2012 BMW 328i Sedan Sport Line Automatic - Instrumented Test - Car and Driver (blog)
There’s absolutely no reason why a car’s cylinder and gear counts should match, but the world seems more at balance when they do. The latest entry-level automatic 3-series, however, has shifted from six cylinders and six ratios to four and eight. We’ll take a brief break from extolling the virtues of the manual transmission and concede that some people, in certain situations, are going to go for the auto. First to the four part of the four-eight pairing. All 2012 328i sedans use BMW’s new 2. 0-liter turbo four, which makes a respectable 240 hp and 255 lb-ft of torque. In short, it does a decent impersonation of the silky naturally aspirated six-cylinder it replaces. As for the well-endowed transmission, BMW’s Driving Dynamics Control allows one to fine-tune its behavior and smoothness. Options are selected via a rocker switch on the console, which cycles through several modes ranging from Eco Pro to Sport Plus, which govern parameters such as shift speed, shift points, and throttle sensitivity. Choose Eco Pro, and the transmission hands the power off from one gear to the next unobtrusively. in all other settings, it’s more of a fist bump than a handshake, with the intensity ratcheting up each step away from eco pro. The laziest setting also dials in fuel-saving throttle response and will coach the driver to improve his or her driving style for max economy. One oddity: The Sport Line car we drove was not. Source: www.caranddriver.com
