320d Luxury 184 Auto 5dr

Aggressively cost-engineered - designed without enthusiasm or generosity

I bought one of these in excellent condition for my wife, from a prominent Glasgow dealer in ex-lease vehicles with 65k miles for export to Ireland. The only defect on collection was a warped brake disk which I accepted.
The mileage today is 120k. Reliability has been good, and average economy has been around 47 mpg in mixed rural-motorway driving. My wife regards the car as she would a fridge. Personally I hate driving it. My training as a product design engineer colours my judgement. The many interlocks around engaging drive (door closed, foot on brake, release of a special button on the selector) are nannying and unnecessary. Noise insulation is not that good. The car has standard leather trimmed seats which have flat squabs and appear to be designed to be as average as possible. The standard-fit halogen headlamps have poor projection on full beam and cannot be adjusted for EU driving. Some of the main switchgear (indicators and cruise) have multiple modes combined with poorly-calibrated and/or de-bounced switch points making operation erratic. The engine/gearbox has a lot of lag during launch followed by lunging, except in Eco mode which provides for second or third gear starts. And the standard-fit telematics - a tiny screen, plastic mouse wheel, and little useful information was so obviously knobbled by the product managers that I felt I had to retrofit the current version in its place.

Underneath and underbonnet, electropainted steel parts dominate over aluminium ones and value-engineering is much in evidence. The lack of a spare tyre and retail pricing policy for runflats made a change to regular tyres and a spacesaver a wise move for long drives across the EU. The damping of the car lacks progression and when the bump stops intrude they do so with a bang.

This car was engineered with upgrade-begging in mind. The standard telematics are decades behind what is offered by a smartphone and the sound is poor. The headlamps are marginally better than dangerous. The unheated front seats and poor sound demand upgrade. But why bother - the poor auto-wipers, aggressive engine cut-out and sluggish auto-restart and poorly-calibrated launching of the car tell a story of limited engineering development hours. This car was conceived and developed without passion.

To cap that, durability concerns about a known design defect related to spline wear in the 4WD transfer box and the uninspiring engine note make exploration of the performance available, which is decent, uninviting. This car is no scaled-down 5-series Touring (I've had three) or E-class Estate. Avoid!

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