris and Tim Schrick or even Matthias Malmedie. (And forget Liebermann and Lago). But they haven't tested the F30 yet....

Cheers
Robin

You took the 'words out of my mouth'!

No car has wowed me like an F30 on a first drive.

The car felt so well oiled and completely frictionless. It was so light in feel and deft to the touch. I felt I was on wings when I drove it. Getting back into our Mercedes C350 CDI Sport and Mk6 Golf GTI (both with adaptive suspension) was a revelation. Both these cars felt moribund with friction, rough and harsh just like most cars. Planted in the worse sense of the word. They felt old and decrepit. I just wanted to stop driving them and get back into the F30. This car's cockpit just shrank around me and I felt at one with the car. Have never felt this before. I was smitten, big time. I bought two!

That Lieberthing is so wrong.

[Robin_NL]

Originally Posted by F30AM

I felt I was on wings when I drove it.

No more Scotch for this man.

Cheers
Robin

[krispykreme]

You have an E92 not its duller replacement.

[JK479]

Originally Posted by claykin

GM manufactured 8 speed auto coming in CY2014.
http://www.13abc.com/story/18769971/...d-transmission

Rumor is that GM is buying an 8 speed auto from Aisin (Japan) and will use for a year or so in the new Caddy models such as the ATS.
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/11/13/c...ecause-gms-ow/

Aisin makes one of the worst manuals. I've driven the Porsche 911 which had it. the metallic thump engagement is so off putting...

[BKsBimmer]

Oh damn beat by a Caddy! Dust off and get on it BMW, y'all got some work to do...

[vols1]

I thought it was a good review. I don't know why some owners have to have their purchase confirmed by an auto reviewer. He gave his opinion. You don't have to agree.

[CirrusSR22]

Originally Posted by jk3355

Aisin makes one of the worst manuals. I've driven the Porsche 911 which had it. the metallic thump engagement is so off putting...

It sounds like Cadillac will be sticking with the Tremec for the manuals. I'm curious to see a review of the new shift set-up Cadillac has been working on for the manual cars. The shift action apparently wasn't very good in pre-production models that reviewers were driving.

[IS3andME]

Originally Posted by Alpine390

I agree, the cadillac is pretty ugly in and out. I've seen a few on the road and they really look the same as all of the other cadillac cars out there now. On the other hand that Benz looks REALLY good, i'm surprised it did so well as far as the driving goes. If I were buying new I'd still go either 335i or S4 as theres not much tuning potential for the others, they're all going to handle well. I want the get up and go

the same has been said about the current BMW line up and Audi, what's that thing about sausage?

Come on, people are trying to justify NOT liking the Caddy. this is no longer a duck zig zagging around. Caddy is starting to make some base hits, applaud it, and move on, because it means that BMW will rise to the challenge.

[pkim1079]

Originally Posted by DarkTrigger

Sorry, I need to clarify, comparing it to my friend E46. I hate it when he drives us into Downtown LA, it's pretty rough....

And the sport package E90 is too rough for me. I get sick easily in the car. F30 is much softer but I still believe it performs well. I need to go to that BMW performance driving school though.

Are you from la? No need for performance school yet. Take your car out to a bmw cca event. Autox or hpde doesnt matter. You will learn the soft sussy is actually pretty capable.

[pkim1079]

Im curious about the magnetic suspension though. It was good enough for ferrari. Must be pretty good. But an ATSV better than an M3/4?

//M division just would not let that happen. No way in hell thats ever happening.

[DarkTrigger]

Originally Posted by pkim1079

Are you from la? No need for performance school yet. Take your car out to a bmw cca event. Autox or hpde doesnt matter. You will learn the soft sussy is actually pretty capable.

Yup, in LA. My friend who has the M3 E46 wanted to go to the performance school, but this CCA events sounds interesting. I'll look into it! Thx.

[Elk]

Originally Posted by pkim1079

Im curious about the magnetic suspension though.

It is superb, much better than BMW's active suspension. It has been around for quite some time and beautifully developed.

[jeffro535]

The differences in the cars is the three companies reacting (or not, in Mercedes case) to potential buyers. BMW is going for a more mass appeal in an effort to increase sales. And it seems to be working. The first F30 I drove, I was like "wtf?" with the steering. Then I thought about it and the couple of non enthusiast drivers who've driven my e92 335 have bitched about how heavy the steering is, to the point of one of them insisting there was something wrong with it. I told him it was fine and he needed to spend more time in the gym. The point is that's the first impression the cars were making and BMW was probably losing sales to Infinity and Lexus because of it, so they softened the dynamics up a bit. Cadillac on the other hand, is making a concerted effort to go after the enthusiast segment and has made huge gains in the past few years, but is saddled with GM's powertrains ( which isn't all bad, corvette LT 1 motor anyone?) and that is what wrecks the driving experience in most of those cars. That and the not entirely thought out dash. A friend of mine's wife just bought an ATS and she explained the electronics this way " it sounded like a good idea, but it's like trying to use an iPad while driving" Mercedes, on the other hand seems stuck in some sort of funk that their attempts to change involves simply throwing a bigger motor in an existing car. Not a lot of innovation. If BMW can make the cars innocuous enough to take some market share from the competitors, but still be able to build cars with their traditional virtues and have the enthusiasts be able to option in the more hard core stuff it's a win-win.

