BMW has long considered themselves as the Ultimate Driving Machine, and they have a ton of support from their loyal drivers, enthusiasts, and journalists. More recently however, it seems that they have taken up more of a stance of “Let’s see how much we can get our customers to pay for our ‘Ultimate Driving Machines.’” Having not driven a ton of BMW’s before, and of course seeing the normal BMW drivers mentality on the road, I have always often wondered why these drivers act like they own the road, and the 2014 BMW M235i has given me somewhat of an answer.
It’s very fun; quick; handles great; ride is comfortable when you want it to be; suspension feels really well sorted; one of the best BMWs of recent that I’ve driven; pricey at $46,575, but comes with no NAV, back-up camera, or blind spot detection; engine sounds nice when in sport mode, but starts to drone at highway speeds, engine sound pumping through speakers gets annoying, comfort mode is much better to live with while cruising; for most fun keep it in sport and transmission in sport mode; shifts are very quick for an automatic, one of the best ones I’ve driven, even better than CLA45′s dual clutch, shifts seem faster too; worried about the durability of the automatic though, seems that if you push the car hard for an extended period of time, it will eventually have problems, still wish this one had a manual, but its a no-cost option, which makes me feel like you should be given an extra set of rims if you choose that, I remember when the automatic was a $1500 option, now its standard, give me back my manual and option of an automatic, i’ll gladly take that $1500 back; seats are very comfortable; no non-sense interior, aside from iDrive, which is a lot better than older generations, but still a little cumbersome until you’re used to it; some neat features like cruise control indicators, if shifter is in manual mode and you press park button, it moves it over automatically; lots of M badges; now I understand why BMW drivers get such a bad rap about driving aggressively and not using turn signals, this car makes you feel you can drive aggressively due to the confidence and handling it provides, and the turn signal stalks are annoying to use, press it all the way down and it stays on, but it moves back up, so sometimes you end up clicking it the opposite way to turn it off, making you look like a jackass; after a week of rain, I still couldn’t figure out how to get the intermittent wipers to work, it was either fast, faster, automatic(which sometimes didn’t want to come on until you’re literally blinded by rain), or manual, I ended up preferring manual; is it a true M car, no, but its pretty good for what it is, definitely at the top of my most fun cars list.
