the BMW 3 series is a legendary nameplate it's probably the name that
you think of when you're thinking of a luxury sport sedan however the past few
years have not been kind to the 3 series in 2013 it won our luxury sports sedan
challenge well we did that challenge again in 2017 this slipped all the way
to sixth place out of seven competitors now there are a few reasons for that
drop a big one being that there's new competition in this segment in the form
of the Jaguar XE the Alfa Romeo Giulia and now the Genesis g70 our car of the
year but also the 3 series it was getting old and it was simply just not
that fun to drive however this is the new 3 series it's what's called the g20
generation and with this BMW is a chance to fix some of the problems that plagued
the previous three BMW did offer a 340i variant of the previous generation of
3 series but the new 3 series is the m340i and
it earns that M designation through a litany of suspension upgrades but also a
lot more power under the hood so a turbocharged 3 liter 6-cylinder engine
makes 380 horsepower and 369 pounds heater torque that is up 62 horsepower
and 39 pounds to torque over the previous model and that's a huge jump
it's enough to get that car to go from zero to 60 in 4.2 seconds driving on the
track this morning really gave that powertrain chance to shine the cars that
we drove also came with all-wheel-drive and had electronic rear differentials
pretty aggressive setup and the M340i it puts down power coming out of a
corner better than any 3 series that I've driven before
it really is immediate and the engine works very very well with the 8-speed
automatic transmission now I know that some people will say I wish that BMW was
still going to offer a manual and BMW announced that you know the 8-speed
automatic is going to be the only transmission on the 3-series going
forward to those who are saying that the lack of a manual might cause them to not
consider the 3-series I would say to give the automatic a chance it's a very
good one not only does it shift quickly but the
programming is very very good for aggressive driving so on the track this
morning I didn't actually use manual shifting at all I just kind of put the
car in the sport plus its most aggressive drive mode bump the shifter
over into s and it did a very good job of not only holding years but also down
shifting so when you brake hard into a corner the engine actually you can hear
it shifting down to not only give you engine braking but also to put you in
the right gear on exit so it actually helped me put down power and it gave me
one less thing to worry about on the track which was always nice I was just
able to focus on keeping this good smooth line and accelerating coming out
of the corners at the right place the other thing that impressed me on the
track about the mp40 I was its balance the new car has nearly perfect 50:50
weight distribution and BMW also engineered a new series of dampers on
the vehicle as well so it does a very very good job of controlling the cars
weight whether you're braking whether you're turning it just remains pretty
flat and planted the whole time more so than the previous 3 series the m340i is
very close to being a very good sport sedan but the track on this morning did
also expose one area in which I think that it falls a little bit short and
that is steering feedback now that's different than the steering itself the
steering has plenty of weight and it's it's accurate it's easy enough to put
the car where you want it on the track but it doesn't give you enough feedback
and by that what I mean is when you're driving hard and you're driving at the
limit you want more feedback from the car you want to know what the front
tires are doing you want to know how the weight is moving around and you want to
know where the limit of your grip is and the M340i has this weird sensation
where as you push it harder there becomes a point where it becomes a
little bit vague and I'm not sure if that's entirely because of the steering
it could also be because of all the suspension stuff going on underneath you
but there's a moment where it's hard to detect how much grip you have left and
you're not really getting much feedback from the wheel I can't really tell what
the front wheels are doing and so you have to kind of dial it back and that
vagueness just isn't there and a few of the competitors for the m340i most notably
the G70 and the giulia have excellent steering that I like more so the M340i
ultimately comes very close on the track to being the equal of those cars but it
falls short in that one area after driving the M340i on the track this
morning I got to drive the 330i on the street in the afternoon and that is the
second of the two variants that BMW has so far announced of the new 3-series
now the 330i a little bit less power but no slouch in its own right has a
turbocharged 2-liter 4-cylinder that makes 255 horsepower but 295 pound-feet
of torque and that's a really impressive torque number coming out of this engine
it's also a big gain over last year's model it's a gain of 37 pounds feet of
torque and the strength of the powertrain is readily apparent much like
the m340i from this morning the engine and transmission worked very well in
concert it also has an 8-speed automatic and it's telepathic in kind of the same
way that the m340i was this morning it's generally in the right gear shifts
quickly and it also downs just quickly when you're trying to pass people or for
quick merges I did find that I enjoyed the steering one of the 330 guys that I
did in the m340i and that might be due to a difference in environment the m340i
we were testing it on a track and on a track you're pushing a car to kind of
with the edge you're trying to kind of see where the car falls short and away
but on a on a public road on a mountain road like some of the ones that they
have here on Palm Springs the 330i approved is really capable and there's a
strong initial bike to the steering on turn in that I didn't like it with the
m340i that I got in this vehicle the 330i that I'm driving right now is a
rear-wheel drive so that might be a part of that but I really enjoyed the
strength of the initial turn in and since I wasn't really pushing the car to
the edge of where it could go the lack of feedback didn't bother me as much I
still think that they're competitors in the segment that do handling better than
the 3-series that giulia comes to mind and again the
G70 but this 3-series is much improved although
one and it does go a long way towards making it more fun to drive
also worth highlighting on the new 3-series are improvements to the
interior especially in the area of technology so we're running me two large
screens one here in the instrument panel and a very high-resolution bright screen
up here for the multimedia system this is all powered by BMWs iDrive system and
when iDrive debuted to be frank it wasn't very good but BMW has released
new versions of the system updated the menus made better screens to be honest
and then now the system is I think one of the easier wants to use in this
segment the screen is actually easy to reach as well from the driver's seat
seal the option of using it as a touchscreen or using the multimedia
controller down here there is one couch of the system and that is it doesn't
have Android auto but since the system is so good as an Android user the
omission of Android auto doesn't bother me as much as it normally would
there's also a new HUD and the HUD is unique in that you can use move a lot of
the information that would normally kind of go on the instrument panel here up
into the HUD so for example if you use this scroll wheel on the steering wheel
you can actually scroll through the different radio stations on the
satellite radio up in the HUD so it just keeps things higher up in your field of
vision he's gotten less time looking down which means less distracted driving
initial returns for the new 3-series are very positive the improvements and
drivability thanks to very good powertrains and suspension updates as
well as improvements in technology and a leap forward in cabin quality will serve
the new 3-series very well I think going forward now I can't say where exactly I
think it would finish if we were to redo a luxury sedan challenge this year but I
can say that I'm pretty sure that it would do much better than sixth I'm excited
to spend more time in the 3-series to do a deeper dive on those technology
updates as well check out a few of the new safety features including a
low-speed autonomous feature that BMW added to the new 3 series the 330i
started just over 41,000 dollars including destination charges and it
goes on sale in March while the m340i starts at just under 55 thousand and
it hits dealerships this summer