My daily driver has to be an automatic. Too hard to shift with a Starbucks in one hand and the other on the wheel. But sports car has to be shifted!

 

An AT makes texting so much easier, too!

 

Don't come anywhere near my wonderful state of PA while texting! Texting police will give you a $50.00 ticket, drunk drivers get a free pass however.

 

Driving and texting are definately not safe, Kentucky also has a texting law. In Scandinavia you can't talk on a cell phone while driving unless you have a hands free speaker unit.

 

Maury, DUI in Pa could face fines of $300.00 http://dui.drivinglaws.org/pa-dui.php

 

Rob, sorry to see you could not join the club. Keep trying. You'll get there. For me, the BMW has been a great deal. Why? Because I love it and I keep it so I am amortizing my purchase price over many more years than if I bought something I got tired of after thrre or four years. I will be celebrating my seventh anniversary with the 330i this September. That is about three years longer than the next closest daily driver in terms of length of ownership. I would not be surprised if I kept the car another three years.

 

Bill, how many miles do you have on it?

 

Thank you everyone for the encouragement. The funny thing is I'm not really sure the dealer was trying to pull a bait and switch. Had they advertised the car as an automatic it probably would've sold right out. I think they just screwed up. Perhaps I'm being a bit naive, but I'm sure they would have sold it if people knew it was automatic. Still, I'm disappointed, and I do feel a bit the fool. The one and only question I didn't ask the saleswoman over the phone on Monday was to confirm that it was a manual transmission. Seeing the words "Six speed manual transmission" in the ad made me believe it was. It's funny too because I was sure the car wouldn't be full of all of the features that they advertized, but it never occured to me that it wouldn't be a manual.


Bill, you're probably right. Sooner or later I'll probably buy one. I agree that over time the cost tends not to be so bad. I do tend to keep cars for a long time, six to eight years, so the car would probably cost me about the same as a cheaper car that I replaced more often. Still, $43,000 seems like a lot of money to spend on a car, especially after you've been buying Honda's for the last 30 years with the highest priced one being my wife's Acura TSX at about $30,000. I guess I need to get over the "sticker shock". Still, its a lot of money.

While in the showroom I sat in a few 328i. Aside from the S2000, I've never been in a car that fit me so perfectly. The steering wheel was exactly where it should have been, and so were the pedals. None of the other cars that I've looked at fit me as if it was custom tailored for me. It felt very comfortable. I love the size of the car, it's not much bigger than my Si. I don't especially like the weight, I'd prefer it to be under 3000 pounds, but it's not. A big advantage (for me and the way I see things) to the 2011 was that the engine was naturally aspirated. The 2012 has a 4 (which I like better than the 6) but it's turbocharged which I don't like at all.

Still, it's quite a car.

Flts is right, it's only money. Now all I have to do is convince myself that the cliche is true.

 

Rob, the way I convinced myself that it was only money was to test drive four or five other makes and then go back and drive the BMW. They really do stand out. I remember driving a Mustang GT, a Subaru Legacy GT, and an Infiniti. Then I went back to the BMW dealer, test drove the 330i again, and asked myself what I was doing wasting time with these other cars.

 

It is quite low. Somewhere around 48,000. I take the train to work, so I only put about six miles on it for my daily commute, roundtrip.