BMW 335d Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: BMW 335d saloon and Touring range
Prices: £34,105-£38,250 - on the road
Insurance Group: 18
Emissions: 177-178g/km
Performance: Max Speed 155mph / 0-60mph 5.9s
Fuel Consumption: (combined) 42.2mpg
Safety: Twin front airbags, twin front side airbags, twin ITS side window airbags / ABS /DSC / runflat tyres
Dimensions: [4dr] Length/Width/Height 4520/1817/1424mm

SNAKE OIL

Our Rating: 7.6 / 10

Anyone who says diesels are boring has never driven a BMW 335d. Take that as read. Andy Enright reports on Munich’s rocket ship oil-burner

Next time you hear somebody snootily refer to a ‘diseasel’ or some other derogatory comment regarding cars that drink from the black pump, be sure of one thing. The person on transmit-only has clearly never driven a BMW 335d and thus is operating from a position of conspicuous ignorance. For all but the most unreconstructed petrolhead, this car has the ability to drop your jaw.

Yes, we’ve had quick BMW diesels before but nothing quite like this. If you haven’t driven a fast 3 Series diesel since the old E46 series 330d, you’ll find that this 335d represents not just an incremental step forward in terms of performance and power delivery, but a vast leap that’s at first difficult to mentally process. Available in saloon, touring and coupe variants, it’s not cheap but it nevertheless makes a very compelling value proposition. Put simply, it steamrollers anything impudent enough to call itself opposition.

Imagine a genuinely quick car, maybe a leading sports coupe. Let’s take a Nissan 350Z or an Audi TT 3.2 quattro. They’re both extremely fast and capable cars that are about as good to drive as you could seriously ask for. Neither would be able to drive away from BMW 335d. All three have similar times for the sprint to 60mph and all three will top out at 155mph. The difference between these cars is that where the Nissan will seat two and the Audi two adults and two human torsos, the 335d saloon will comfortably seat four normal-sized homo sapiens.

In other words, you’re buying all the capability with none of the caveats. While the Nissan would major on he-man drama and the Audi shouts ‘look at me’, the BMW just gets on with the job with no fuss. I don’t know whether I’ve ever driven any other car that made going so fast seem so slow, the sure sign of a very talented chassis. Ride quality very much depends on whether you choose the SE or M Sport trim levels but even the sportier suspension pack isn’t notably harsh. BMW’s excellent DTC stability control system and a six-speed auto box keeps that 286bhp and 580Nm of torque in check. In case you were wondering, that’s more torque than a Ferrari F430.

Unusually for a 3 Series, it could be that what’s on the bonnet gains as much attention as what’s under it where this revised model is concerned. The styling of today’s car has been updated in a number of small ways but the raised lines that fall down the middle of the bonnet are most noticeable. Elsewhere, the BMW trademark ringed side lights are standard and the grille has been tweaked while the entire rear light clusters are now entirely ruby red in colour and the side skirts have a more pronounced crease line. The interior looks largely similar to the previous model but BMW has again updated its iDrive control interface with scrolling menu displays designed to enhance usability. There’s 8 gigabytes of music storage capacity in the system too, enough for 100 albums, while the quality of the trim materials around the cabin has also been enhanced.

The practical advantages of the 335d Touring over its saloon counterpart only really make themselves felt when there are less than four people in the car. You get a 460-litre void back there to fill with the paraphernalia of your choice and that doesn’t compare at all favourably with the 460-litres you get in the saloon for around £1,100 less. Fold the rear seats down, however, and the available space mushrooms up to 1,385 litres. Some will contend also that the Touring has stealthier Q-car qualities.

The key issue the 335d faces is that it’s a range-topper and must therefore work a little harder to leverage a quality feel. That might sound a little odd but it’s far easier for the base model 318i to feel a class removed from its similarly priced brethren than a car which costs over £34,000 in its most affordable form. Get customers out for a test drive in this model and they’ll see the point straight away. Otherwise, the 335d could be a trickier sell than you might at first think.

Both the saloon and the Touring are offered in SE and M Sport guises with a premium of around £1,200 more for the Touring equivalents. Is