2016 BMW 3-series review, test drive

The BMW 3-series has a new engine among other updates. Here’s what it’s like on the road.

Published on Feb 16, 2016 10:16:00 AM

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As before, the 3-series remains among the most comfortable of its luxury sedan peers, so long as you are willing to crouch down to its low-set cabin. The M Sport’s shapely front seats offer generous support even on the most spirited of drives while the rear seats continue to impress with the space and comfort it offers.

What is it like to drive?

The facelifted 320d is the second recipient in India, after the X3, to get BMW’s latest 2.0-litre diesel engine. The new engine (Code: B47) is identical to the old one in displacement (1,995cc from four cylinders) but otherwise there’s little carried over from before. Peak power is up by 6bhp to 187bhp and peak torque is up by 2kgm to a meaty 40.7kgm.

BMW claims a 0-100kph time of 7.2 seconds for the new 320d which betters the old car’s time by just 0.2 seconds. In the real world too, performance levels are similar to the old car’s which, as anyone whose driven a 320d will tell you, is no bad thing. There’s a strong tug from low in the rev band, genuine punch in the mid-range and even an accessible top-end to exploit. The engine revs quite freely to 4,500rpm in full auto mode (or 5,000rpm in manual mode) and it’s easily among the most exciting four-cylinder diesel engines around. Where the new engine feels significantly better than the older one is in refinement. That sharp clatter at idle is significantly muffled here and it doesn’t get as vocal later on either. Still, the engine can sound a touch coarse when loaded, but is a lot nicer than before.

To complement the engine, BMW has revised the eight-speed gearbox’s ratios and this seems to have also smoothened responses in town. On all-out blasts, the gearbox continues to delight with rapid, timely shifts but we did notice a mild lag in downshifts in sudden transitions from part to full throttle. Nothing that manual intervention at the paddles or the joystick-like gear lever couldn’t fix.