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2014 BMW 328i xDrive Gran Turismo Long-Term Road Test - Wrap-Up
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2014 BMW 328i xDrive Gran Turismo Long-Term Road Test - Wrap-Up
Edmunds' test of the 2014 BMW 328i xDrive Gran Turismo is complete after one year and 25,000 miles. Read all the details here.
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The best thing about BMWs were the straight 6's, the turbo 4's will be a money pit.
The first was that I confirmed that BMW was shipping it with the insult of runflat tires and the additional injury of *NO spare tire wheel well* The observations that Mike Magrath made (cost, downtime, being stranded in 'nowhere') are all spot-on, although here in the NY/NJ area, we have a lot more bad roads which increases the frequency rates of runflat tire failures, which merely accentuates their shortcomings. As a result, the GT which I spec'ed out was ~$50K MSRP (before title/tax/fees). It would have been $49K, but I budgeted +$1K to replace the runflats with conventional tires immediately upon delivery.
The second was that I became aware of the Porsche Macan in the same basic price range. Having driven both, I found that the Macan provided superior driver UI feel in its steering, in its throttle, in its brake pedal modulation, plus the PDK transmssion is vastly superior as well. YMMV on how much of a driving affectionado one is to say what these differences are worth ($$), but the Macan is IMO in a higher performance class by virtually every metric.
For the latter, the question ultimately came down to price, and to what degree one could resist the temptation to load up on options. Keeping it simple (and no need to replace runflats), the Macan was $53,360 (before title/tax/fees) as delivered. My biggest complaint** about it is that it's height could be dropped by ~1.5" to make entry/exit easier for my petite wife ... plus that would make its already excellent handling even better.
-hh
** Edit: well, maybe not the _biggest_ complaint: the Macan is quite a deceptive vehicle, which is quite quiet and well mannered at speed, resulting in 60 feels like 40, 75 feels like 50, 90 like 65 ... which makes it hard to not drive it fast.
Really? A ~10% difference between EPA estimates and actuals is 'significant'? There are so many variables that go into a vehicle's lifetime average that I have a hard time getting behind that. If we got some sense as to the % miles spent city vs. highway, then we could make a better judgement call (based on there being only one real road trip documented, Austin, my guess is it spent more time in the city/rush hour traffic than cruising the open highway). As it is, your best tank of 33mpg equals the EPA highway estimates (and my guess is the editors were probably driving faster than what the EPA tests call for). From the surface, it looks like the BMW met the EPA estimates.
2001 Prelude Type SH, 2022 Highlander XLE AWD, 2022 Wrangler Sahara 4Xe, 2023 Toyota Tacoma SR 4WD
In the end, this car delivers 90% of the 3-series driving experience. It does this while providing tons more cargo space than a normal 3-series, a far better backseat than a 3 series wagon, way better handling and mpg than an X3 (and comparable space), at a relatively competitive price point. Why all the hate for this car?