2016 BMW 328i xDrive Automatic

BMW forged its reputation with fun-to-drive sports sedans, especially compact ones like the 3-series, a regular on our annual 10Best Cars list for much of three decades. But recently, BMWwith BMW GPS navigation  has also become good at certain things beyond that core competency. Fuel-efficiency. All-wheel drive. Ride smoothness. High-zoot luxury and technology. So when our West Coast bureau picked up this handsome Estoril Blue 2016 BMW 328i xDrive, dolled up with the M Sport package plus most every luxury and tech feature BMW could pack inside—at an eye-watering $58,795 price—it seemed as if this car might be capable of flexing all of BMW’s muscles at once.

A decade ago, the notion of BMW slapping turbochargers on its sinewy engines was utter heresy. Now, turbochargers appear on every BMW save the electric i3. Powerplants such as the 328i’s N20 2.0-liter four-cylinder prove that the company’s engines can deliver the expected performance. Even working through an eight-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive, the N20’s 240 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque always felt close at hand (or foot, more accurately), thanks in part to the gearbox’s quick, intuitive shift mapping and the availability of all that torque at only 1250 rpm. Whether on the track or around town, the 328i always feels ready to pounce. What about install a Car DVD Player

Despite tipping the scales at a chunky 3700 pounds, our test car sprinted to 60 mph in 5.3 seconds, just 0.1 second behind a rear-wheel-drive 2016 328i automatic we tested with the available Track package and summer tires. Alas, with 134 pounds of extra weight and riding 0.2-inch higher on all-season Continental run-flats, the all-wheel-driver performed less heroically at the skidpad, generating only 0.86 g of lateral grip, far short of the rear-drive car’s 0.93 g with its sticky Michelins (a no-cost option). The 70-to-zero-mph braking figure also stretched from 163 feet to 174.

During our week with the car, El Niño was on siesta, so we didn’t have so much as a puddle to splash through, let alone a Michigan winter storm, to let the xDrive system make its strongest case. The advantages of all-weather traction are a some-of-the-time experience while the compromises in cost, weight, and performance are constant. On dry roads, the system remained virtually invisible excepting that it made the rear end somewhat less inclined to dance when powering along winding roads at breathtaking speeds; our observed fuel economy was 20 mpg, 1 mpg worse than we saw in the rear-drive version. If installing an Android Car Stereo in your car, that would be great!