2009 BMW 335i Coupe Driving Impressions

Congratulations to BMW, they finally see the light with turbochargers. Although Mercedes and Audi have been boost crazy for 10+ years, the Bavarians have steadfastly resisted until discovering that turbochargers combined with direct injection delivers the Holy Grail of more power and better fuel economy. Granted, BMW has toe-dabbed with turbos in the past with the rough and tumble 2002 turbo and the 1980 745i autobahner, but the modern day 335i represents the true turbocharger coming out party for Bayerische Motoren Werke.

Click here for 335i coupe specifications

The powerplant child concieved by the forced induction attitude change is the N54 B30; a twin-turbocharged, direct fuel injection inline 6-cylinder. It features a cast aluminum engine block with iron cylinder liners, aluminum twin-cam 4-valve head, VANOS variable valve timing and a forged crankshaft. Forged rods and pistons round out the internals. The two turbos are diminuiative Mitsubishi TD03 units, arranged to run in parallel through a front mounted intercooler. Direct injection is the Bosch MSD81 system (MSD80 in 2007), which predictably carries enough fuel pressure to pop a hole in quarter-inch steel. With a factory rated 300bhp and 300 lb-ft. of torque, the N54 B30’s credentials on paper are firmly established.

Not only that, but initial 335i buyers got a bonus when tuning shops revealed the N54 engine to actually put out about 330bhp at the crank….not a bad start.

Since 2007, the N54 B30 engine has found its way into the 5 series and BMW’s SUV’s but the car tested here is a 2009 335i coupe.  Utterly dripping with options; it's fitted with the Convenience Package, Sports Package, Navigation, 19” style 230 rims, Sport seats, Comfort Access, and some other stuff. The sticker shows $54K and change.

The E92 chassis 335i coupe is one of the most beautiful 2-doors currently produced. Stylist Adrian Van Hooydonk (yes, that’s his real name) got it just right. The lines are forceful yet elegant, the wheel styles are perfect compliments to the bodywork, and it’s virtually impossible to find an awkward angle on the thing. The whole car has a compact, concentrated look. The interior is well appointed as expected, with deep swept-back seats, quality materials and a myriad of adjustment options. Cockpit width and legroom are thankfully in abundance. The back seats are usable but only for short excursions with friends. If it’s people you hate, put them back there all day.

German car complexity reveals itself after dropping myself into the cockpit. I grab the keyfob to start the car but I can’t. The the keyfob is all fob, no key. Ah, there’s a start button on the dash, but how can I use that unless I insert the fob somewhere? Right…this car has the Comfort Access system, option number 322. As long as the fob is inside the car I can push start, provided the car and keyfob agree in secret radio language that I have permission to operate the vehicle. Upon inspection I find there actually is a place to inject the keyfob into the dash, and my obsessive-compulsive tendancies require me to do this. Too many years of turn-key vehicle operation I guess.

Now that I’ve worked out how to fire up the thing, the N54 B30 rumbles to life. This guttural yet sweetly smooth engine reveals all 50 years of BMW’s inline-6 engine refinement. Idle is very calm and quiet, but with just enough subsonic shake to indicate a performance oriented nature.

I snick the automatic lever into D, and trickle off down a leafy residential street. Everything is serene here, just burbling along, admiring people’s lawns. The car makes very little sound, mostly just friction noise from the big run-flat tires. I come to a stop sign, angle to the right, and dip the throttle. The car turns and whoa! My head bonks into the headrest. I just experienced 300 lb-ft. of torque at 1,300 rpm. I do it again and discover that digging the throttle gives a half-second pause, then GO! The turbos spool up and I’m off. Dramatic? Yes. Smooth? No. It seems as with other quickspooling turbo engines paired with automatics (like VAG’s 2.0T), throttling away from rest is inevitably jumpy. There’s a moment or two of off-boost motion, then you’re snapped you back into the seat as the turbo(s) spools up.  Mitigating such behavior would require mapping the electronics to soften the low end boost delivery….something manufacturers are unwilling to do. Perhaps donning a ballet slipper and gently massaging the throttle would make a difference. In contrast, yesteryear’s turbo-laggy engines were dogs off the line but at least they were predictable.

