1994 BMW 3 Series 320iSE from UK and Ireland - Comments

Drivers electric window fell out of its guides, dropped into the door and shattered.

Paintwork marked ridiculously easily and looked very second hand after just a couple of years.

Interior quality not up to expected standard - quite a lot of rattles and squeaks, and dash looked cheap and nasty.

Drank fuel - apparently they all do, but 23 mpg for a car of this size and relatively modest performance?? Come on!

A pretty good car. Revvy and silky smooth 2.0 six sounds wonderful, and provides decent performance. Lacks torque low down though, and needs to be thrashed to get the best out of it. Perhaps this is why I found it unacceptably thirsty. Even on long motorway runs and staying under 80 mph, it would never better 29 mpg average, and you could knock 5-7 mpg off this around town. If the 320 is this thirsty, what is the 328 like??

Handling superb. A bit on the soft side, but beautifully balanced, and extremely well behaved for a 150 bhp rear drive car. Steering and gearbox both nicely weighted and felt good to use. The car could be provoked out of shape, especially with too much throttle in the wet, but it was quite difficult to get into trouble with unconsciously. BMW should be applauded for sticking with rear-drive as it is superior to front drive in all respects.

The car had a good driving position with clear instruments, but fiddly fuel computer and cheap looking, and - towards the end - creaky dash were disappointing in such an expensive car. Various minor build quality and trim niggles were also unacceptable in a car of this price, and seemed at odds with the first class mechanicals and the general quality of the engineering elsewhere in the car. I can't honestly say the interior quality was significantly better than my previous Peugeot 405.

A decent, fun to drive and, interior apart, beautifully engineered sports saloon though, and very affordable these days. My company recently sold off a clean 110,000 miler for just £3000 - for a second, I was actually tempted. But that fuel consumption with fuel prices nudging 80p a litre would be just too much for the performance on offer. 60 miles per £10 of fuel for just 150 bhp? No ta!

I agree with your comments regarding interior quality. I own a 95 320i coupe and while the car handles beautifully the fact that the door trim and headlining is falling apart makes me want to get rid of it and as you pointed out there are a lot of other cars that offer the same ride and performance for a lot better fuel economy and cheaper price... notably the Opel Astra.

60 miles for a tenner is about as much as you would get under normal driving on a 320I (I own one and drive it regularly) unless of course you are always looking at the fuel consumption counter and begging it to stay on 50 mpg! Oops I meant under4 extremely light throttle usage, and driving at low revs all the time! which means you won't get anywher quick.

It's a 24 Valve straight six, so don't expect 4 cylinder fuel consumption effeciency from it!

On the upside, idling is smooth as silk, so's acceleration and the noise is phenomenal, when it's over 4000rpm!

Raziel.

Yes, but it's still only 150 bhp.

Thanks for the comments all.

Yes, I know it's silky smooth and makes a fantastic noise, but it just isn't quick enough for this kind of fuel consumption to be acceptable. Don't get me wrong, it's no slug, but no quicker than most 2.0 repmobiles either. Most cars will get into the 30's mpg on a motorway cruise, but this wouldn't.

Even despite the poor build quality and thirst, I still liked the car, but these E36 320i's are now pretty average in the scheme of things. At least they're cheap these days, however. This might sweeten the pill a tad.

Did anyone ever say it has more than 150 bhp? no, why then bang on about it, you'll very rarely be able to use all 150 bhp, as it's delivered at 5900 rpm, and even then it's for a brief period. there are very few 2.0 Litre cars that give out more than 150 bhp, (civic type-r, FTO etc) save up and buy a 2.5 litre, or a 328I, and if that's not enough, it's time for the M cars, and they will NOT dissapoint, Incredible performance! E36 3.0L M3 has 286 bhp, the 3.2 has 321 bhp!

You miss the point spectacularly.

Nobody said it had more than 150 bhp. What I'm saying is that the fuel consumption is dreadful for a 150 bhp car. If it was fast, I'd live with it. It wasn't.

Anyway, a dreadful dated car by today's standards.

Regarding MPG I have a 328 manual and am getting 40mpg motorway and about 28mpg normal driving, the 328 has loads of torque so doesn't need to be revved hard to get anywhere, 323 or 325 will have slightly better mpg than 320.

I agree with the fuel issues. On a good day I get about 38 miles (if I'm lucky) out of a tenner. I wouldn't think much about this, but my last car, which was a 97 740i 4.4 V8, got more mpg, same also with my dads SL500.

I do love my 94 320i SE thou. Though I need an upgrade now.

I can get nearly 40MPG from my 328i on the motorway. I struggled to get above 35 in my 318ti. The bigger engines save you fuel when you want to, and let you accelerate pretty much as quickly as you like when the mood takes you. I average 30mpg in my 328.