[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 A couple of shocks came in the form of absolutely woeful speakers, and a Sat Nav that is frankly, years out of date.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

[G33]

wow thats a great write up! Clarkson better watch out

[RagingKileak]

Thanks mate!

A lot on my shopping list now - you might know of something thats on there

Regards
Matt

*edit* spelling mistake.

[dxb335d]

Matt mate, superb write up. You bought it back in october? I could have sworn you only just joined like a week ago and were thining of buying a 335d?! That may have been someone else though.

I know what your saying, its easy for people to dismiss the 335d if they no Nothing about it, I certainly did untill i drove one and realised it was infact something ''Rather special''.

I am still enjoying mine nearly 2 years down the line. Superb car.

[RagingKileak]

Thanks again mate.

I did only recently join but I have lurked for some time.

I have been waiting to make my move regarding a fairly large catalogue of modification work, I have something in line now and a magazine interested so I wanted to wait on things like this review etc until I felt I could bring something to the community.

The review of the other products will also be similar - I cant cater for the technical guys on here, but I can hopefully make the other people realise how things feel and so on as I hope I have done here!

Regards
Matt

[rsyed]

Excellent writeup - i loved reading it....

[RagingKileak]

Oh and yeah - it is rather special!

So much about it is wrong, but so much is right and its somehow all about character!

Its that feeling of insane acceleration with both rear wheels skipping about like mad as you approach terminal velocity into a corner on some desolate B road I love - its like a massive steel fist that smashes through the countryside like it doesnt give a toss!

And thats just one experience I could sum up into one paragraph!

I love it!

Matt

[dxb335d]

Originally Posted by RagingKileak

Oh and yeah - it is rather special!

So much about it is wrong, but so much is right and its somehow all about character!

Its that feeling of insane acceleration with both rear wheels skipping about like mad as you approach terminal velocity into a corner on some desolate B road I love - its like a massive steel fist that smashes through the countryside like it doesnt give a toss!

And thats just one experience I could sum up into one paragraph!

I love it!

Matt

Mate thats soooo true, People wouldnt believe me (on other forums) That a stock one on a roll can live with Stock E46 M3's E39 M5's etc. It couldnt beat them but could hang with them easily. I did it so many times.
The car does have character, lots of it. Glad your so impressed even after a M3.


Carlos

[CD]

Brilliant review , as someone else wrote 'allmost as good as reading clarkson'

the 335D must be the most talked about car in the UK section of this forum, thats for a reason ... it kicks ass

enjoy the car (sensibly of course )

[willhollin]

Great review mate, glad to hear you are enjoying a real car.

The 330d is actually a far superior car.

[e91mac]

Great write up RagingKileak, if i get another diesel it will be the 335d.

What does it say in the small print Will?

[Joyrida]

Damn good write up fella

After watchin that vid of dxb racing that 335i ... that diesel motors scared the crap outa me !

[TMP]

Originally Posted by willhollin

The 330d is actually a far superior car.

[Steve748]

Mine is an 08 and the heated seats are superb, 3 settings, warm as toast! The wlwctric seats with adjustable sides are good too. The speakers have been upgraded for Alpine as the stardard ones are crap.
The pro satnav (which isn't as good as the one on my bike a Garmin 550 zumo) has a habit of telling me my destination has got traffic problems and sends me down the A roads. Harrogate to Stafford down the motoway A1-M1 2.5 hours and then return Stafford to Harrogate..........no motorway 4.5 hours all because I believed it when it said congestion ahead :
The dipping and folding mirrors are brill especially as the n/s mirror dips to show the curb when you select reverse, and the auto lights and wipers work well.
I like the ability to give a single flash of the indicators as on the Mercedes the same flick gives 3 flashes and I think it's 2 to many!
I would have liked DAB but not really missed it so far.
The comfort opening is so It's impossible to lock yourself out and if you have stuff in your hands then your not messing about pressing the key. You can get out of the car and lock it with the engine running which is great if you forget something and have to go back in the house or want to warm it up in the morning. The phone works perfectly with my SE 810i even though it's not listed in the compatibility list. The interior has lighting from the trim as well as individual lights for the rear passengers and lights in the handles as well as lights that shine on the ground.
All in all a star of a car

[dxb335d]

Originally Posted by Steve748

Mine is an 08 and the heated seats are superb, 3 settings, warm as toast! The wlwctric seats with adjustable sides are good too. The speakers have been upgraded for Alpine as the stardard ones are crap.
The pro satnav (which isn't as good as the one on my bike a Garmin 550 zumo) has a habit of telling me my destination has got traffic problems and sends me down the A roads. Harrogate to Stafford down the motoway A1-M1 2.5 hours and then return Stafford to Harrogate..........no motorway 4.5 hours all because I believed it when it said congestion ahead :
The dipping and folding mirrors are brill especially as the n/s mirror dips to show the curb when you select reverse, and the auto lights and wipers work well.
I like the ability to give a single flash of the indicators as on the Mercedes the same flick gives 3 flashes and I think it's 2 to many!
I would have liked DAB but not really missed it so far.
The comfort opening is so It's impossible to lock yourself out and if you have stuff in your hands then your not messing about pressing the key. You can get out of the car and lock it with the engine running which is great if you forget something and have to go back in the house or want to warm it up in the morning. The phone works perfectly with my SE 810i even though it's not listed in the compatibility list. The interior has lighting from the trim as well as individual lights for the rear passengers and lights in the handles as well as lights that shine on the ground.
All in all a star of a car

and you didnt even get to the performance

[Mr.N]

What a good write up!
I enjoyed that a lot mate, so thanks for putting the effort in.
I can tell you love it to bits and must admit that I feel the same about my petrol version.
I think my father-in-law is getting a 335d so hopefully I'll get to have a go to "compare and contrast".
I look forward to reading more about your project bud.

Mr N

[mistry]

Great write up. Thankfully my car has the logic 7 speaker upgrade and electric seats, as well as a few other options which make the cabin a little nicer.
But I completly agree with the cabin being a little dull. When I brought mine I had previously tested a A5 3.0TDI and the cabin was in my opinion a much nicer, but within minutes of driving the BMW I knew this was the car for me, a lot more entertaining and rewarding to drive.

I would say the iPod connection is crap in my eyes, very slow searching, and always makes you start from A, which is a pain if you have hundreds of albums. I'm also not a fan of the Sat Nav not through use but the lack of a night screen as it lights up the entire cabin. But things I really like about my car are. Seats, Chunky well weighted steering, Comfort access, the REST button on cold days, active cruise control . And not forgetting the the Drive, Performance and Handling and economy it returns when driving steady.

All in all, I'm very happy with the car (with little niggles every now and again that I should have waited and got a M3 for the same money)

[KD]

Thanks very much for the review! As a prospective owner its nice to read things like this that confirms to me I am about to make the right choice!

[dxb335d]

Good luck mate KD you will love it.

[RagingKileak]

Thanks guys!

Im really glad i could help anyone who is buying make the right choice.

Also its good too see a bit of a conversation starting about all the cool stuff people do have on their car!

Cheers!
Matt

[acerboo]

to quote the Yanks the car is awesome, but please bmw can i have a heated windscreen next time, the demister leaves a bit to be desired, and to be effective blows aie in your face continuously, the one in my old Disco is much better. the only criticism though.

[Steve748]

Heated windscreen is something that is used more than you would think and I for one miss it! The last Ford I bought had it and I used it quite often especially when it is raining!