Unofficialbmw.com

[donaldan]

Just thought I should share with you my experience driving the new 3 series BMW in Europe. Once a year in May, I rent a car for a short weekend drive in Germany and Belgium. This year, the car I rented was a BMW 320d (E90) with only 9,539 kms (=5,962 miles) on the odometer. This is a 2006 model 4-door sedan with a 4 cylinder normally aspirated diesel and 6 speed manual transmission.

The 3 series is solidly built and tracks very well like what is expected of a BMW. In other words, it puts a smile on the one driving it. Even though it is the smallest diesel in any BMW, the beautifully spaced gear ratios keep you in useful torque range in just about any speed. Talking about speed, German Autobahn invites you to speed. It is a thrill to weave in and out with fellow speeders. And there were many Porsches, Mercs and Audi’s in your company. I cruised at 160 kph (=100 mph) and hit 210lkph(=131 mph) from time to time.

The car is equipped with iDrive, complete with latest satellite navigation. On the Autobahn, navigation is integrated with latest radio road condition alert system which means one is constantly warned of any traffic slowdown ahead. The iDrive is a highly sophisticated onboard computer providing vast amount of information. It tracks your trip’s progress, including distance traveled and remaining distance to destination, time traveled and remaining time to destination, average speed and fuel consumption, etc, etc. It even tracks the altitude you are at, down to single digit meters. For people who are computer savvy and who are analytically minded, it is a wonderful equipment. Incidentally, it also receives normal radio broadcast as well as television broadcast. Obviously for those who just want to get from point A to point B, the iDrive may be too technical. That is why the system is controversial in America. I surely had no problem with it. As you can see, I loved it.

The navigation system is superb. Both the visual and voice guides are excellent. You even have choice of routing to save time or routing to save distance. It guides you to the exact building based on the house number you punched in. My trip started in Heidelberg, Germany and ended in a sports stadium in Antwerp, Belgium, a distance of 444km (277.5 miles). The only thing I did was to turn on the navigation system at the start of the trip and punched in the exact address of the sports stadium as the destination. From then on, the computer took over and guided me to the sports stadium in Antwerp.

So here is a summary of my 3 day weekend rental.

Rental cost including all taxes - US$ 112.00 (special weekend rate at SIXT car rental)
Total distance traveled, local and highway - 585 miles
Actual fuel consumption – 15.3 gallons
Average fuel economy - 38.2 mpg
Total cost of fuel - US$80.00 at $5.22 per gallon
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Don

[scrat]

cooollll nice reading
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[Henry]

Now that was fun. Thanks for the rental info. Hope to put it to good use one day.

Interesting milage number. BMW diesels have a wonderful reputation. First read about them in Car Magazine (Great Britain).

Just filled up my 175K '92 318is with 12.5 gallons, having driven 400+ miles...for a 33.? mpg. That's combined driving...with many hops into town. Each hop is a 30+ mile round trip.

PS: I wonder if the vehicle had a dip stick. One gripe I have with new gas BMW's is lack of a dip stick.

[donaldan]

Henry, this 2.0 liter diesel engine does have a dipstick. I understand the newer and the larger 6 cylinder BMW engines now come without dipstick. I am not sure about the newer 8 cylinder eingines.
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Don