[adc]

For decades BMW built its reputation for drivers cars. It was a hard earned reputation and it took many years for that "ultimate driving machine" to become ingrained in the buyer's perception, to be consider super cool and something to aspire to.

In those days, the most simple BMW without sport package simply drove miles better than anything else in the class. You added the sport package and all of the sudden you were knocking at the door of handling greatness. They were at the top of their game, every magazine loved them and it seemed they could make no mistake.

But they did do a stupendous mistake: runflats. That immediately ruined the delicate ride/handling balance, and people started complaining in droves. I changed to non-runflats on my 2007 335 but didn't like the fact that I gave up the security of a spare wheel.

Midway through the E9x cycle they changed the suspension to make it less harsh and almost succeeded. People still bought the cars because of that unique BMW feel, and despite the rest of the flaws.

So now, in an effort to quell that last bit of criticism and to appeal to an even wider audience, they completely screwed up their ultimate selling point: the unique BMW driving feel.

I went with my wife to buy us a new family mobile, and after driving the F30 and screwing every each way with the settings, her comment was that it drove like an Audi and that she didn't want it.

What BMW doesn't quite realize is that by stepping into the "value" and "comfort" side of the equation, they are loosing their loyal customer base in favor of a fickle clientelle who ultimately chases the best deal and the most doodads.

In my opinion it will hurt them a few years from now if they don't course-correct. It's not my wish to see them go down of course, I love them deeply and still cannot really part with the brand. In fact, I am getting ready to get an X1 which for me combines the best of both worlds: the new generation drivetrain with the old generation chassis.


I did 3 euro deliveries so far and have been a serial BMW owner since 2001 so please spare me any generic fanboy comment...

[verbs]

I'm someone who has owned a CTS-V, E60 M5, and both an E92 335i and now an F30 335i (M-sport).

Here are my thoughts. BMW has been impacted by a few things. Changes in consumer tastes/preferences, safety requirements, and regulations.

To cope with this, BMW's strategy has changed, for example efficient dynamics. We would have laughed at this 20 years ago for a BMW. You've got expensive gas, miles per gallon requirements in the US, and growing environmental sentiments where BMW's biggest market is. It unfortunately had to adjust. That included a much more concerted effort to improve gas mileage/energy usage when faced with the need to add weight due to consumers' tastes demanding more electronics/features and safety laws requiring more things to be added to the car. More weight from safety stuff and amenities means beefier drivetrain/braking components and bigger/more powerful engines to compensate which does what? Add more weight. What does more weight do? Reduce gas mileage and the driving experience. Then to compensate for the extra weight which hurts gas mileage what does BMW do? Give sportline 335i cars skinny 225 tires on back and front, things like electronic steering, run flat tires eliminating a spare, etc. What does this do in turn? Further reduce the driving experience to offset the aforementioned gas mileage challenges.

What should have been done in response? For starters, BMW dropped the ball with the N55 engine. The engine is one of the aspects that make driving BMWs so awesome. I thought the N54 was an awesome step for performance, and to follow that up what did BMW give us? An N55 that while torquier off the line, makes less power than the N54 motor. So here we are, in 2013 model years, 6 years after the N54 debuted in the 3 series, with engines making less power than they used to. This in part allowed the competition to catch up. Performance package power should have been standard on the N55 for the new F30s as a way to help BMW keep its performance edge.

Not a fan of the steering which was one of the biggest letdowns of this new car, and maybe BMW should have done a better job testing or at least given us options to have a much better steering feel through a setting adjustment at the cost of MPG. The F30 335i car is longer than the E90 which makes it feel a bit bigger even though it's actually s shade lighter. The lack of a limited slip differential is a joke in a car like the 335i, another big mistake that should have been remedied long ago. That's something that would really help the car get back some of that handling feeling we long for.

You can start to see that BMW seems to be moving towards a business model that focuses more on profitability than anything else. What do most consumers want? Gas mileage, technology/amenities, comfort and reasonable pricing for example.

We can sit here and gripe about what BMW is doing wrong. But we on this board are the minority, the true enthusiast who doesn't just drive to go from point A to point B. What BMW is doing will help it sell more cars in the long run. The current 3 series is a much better all around car than the E90 for daily driving. Literally does everything better except steer and accelerate. My biggest complaint is that there's not enough of what made the 3 series great being transferred to each successive vehicle, and not enough performance improvement of late. Light weight vehicles that were fun to toss around and had soul is what made this car special. I think BMW could have done a better job incorporating the ol' recipe into future models. A few steering tweaks, a bump in power, a limited slip diff, and some lighter weight materials would go a long way to making this car the undisputed leader in its class.

[spiike32]

Is this really a surprise to anyone?

Electronic steering
no LSD
bigger
etc etc etc

People will still buy BMW's. It's the #3 recognized brand by Fortune mag. Everyone will be jelly when the M4 comes out, be honest.