[Appropriate]

Just been meaning to tell some people who might care about this since it happened...

I had my car into Schomp a few weeks ago for replacing some bubbling-sidewall tires (don't worry, covered under the tires-for-life I bought through them), and they gave me a loaner 535xi with auto trans. for the day.

I gotta say, didn't enjoy driving it at all. Compared to my manual 335xi coupe, that thing felt like a tank. The automatic transmission felt totally unresponsive as well.

Also, it had iDrive, and I didn't think that much of it after messing with it. Too slow and not very intuitive. I imagine the intuitiveness of it you could adapt to, but it seemed awfully slow. Plus the graphics seem a bit outdated.

Anyways, just thought I'd drop my review of the next bigger model.

[Nomad]

Good info....
I ordered my new 335xi E90 from them and should be here in a couple more weeks

The new idrive on the 09 3 series is newer and better I believe.
Love to see if it is different from what you tested...

Anyway how much did you pay for the tires for life thing?
I assume they will be asking me about that when I get my car as well

Rock on!

[Appropriate]

I think it was $2200 or $2400 and I got them to sell it to me for $200 or $400 less than that. You can press them a little on this. Given that the replacement bill on the two left side tires was $840 (crazy huh? I have the 18" staggered sports), I'd say I'll get my moneys worth out of it.

However, I think it is going to be hard to go through the tread on these things (they will replace tires whenever the tread gets to only 3/32" deep). The xi has such good traction control, it's hard to ever get the tires to cut loose (which is why I bought the xi). But, if I change them once from here on out, it should pay for itself. I had my last new car for 11 years, so it will pan out. I was torn about it trying to decide, but what put me over the top is that it covers a bunch of other stuff like the rims, windshield, batteries, wipers, bulbs, etc. Doesn't cover cosmetic damage to the rims.

I've heard the new iDrive is better. I've just always been more impressed with the Lexus system when I've played with it.

Hopefully we'll see you at some of the RMCBMWCCA burger nights this upcoming summer. http://www.rmcbmwcca.org/ (join this if you haven't... it's like $40 bucks a year and you get a monthly magazine that kicks ass) Enjoy the car!

- Matt (Monaco Blue 335xi E92 w/ black int., sport package, and tinted windows)