Thread: BMW 325i

Hate to rub it in, but this month's been particularly special; I drove a Ferrari, Porsche, M3, C63 AMG, R8 and RS6 Honestly, I've gorged on super cars as fast as they would go and as fast as I dared push them. Returning to India and driving a slow car would have been terrible for morale, a painful crash back to mother earth, but no such worries I had the 325i waiting for me at the airport. I said it in last month's report and I'm saying it again - the 2.5-litre straight-six is a gem. It accelerates like a rocket, sounds superb when revved to its 6500rpm limit and given the beans gets up to some insane speeds. Sure she's no super car, but her performance in the Indian context, is nigh on perfect. I don't think even once over the past month I felt the 325i lacking in power or not being quick enough. That, after all the super cars, is saying something.

Of course there's a price to pay at the pumps. The on-board computer regularly shows 6.5kmpl, dropping even further with hard driving and drawing gasps from passengers. And our accountants. With my inevitably rushed driving style, the 63-litre fuel tank just about does the Pune Mumbai-Pune run before running dry. Not, by a long shot, is she cheap to run. But, and bya long shot, she's a dream to drive. The handling, even on the 320d we ran earlier, was astonishingly good; the larger 17-inch wheels shod with 225-section tyres add to those incredible levels of grip and control. Now that the monsoons are here in right earnest, I'm even more impressed with her wet-weather handling and grip. I don't remember pushing any other car so hard in the wet and except for a few aquaplaning moments (less to do with the car, more with the sheer volume of standing water on the expressway), she's never thrown up any scary moments.



Compared to the rest of the 3-series range in India, the 325i's DSC stability program also includes brake pre-tensioning (where the brake is I primed if the foot is quickly taken off the accelerator for better response), brake drying (where the pads are gently applied to the discs I to rub them dry), hill start assist (doesn't rou back on a gradient), brake fade compensation (brake pressure is increased as brake ternperatures rise to prevent fade) and soft stop (which is supposed to I' provide a jerk-free stopping action though it's a solution to a problem nobody raised). While going through the press kit to dig up all this info, I also came across these gems Warning: This 3-series causes addiction! You almost "fear" that you will be addicted to this 3-series!' I fear I am addicted to the 325i.