Only the initial motion from rest wrinkles my brow because once underway the whole thing comes together and the brilliance of this engine is displayed with fireworks. Power delivery is utterly sparkling once the turbos are spooled up and blowing. This engine develops a cinder block of torque at 1,300 rpm and freight trains that power all the way to the 7,000 rpm redline. There are no dips or flat spots in the torque curve, simply acceleration straight to the stars. There's all sorts of stuff is going on under the hood here; double VANOS variable valve timing working the cams, turbos blasting away and the Bosch direct injection delivering precise amounts of fuel for every possible situation. Good thing this engine is firmly bolted into the car, because it feels like it wants to bust through the radiator and gallop down the road all on its own.

The N54 B30 has so much torque, its 6-speed ZF automatic ends up being a luxury. A 4-speed automatic would be perfectly adequate, hell even a 2-speed Powerglide would do. I realize that 90% of all driving situations are handled with half-throttle or less. Give me traffic, 2-lane passing, city driving, or freeway; it just doesn’t matter. Halfway to the firewall with the go-pedal provides acceleration so strong you look like a jerk. Even a mere quarter throttle uphill in the 335i delivers the same acceleration that my 2005 Acura TSX did with the pedal mashed and engine screaming.

Most people don’t buy turbocharged BMWs for part throttle performance though. Hammer it with the DSC off at walking speed and the 335i lights up with some impressive straight line wheelspin. In the 4,000 to 7,000 rpm range, there’s a pretty short list of cars that can match this one for pure straight line thrust. Catapulting it deep into extra-legal speeds is way too easy. The engine gives off a sonorous howl in doing so, sounding purposeful and strong. The note outside of the car isn’t loud or even particularly unique, you can take care of that with a quality aftermarket exhaust of course.

Throttle response is excellent for a turbo engine, showing only a brief hint of turbo lag pause-go. BMW marketed this engine as the first “lagless” turbo engine of all time, but they should have known better because the laws of physics will not be ignored. Turbochargers are exhaust-driven and need time to start effectively spinning. Granted, BMW got the lag to a level so low that most drivers won’t notice it, but my job as a reviewer is to look under the carpet to find such things.

A number of reviewers have commented that the N54B30 engine reminds them of a big V-8, but that analogy is lost on me. It comes across exactly like what it is; a cleverly force inducted six that wallops the power down low and maintains that straight to redline. It doesn’t sound or feel like a V8 either, its inline-6 construction gives it a tangibly different tingle.

As mentioned, the transmission in our tester is a 6-speed ZF unit, lovingly named the GA6HP19Z. Its LePelletier planetary type gear set is an increasingly popular configuration for torque converter type automatics. The ZF transmission is a very good match for this engine, always choosing the right gear for a given situation. Shifts are quick and relatively smooth at full throttle, and become smooth as glass when just burbling along. In fact, the transmission ECU slows down gear engagement so much at light throttle that the shifts sound like they are coming from a manual transmission…something I’ve never experienced before. 

The common operating wheelhouse for the 335i’s engine/automatic transmission combination is from 2300 to 3600 rpm. Most driving takes place in that rpm range, with the transmission shifting up or down as it sees fit. This low rpm excellence makes for a wonderfully effortless driving experience, and keeps the fuel consumption down too….a nice benefit. My testing time saw 23 mpg in spirited mixed driving, and up to 29 mpg on the highway. Those are ridiculously good figures for a 3,600 lb., 300 horsepower performance car.

The 335i automatic carries an optional shift-it-yourself Steptronic feature, where the driver can manually shift gears via the gear lever or by paddles behind the steering wheel. The metal shifter paddles are effective to use and carry a high quality weighty feel to them. The back sides of the paddles execute upshifts with the front sides taking care of the dowshifts. The engine ECU chimes in with nice rev-matching throttle blips. This is all delightful but I have a problem with the ergonomics of it. My hands are too small to reach both sides of the paddle, meaning I have to change hand positions to reach from the back to front. A small quibble perhaps, but enough for me to abandon the feature altogether.

After familiarizing myself with the 335i powerplant, I focus on its chassis. It tracks very straight, very calm, and is a wonderful freeway cruiser. Despite its performance leanings, this car has all the refinement and versatility you'd expect in a performance GT. Once underway, you can be dreamy with the steering and throttle if you want to, putting it all into slow motion. The ride with the run-flat tires and sport package suspension settings is firm and highly controlled on smooth pavement. On broken up road surfaces, this setup annoyingly announces most road surface imperfections. If you’re sensitive to firm riding cars, think long and hard about skipping the 19” wheel package.

