[shragon]

Originally Posted by diesel007

Sorry, but that is a downgrade IMO.

^

[IM2C]

Originally Posted by akhbhaat

I'll tell you what's wrong with the 3 series today, particularly the E90: it's not sporty enough (see above!). It's not luxurious enough (have you driven the new IS350?). It tries to be both, and shouldn't. The buyer should be offered a choice OR a compromise.

AMEN.

Thank you, espo89, akhghat, StewtheBassman, a burrito and the rest of you guys who can carry on a civilized debate. I will order alu trim tomorrow along with sports pedals. This will create younger, sportier appearance.

[StewtheBassman]

Don't forget e90im.....if the 130i M package comes to the US you'll be the BADDEST dude in town driving one of those...and the BMW dealer may actually give you a good trade-in!

[shuzmaker]

Originally Posted by e90im

AMEN.

Thank you, espo89, akhghat, StewtheBassman, a burrito and the rest of you guys who can carry on a civilized debate. I will order alu trim tomorrow along with sports pedals. This will create younger, sportier appearance.

OK Great.

[ACZakka325i]

You guys complain about the throw being too long!? I came from an e46 and the shift on the e90 makes my last car feel really long.

[akhbhaat]

Originally Posted by ward

akbhat I think you're crazy thinking the steering's numb.

the feel on my E90 is just as good or better than my E36 was and almost as good as the porsches I've tested

the electric assist on my Z4 on the other hand.......

Are you sure you're not confusing "feel" with stiffness?

When I drove the E90, the steering had a nice heft (actually...more of that winding "stiffness" you get from BMW's steering rack) to it, but when you would hit bumps, road imperfections, and debris, the steering didn't really respond to it. It felt isolated...as though I were driving on perfectly smooth roads (even when I wasn't). My E46 with urethane LCA bushings will transmit jolts and impacts right to your hands.

Most people don't like that, but I do. Feels more interactive. It could be that I've gotten too used to the urethane bushings, but I still remember my buddy's E36 doing something similar, even with the stock bushings.

[Collanrf]

If you don't like the wood trim, trade it in with a aluminum trim. Right guys!!

[shuzmaker]

Originally Posted by akhbhaat

Are you sure you're not confusing "feel" with stiffness?

When I drove the E90, the steering had a nice heft (actually...more of that winding "stiffness" you get from BMW's steering rack) to it, but when you would hit bumps, road imperfections, and debris, the steering didn't really respond to it. It felt isolated...as though I were driving on perfectly smooth roads (even when I wasn't). My E46 with urethane LCA bushings will transmit jolts and impacts right to your hands.

Most people don't like that, but I do. Feels more interactive. It could be that I've gotten too used to the urethane bushings, but I still remember my buddy's E36 doing something similar, even with the stock bushings.

E90 with or without ZSP?
The e90 without ZSP would feel that way.
The 325 w/ZSP with the Bridgestone RFT's are really bad over bumps and road imperfections. I could only imagine the 18 RFTs to be worse.
On the other hand, the RFT really shines on flat and perfectly smooth roads.

[Pretender]

wow...you're probably the first one in the world doing such trading and will be the unique one. After all, driving an BMW is not because of the interior or some litle software issues, but the car over all espcially the handling and fun to drive.
If you can't enjoy those, you don't deserve the bimmer and I respect your decision.
Guys, not everyone will love the Bimmer, so please respect his decision.
Myself, I won't buy any other brands.

[ward]

Originally Posted by akhbhaat

Are you sure you're not confusing "feel" with stiffness?

When I drove the E90, the steering had a nice heft (actually...more of that winding "stiffness" you get from BMW's steering rack) to it, but when you would hit bumps, road imperfections, and debris, the steering didn't really respond to it. It felt isolated...as though I were driving on perfectly smooth roads (even when I wasn't). My E46 with urethane LCA bushings will transmit jolts and impacts right to your hands.

Most people don't like that, but I do. Feels more interactive. It could be that I've gotten too used to the urethane bushings, but I still remember my buddy's E36 doing something similar, even with the stock bushings.

yup, pretty sure I can tell the difference between heft and feedback.
I find the steering on the E90 better than my Z4 (of course) and better than my E36 M3. Maybe the 3 just seems so good because the Z is so poor in the feedback dept...

[Imtheweezel]

I agree with ben...the fact that you don't like the car is your fault. You had options and choices you could have made at the time of purchase. If you didn't test drive or look at the car before you go it....ohh welll....to bad, but don't blame BMW because of your fault.
I do think you are downgrading...but if that's what you want...good luck!

[ska///235i]

Mazda 6.....

