We were invited out to take a look at the new g20 3 series today. We took a 10-15 test drive including some highway speeds in a sport model. Here are my takeaways comparing it to my g01. None of these are actual measurements, just my perception.
The interior is very nicely finished and a welcome update over the f30. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it is nicer or more luxurious than the g01 interior, just different. I felt I was sitting higher in the car than the f30. What I don’t think is different is the seats. I think it is the exact same seat the g01 uses. It has decent rear passenger room but not as much as the g01.
The car feels very similar in driving to the g01, confident and controlled. Perhaps a tad more taunt but feels a lot more solid than the f30. I would say that road noise on the freeway is very close to the x3. Both the g01 and and new g20 riding on run flats have some highway road noise but much better than the f30. I felt like my g01 was a tad quieter. I can’t help but wonder if bmw will ever get start and stop system working smoothly. It’s still very noticeable on start-up after all these years. My Porsche was quite a bit smoother.
BMW personal assistant failed about 3 times with me asking various things. It’s supposed to know if the voice is coming from the driver or passenger side and make adjustments to temp or heated seats based on which mic picks up the voice. It also was triggered several times by me just saying “bmw” in a sentence rather than “hey, BMW”. I know the trigger word can be changed but I think this system has a long ways to go to be useful. Also, I’m not overly impressed with idrive 7. Seems like they tried to merge more things together rather than categorizing features. My time was limited with the new system but lots of things have definitely been re-organized so there will be some learning curve.
The hud display is larger than previous f30’s and also features a rpm slide bar which was neat. Lastly, the new digital dash is really great. One solid screen not encumbered by rings seems to make the dash seem limitless in possibilities. At any given time, I had lots of different information readily available and the ui was cool and well laid out. I thought the transposed rev counter would bother me but it didn’t.
Overall, I came away impressed. The car is by no means dramatically different from previous 3 series (never is), but enough has changed (namely the suspension and handling) to make it seem like a worthy upgrade. We’ll probably be getting one when our lease is up on our 4 series convertible in August. Just thought I’d share my impressions.