[RagingKileak]

Hello,

Well as I have a background in reviewing 'stuff' I thought it appropriate to offer my non-technical, laymens view of the 335D.

The version I will review is unsurprisingly the one I own, which I believe is an E90 (its a 2007 Saloon) in the M-Sport trim level. My car was bought second hand in October 2008 and I believe its a fairly unusual spec level, featuring several expensive options such as IPOD kit, DAB radio and Pro Nav but lacking some almost no brainers such as the Logic speaker upgrade or a 6 disk changer.I have heated black leather seats, but no electric function and a couple of other bits which are of no consequence to this review really - oh and lastly, my car is Carbon black I believe.

I have to admit buying the car was fun. At the time I spotted her I decided she was right for me - I wanted DAB, and M-Sport and this was more or less the only one with the right mileage and price.

At the time I had both an Audi S4 and an E46 M3 and as the credit crunch had already began, I was struggling to shift either. Various attempts to purloin one or both cars onto dealers in Part Ex for Lexus' (Lexii?) or the New Mondeo had failed, as the offers made were simply an embarassment.

A saviour arrived and paid cash for my M3, enabling me to make a Part Ex offer for the 335D which was 200 miles south of me at Barons BMW. A deal was struck and one Saturday morning I embarked upon the epic journey down in my doomed Audi - further confusion was caused when a buyer made an offer for my Audi en-route to the dealer. He was in London which was just about on my way....

A quick call to the dealer found that he didnt really want my Audi - he wanted proper money instead. So I negotiated a further £1000 off the 335d for paying in full and in the end got £1000 more from the buyer of the Audi than I had been offered in Part ex.

To cut a long story short, I arrived at Barons with £15,000 in cash, a siezeable discount of a car I might not want and no car to get me home in if that turned out to be the case!!!

I took a test drive in the 335D and immediately liked it. It was obvious that there was power on tap, but that the car was as refined and liveable as I had expected. A couple of shocks came in the form of absolutely woeful speakers, and a Sat Nav that is frankly, years out of date.

In fact having covered 200 miles in a 2004 Audi S4 I could be forgiven for asking what the hell are BMW thinking? The S4 was approximately £40,000 new, as was this particular 335D and yet the Audi had SO MUCH MORE it was almost a laughable effort from BMW, on a car which is not only less of a sports model than the S4, but also nearly 4 years newer.

In my 335D the speakers are so poor I almost made a written complaint, the heated seats are basic and dated unlike the excellent cooling and heating offerred by the New Mondeo, or even the six settings offered by my old Audi. When I asked about electric seats I was told that this was not available on the 3 series Saloon. What? Are these people ABSOLUTELY CRAZY?

Anyway, I moved on to the more specific gimmicks which BMW did offer - the I-Drive and Pro Nav systems in particular. Yes it had a digital radio and IPOD kit - but I found this so staggeringly hard to use that I had to pull over to figure it out - after some faffing I was able to save my favourite radio stations to a sort of 'front page' which is where they still live today - much better than surfing through the endless Digital Radio providers to find the one station I wanted out of the five or so offerings from each provider. Granted, this is less of a BMW problem than it is a DAB problem - but to be fair the I-Drive system doesnt help matters. Sat Nav is so hopelessly dated it looked about as bad as my E46 M3 - but in its defense it has since proved to be extremely efficient and reliable, despite its ugliness. With regards to the IPOD kit - well the Salesman couldn't work out that it 'spoofed' as a CD Changer, and neither did I until earlier this year.

Maybe I will buy an IPOD - maybe I wont. I had certainly planned to when I read that this car featured connectivity, but its fair at best.

Your probably thinking - why the f*** did you buy it then? And you would be right. I could have got on the train and come home with my money in hand and bought the Mondeo, or the Lexus, and probably haggled a similar discount.

Some of you might be thinking - but I have read some other posts from you, and I thought you liked the 335d?

Well your right. I love the 335D. I couldn't really give a toss about all the bobbins inside the cabin, and clearly neither could BMW - slapping haphazard Climate Control knobs, p*** poor I-Drive and a complete lack of interest in any kind of comfort doesn't bother me in the slightest because I would have paid the asking price for the engine and chassis alone.

The areas of concern to me are the steering wheel which is chunky, with a quality feel and the surprisingly good paddle shift gears which whilst being made of some kind of plastic, dont feel in any way flimsy, tacky or cheap as Clarkson and the like so often claim in relation to other cars. Of course the feeling through my seat is paramount and the 335D is pretty good for that - For example I can tell when one rear wheel goes over a grate and steps sideways a little, or if I am struggling for grip out of a corner which I find happens frequently.

The rate and manner of progress is almost faultless. I marvel at those with a remapped 335D because on occasion this car is already too fast, too much and too soon. Its possible to spin the wheels in so many normal situations that it actually becomes funny in an irresponsible way. Every American film ever made where pointless, rubbish muscle cars slide around in car parks before accelerating after a bad guy become reality as you learn that the fishtail is your friend. You could, if you wanted to, floor the loud pedal and kickdown on almost any road without a perfectly even surface and depending on what speed you were going at, expect to start some sort of rear end trickery - so much so that I now do it as I leave work, or as I go up my drive. I am now rarely happy unless I engage in some kind of stupidity on every trip I go on - when it was snowing I became almost childlike because it meant to achieve any movement at all I could floor the pedal and literally go sideways around every corner!

Course its not all about stupidity - sometimes I want to make progress quickly and responsibly, and as I briefly mentioned earlier the 335D is capable of making very impressive progress. The motorway or a fast wide A road appear to be its natural environment - on a private road or track of this nature the car accelerates very rapidly in the 80 - 120 region and is certainly not breathless as it approaches much higher speeds that would easily see an instant ban on a UK road. Cornering is excellent too with a fair bit of feedback being offered and although the steering is too light, it does seem to tighten up through very fast cornering. Its a fairly heavy car with a little bit of roll, but rock hard suspension and good balance keep the 335D straight and true through corners. With traction control set to medium (press once for medium, press and hold for off) I found the car rarely interfered with my fun accelerating out of corners and only on one occasion have I ever nearly lost control completely and I believe I was saved by BMW computers and trickery.

All in all I think of my 335D as some kind of Modern Hero - I dont know whether BMW got lucky and put a good engine and chassis together by accident, or if it was all part of the master plan. I do know that whoever designs their interiors needs a shake up and I'm not surprised for a couple of years the A4 has been a more popular choice but in many ways, this makes me a happier man.

I can drive to London every day of the week sometimes and I rarely see another 335 or 535D - but I see a lot of high end Audi's trundling along and I KNOW that the person in them isnt getting the same feeling of happiness from their gadgets as I get from my ability to floor it and feel like I am in a racing car whilst still returning a reasonable MPG and ultimately, sat nav gets me where I want to go, the speakers may be pants but the cabin is very quiet and the road noise minimal (less so I am told if I lose the run flats) and I could, if I so chose buy an IPOD and use it in conjunction with I-Drive.

The 335d is a fantastic car, but seeing as noone else seems to know that, lets keep it our little secret!!!

Just an FYI - I am talking to people now about a few choice mods, I will review as and when!

Regards
Matt