[Oz]

If Mazda6 is what you really want, good luck and enjoy the new car. I don't know why wood trim will not what you want to drive the car though..You could have gotten another trim when you ordered the car.

I don't think most of us will agree since this is a BMW forum though..

[Barry626]

Originally Posted by e90im

OK this was to be expected. Keep it comming. This, after all, is BMW forum. I'm not against the BMW, I'm just venting some frustrations about my car and brainstorming other options. Please don't make it a bashing party. If you have advice based on hard facts, post it here. Much appreciated.

I bet my bottom dollar u won't be happy with the Mazda either.
U should of knew exactly what u were buying before u bought it.
U will get hit big time & especially when you sell the Mazda in 3 months

[docbolo]

these threads are fun. Its like the recent one where he wanted us to pat him on the back for not getting xenons.

They say "Please give me your opinion" and when we say "You have lost your mind" they are surprised. Its one thing if you cant afford an E90... there is always the TL or other jap crap which are actually great cars. But if you can afford it.... It really is the ultimate driving machine and no honda mazda or toyota holds a candle to it.

By the way. It helps to read the option list before you order.

[lux.sh]

Don't listen to what akhbhaat says. He doesn't even own an E90.
You gotta own the car to truly realize what it really is. Few test drives don't tell you anything.

As an owner, I can tell you he doesn't know crap about the "real e90".
He is just putting out some fancy words to look like a smart ass.

So let me tell you. Get the MazdaSpeed6. better yet, if you want a car in that class, look into STi. STi > Evo > Mazdaspeed 6.

[akhbhaat]

Originally Posted by lux.sh

Don't listen to what akhbhaat says. He doesn't even own an E90.
You gotta own the car to truly realize what it really is. Few test drives don't tell you anything.

As an owner, I can tell you he doesn't know crap about the "real e90".
He is just putting out some fancy words to look like a smart ass.

What are you trying to say? That the E90 drives like a sports car? Please, I'm laughing already. It's a bloated luxury sedan. It has an electronic throttle, long shifter throws, a featherweight clutch, and a heavy dual mass flywheel. Even my old E32 7 series had better road feel than the E90 does. Well, it's not the IS350. What else do you want me to say?

I'm sorry - I guess years of E32, E36, E39, and E46 ownership count for nothing. Of those cars, the E90 strikes me as being most similar to the E39 (which was still somewhat of a driver's car - but nevertheless a 3500 lb midsized luxury sedan), though with better suspension response. The styling does absolutely nothing for me. Not traditional enough to remind me of the old days, but too bland to be progressive like the Z4. The interior changes some things around, that's about it. It's not really "improved" in an ergonomic sense - just different aesthetics. Granted, that IS my subjective opinion - but who are you to argue with it?

I've driven the E90 - albeit for an hour at most - and I was not that impressed, once I was past the initial impressions. It represents the same thing that the E46 did - a progressive dilution of the core values that used to make BMW (particularly the 3 series) what it was. I was pleased to see that BMW had made some serious improvements in some areas (I love the E90's multi-link suspension layout - and the use of knobs over buttons for fan speed/temperature control has been a long time coming) - but really did some damage in others.

Let's completely forget steering feel (which can only be argued in the subjective sense; pointless) and focus on some other aspects of the new car: the driver-oriented dash/cockpit feel is gone. The center console mounted window switches (a 3 series feature since the car's inception and very handy once you're familiar with them), gone. The large, truly functional gauges and instrumention - gone, replaced by a series of idiot lights and instrumentation which clearly takes form over function. Full-sized spare and high performance tires...gone, replaced by heavy, expensive runflats which offer no truly practical advantage (how often do you drive your $40,000 car in a "bad" neighborhood? - and, since, you know, it's so much better to drive around looking for a reputable tire shop ASAP before the RFT's sidewall gives out, rather than simply swap out the blown wheel for the spare and worry about it later). I could be wrong about this, but I distinctly remember looking around the trunk of the E90 and not being able to find the traditional toolkit and jack. Where has that gone? How can you argue with that?

The only reason I'm even considering the car is because I can still recognize sound engineering when I see it - even if it means sacrificing my favorite features of the car. It's not like the competition has anything better, and my E46 certainly isn't getting any younger. If my heart ruled my mind, I'd buy a Z4 coupe as a daily driver - or, better yet, something as wild as an E30 M3. The E90 wouldn't really be on the radar...there's nothing about it that truly illicits passion - in me, at least. You'd have to have owned and extensively driven a number of older BMW products (especially pre-E46) to really understand that.