The steering is very sharp and accurate. Move it a tiny fraction and you get an equal amount of resultant direction change. This allows highly accurate placement of the car. I was able to modify my line through corners with great precision at high velocities, something that cannot be said for many production vehicles. Only BMW and Porsche do it this well amongst the German manufacturers; Audi and Mercedes play a distant second when it comes to accuracy and feel.

The 335i feels substantial, but never comes off as big or heavy. Physically, it really isn’t that large, park it next to a Nissan Altima and it looks small. Park it in-between a Toyota Highlander and a Honda Odyssey and it looks positively tiny. In theory, this small size and resultant low center of gravity helps with its excellent dynamics; when you have less weight transfer from front to back or side to side, the center of gravity stays low and doesn’t move as far in any direction as it would in more substantial vehicles.

Switching to spirited backroad driving reveals a completely unshakable chassis. There’s nothing it can’t do. It just has so darn much grip and the factory suspension settings are so good that making it misbehave requires a real effort. In hard cornering, I can really feel the suspension tuning working. Its compliance absorbs the road and keeps the car planted. That lends an air of predictability to a car that has very little body roll, reassuring me that it isn’t going to give me a big bloody bite should I push things over the line. The 335i encourages a smooth flow from the driver, and in turn it rewards with a feeling of calm invincibility. Turn-in is a perhaps a little eager for my tastes, several times I found myself early on apexes due to the aggressive rack ratio. Yet all in all, the fact that it weighs a full 3600lbs. is totally hidden by BMW’s magicical suspension tuning fairy dust. The Ultimate Driving Machine stamp is valid here.

If there are any chinks in the armor at all, again they relate to the short (and stiff) sidewall runflat 19’s. Any significant road imperfections you encounter when loading up the lateral G’s will skitter the car sideways a bit; an odd characteristic and unlikely to be found with the taller sidewall 17 and 18 inch wheel packages. This lack of tire compliance is not your everyday feeling and can be especially unnerving in the wet. It happens even during moderate cornering. OK, so that’s some "character" to keep drivers on their toes, but calling it entertaining would be a stretch.

About the only other imperfect handling nuance I discovered relates to big bumps in roadways. For example, there’s an off-ramp near my house that will load a car up with lateral G’s, then shoot it out at speed onto a wide surface street. At the very end of this off-ramp is a significant dip. Every other car I’ve ever thrown in there absorbs that dip, but the 335i struggles. The front end makes it through but the rear runs out of travel and gives off a huge jolting BANG that is amplified by the stiff body structure. The noise is very startling if you are not expecting it, and I’m again left wondering if the standard 18” rims with their taller sidewalls would make it through without these dramatics.

Those issues aside, the high speed tracking, overall refinement, and aerodynamics of this car make triple digit speeds feel like 80 mph. There is no real difference in ride harshness, vibration, engine noise or wind noise between 80 and 110, and steering response is the same. This is what 60+ years of testing on the Autobahn will get you folks, and I find it absolutely remarkable.

Daytime instrumentation is decent enough, with white on black lettering. The numerical font for the speedometer could stand to be a little more legible, as it conspires with the inner kph dial to look a little busy. Perhaps using yellow for the kph dial would be a good solution here, as well as marking the fuel and temperature gauges in a slightly different color. Understand, this car is so fast that when you glance at the gauges you need to locate and read the dial quickly without having to sort your way through markings.

This particular 335 is also fitted with the Navigation package, which inevitably means iDrive. The iDrive menus provide mountains of possible settings and options, including everything from vehicle diagnostics to radio and navigation operation. The current generation of iDrive is much easier and more intuitive to use than the impossible first generation system, but some of it still confounded me until I consulted the owner’s manual. Gadget freaks will love the capabilities of iDrive, but for the average driver it is completely overkill.

$54,000 buys you a lot of car here, both in technology and performance. If you have the financial means, its unique combination of performance, handling, style, and fuel economy leaves precious few arguments against it. 2011+ versions have a slightly different turbo engine, but identical performance. Buyers should understand that these are very complex cars, so a factory extended warranty should be seriously considered if ownership past the standard warranty period is planned. That aside, it’s a very easy car to recommend; it looks great, goes great, handles great, and cossets you in luxury. Seriously, what's not to like.

-Rob Lyss