The BMW 3 Series isn't just a car. As my cohort Jonny Lieberman likes to say, the 3 Series is a segment. Now, this isn't an attempt to stoke BMW's ego, or, as many of our readers would assume, bias towards the Bavarian brand. It's just the simple truth: When an automaker chooses to compete in the luxury sports sedan segment, it's benchmarking the 3 Series. No BMW has consistently won Motor Trend comparison tests like the 3 Series has, and for good reason. The 3 Series has come to define BMW's Ultimate Driving Machine mantra and embodies the purest qualities BMW stands for as a brand.Back in May, we hosted a sport sedan shoot-out and invited eight four-door sportboxes to duke it out. Everyone from Audi to Volvo came to play, and in the end, we said (and I quote), "This is not just a win for the 328i -- it's a massacre. ... there is no competition." Well, that was then. And then was before Cadillac had brought its new ATS to market.
Of course, Cadillac smartly realizes BMW rules the 3 Series segment, and looking over the spec sheet for the ATS, it's clear Cadillac engineers used BMW specs as they would a recipe for their grandmother's lasagna. The exterior dimensions -- length, width, and height -- are all within an inch of the 328i and the difference in curb weight is just 24 pounds (the heavier BMW has a sunroof while the ATS does not). The engine is 2.0 liters and turbocharged, just like the 328i. Output is also nearly identical, as you might expect by now: 272 hp for the ATS, 240 for the (cough, cough) underrated (cough, cough) BMW with 260 and 255 lb-ft of torque, respectively. Both cars are available with automatic gearboxes, but the Caddy gets six cogs to the BMW's eight. This being a sport sedan comparison, we decided on six-speed manuals for both cars. Wheels on both cars are 18 inches and suspension is strut front, multi-link rear on each, with anti-roll bars at both ends. Heck, even the base price of each car is an identical $35,795 with destination fees factored in.
But let's turn our attention from spec sheets to sheetmetal. For 2013, the BMW gets a subtle redesign. All that "evolutionary, not revolutionary" stuff you've been reading about the 328i is true -- BMW isn't messing too much with what works. The Bimmer's lines are taut and the stance is aggressive, with 18-inch wheels filling out the fenderwells on our Sport model. It looks lean and toned and every inch a BMW. Meanwhile, there's no doubt the ATS' sheetmetal is influenced by the CTS, but the overall design is more than a four-fifths scale take on Big Brother. We love the swoopy, Mercedes-esque beltline and the chiseled front end. Caddy didn't go overboard on the flash, keeping chrome trim subtle, and the illuminated door handle inserts and vertical headlights that sweep up the hoodline are lovely touches.
Inside, the two cars couldn't be more different. BMW sticks with an understated black interior, spiced up only with a red trim strip across the dash and red stitching on the leather seats and steering wheel. The dash is all soft-touch grained material of reasonable quality, but the matte black rubberized buttons and switchgear look a bit cheap for a car that can easily be optioned to more than $50k. Nevertheless, the latest version of iDrive works intuitively and quickly, with a well-integrated voice command system. The ATS interior is a little more flashy, with a good-looking leather-topped dash and a stylized piano black center stack that unfortunately picks up smudges and fingerprints like mad. Cadillac's CUE interface, while not on the same level as the continually refined iDrive, works well enough with some advanced touches including a proximity sensor that hides cluttering functions until a hand moves within inches of the touch screen. Buttons on the center stack incorporate haptic feedback for more positive response.
At the dragstrip, the 328i pips the ATS by a full half-second to 60 mph, but that gap lessens to just 0.3 seconds through the quarter-mile, with runs of 14.1 and 14.4 sec, respectively. If you look at the charts for our two competitors, you'll see the cars are dead-nuts even to 15 and 30 mph, so why the big gap by 60 mph? Most of it has to do with the ATS' shorter gearing, which requires a second shift to get to the big six-oh. Around our figure-eight track, the race tightens. In fact, our cars managed identical 26.3-second laps -- a pretty amazing thing. Pure skidpad numbers give a 0.01 g advantage to the ATS and its wider rear rubber, and the Caddy also takes top braking honors, with a 108-foot stop from 60 to 0 mph, where the BMW required 113.
Too close to call? Not so fast. Though dimensions and performance specs may be nearly identical between our two sports sedans, there are marked differences in the way each car drives. Traditionally, one of the 3 Series' highlights has been its sharp, balanced handling and less compromised attitude. Ironically, it's here that the BMW is let down. We wouldn't call the 328i a poor-handling car by any stretch of the imagination, quite the contrary. Toss the BMW into a sharp turn, and mild initial understeer dissolves quickly to beautifully neutral behavior. A stab of the throttle will goad the rear into hanging out ever so slightly, but with utter control. The ride quality remains relatively supple; the downside is that the BMW has a slightly rubber sensation in relation to the ATS. Every input seems to be damped slightly; every corner entry just a hair slower; every sensation just that much more muted.
Take the same turn in the ATS and initial understeer is more abrupt, with more marked transitions to neutral, then slight oversteer under throttle provocation. But the inputs are sharper and the response is quicker. The steering has a directness that reminds us of the E46 3 Series, not the current car. We mean that in a good way. More than that, the chassis feels more responsive, firmer, tauter. The Caddy's engine feels punchier mid-range, and while the engine note isn't what you'd call melodic, it's a little louder and rawer. If the BMW is the Beatles, the Cadillac is the Rolling Stones. There's that much more aggression and drive to the ATS; that uncompromised driving experience that sadly no longer exists in the 3 Series. Drive the Bimmer without driving the Caddy and you may not even notice, but driven back to back, the difference is marked.
That's why the ATS' faults are so frustrating. We may have gotten a car with a defect, but the six-speed manual gearbox in our tester was hugely disappointing. Shifts were notchy and imprecise, with several testers continuing to miss gears even as hours in the car piled up. The transmission in the 328i is no sweetheart, but despite its rubbery feel, it didn't cause us to lose our concentration with botched gear changes.The Caddy's suspension also needs some recalibration. The magnetic ride shocks have the potential to be brilliant, as we've seen in other GM products, but here they're tuned a tad too aggressively. There are two modes -- Normal and Sport -- and the latter is simply too firm to be used on any public road. We're also concerned about the damping rates in Normal mode, as there was some heavy and frankly unsettling up/down movement under certain conditions. We could pinpoint sections of road where this happened, but we couldn't quite explain why, given that the road surface was quite smooth. Simply put, it felt like the rebound rate may be too high, resulting in a somewhat violent bobbing motion.Those two faults are so significant in the driving experience that the BMW hangs on to win this comparison by the skin of its teeth and keep its segment crown. That said, we suspect GM will be doing what it can to remedy these issues post-haste. When it does, look out, BMW.
No comments:
Post a Comment