I don't care about the "E90 ownership experience" or gadgets - I'm sure it's pretty much the same as every generation before it, relatively speaking. Before long, a bunch of stupid (easily curable at the production level) problems will show up, such as window regulators, control arm/ball joint failures, busted self-adjusting clutch mechanisms, water pump impeller failures...maybe, if we're really unlucky, the subframe mount plague that infected the E36 and some of the E46 cars will show up yet again? Though I do hear that BMW is finally putting half-way decent sound systems in their cars...what a pleasant surprise.

BMW has played a risky but clever gamble with their newest line of cars. They're dumbing the cars down just enough to bring in buyers new to the marque, while hoping at the same time that the competition doesn't catch on with their own products and do anything to steal away their traditional buyers. It's working, so far, but woe to BMW the day that Lexus or Audi figure out just what it is that's had us buying these damn things for so many years. Even so, after two successive generations of dilution, I'm almost starting to fear that BMW will start building Lexuses before Lexus starts building BMWs.

If you think I'm the only long-time BMW owner/driver who feels this way, you'd be wrong. Most of us are grudgingly accepting this "progress" as a necessity in life - I know I probably wouldn't buy an E46 in today's market, either. Some day, I'll probably grow to like it as much as I do the E46, and the E36 before it, in its own way. But that doesn't mean we're going to carry on without our complaints, in the hope that BMW might someday listen.

[lux.sh]

Originally Posted by akhbhaat

What are you trying to say? That the E90 drives like a sports car?

above comment is all I read. I skimmed through the rest. Good post, nothing special. Your personal opinions are heavily ignored by me. So sue me.

What the hell are you talking about? did I say anything about E90 being sports car? or steering feel?
Please, Im laughing already. Looking at how serious you got, I guess you didn't catch the sarcasm in my post. From your previous posts, I knew you weren't one of those guys who doesn't know anything, but trying to look smart by talking fancy. You are very well educated bmw owner in my book. What you lack though, good sense of detecting sarcasm.

You seem to criticize about E90 whenever you can. Typical E46 owner's response.
I really appreciate it though. I can use some good lectures about how bad E90s are, against all these spoiled bmw owners.

[akhbhaat]

Originally Posted by lux.sh

above comment is all I read. I skimmed through the rest. Good post, nothing special. Your personal opinions are heavily ignored by me. So sue me.

What the hell are you talking about? did I say anything about E90 being sports car? or steering feel?
Please, Im laughing already. Looking at how serious you got, I guess you didn't catch the sarcasm in my post.

You seem to criticize about E90 whenever you can. Typical E46 owner's response.
I really appreciate it though. I can use some good lectures about how bad E90s are, against all these spoiled bmw owners.

Look, if I thought the E90 was a bad car or I really hated it, I wouldn't be here. I certainly wouldn't be here if I weren't seriously considering one as a replacement for my daily driver E46. You won't find me posting on Club Lexus or my.is (though I did register at the my.is site some years ago for another reason) like I do here, or at Bimmerfest. I gave up on the IS350 fairly early in the game, once I sat down to see if I could even get into one equipped to my liking (I never did really like how it actually drove). And I've never even visited an Infiniti board.

After all, what else? And I'm really excited about the potential for a turbocharged engine, if we ever get one. That engine alone would help me forget about the Z4 in a real hurry. In some respects I'm far more progressive than other long time BMW owners.

I don't say much about the good because nobody wants to hear about it - train wrecks are far more interesting to read about than an uneventful trip with an on-time scheduled arrival. It doesn't elicit as much passion in readers when you drone on about all the car's improvements, either. The good news is that there's still room to criticize: we can always expect something better, or at least different, in the next generation. Actually, the primary reason I posted in this thread is because I saw that the OP shared some of my opinions and would understand where I was coming in.

No doubt, the E90 certainly does some things far better than the E46 - nicer engines, better suspension design and tuning. Blows it away in terms of overall performance (the only one that can keep up is the ZHP version which is widely regarded as the very pinnacle of the E46 line). Awesome seats. Better stereo. Auxiliary audio input for MP3 players and the like. The E46 does some things better than the E36, too - I thought the E46 was better looking, had a much nicer interior, a much improved A/C system, better electrical reliability, things like that.

By the way - sarcasm never translates well online. And it wouldn't be the first time that I haven't picked up on it in written text forum format.

[lux.sh]

Originally Posted by akhbhaat

By the way - sarcasm never translates well online. And it wouldn't be the first time that I haven't picked up on it in written text forum format.

Very much agreed. My fault for not making that clear.

[akhbhaat]

Originally Posted by lux.sh

Very much agreed. My fault for not making that clear.

If you don't mind, I'm going to get back to the 335i threads...

[Pretender]

Go...ak...go...since you don't own E90...kinda hard for you to accept it. Just read this to educate yourself more:
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=109077