I’ve had my F31 328d wagon for over six months now, which is usually a good measure of whether a car will stick for a short-attention-span BMW owner like me. By the six-month mark, the novelty has worn off, most mechanical issues have made themselves known, and I’ve made it through the three phases of car buying: blind lust, buyer’s remorse, and acceptance.
This Estoril Blue M Sport wagon had a specific mission: to be a single-car solution. When I shut down the service shop, I had to sell off most of my cool cars to pay my debts, and I wanted something more suited for my daily operations than the E90 335d sedan. I needed room to haul the dogs, and the wagon fanatic in me couldn’t settle for an SUV. The new car had to be niche enough to hold my attention, but not too precious; there is a delicate balance if a car is too precious, where instead of its being beholden to me, I become beholden to it. This leads to excessive anxiety during the rigors of daily driving.
Being Estoril Blue, this wagon pays tribute to the late-Nineties BMWs I love so much. The M Sport package and extra cosmetic bits were added by a previous owner; the M3 mirrors, a dual exhaust, and a color-matched roof box make it stand out. The OEM BMW roof box is flimsier than the rigid fiberglass Packasport box I had on the 335d, but it makes it an actual four-person, two-dog vehicle for day hikes and mountain excursions. I’ve sold the black 19- and 20-inch wheels that came with it and mounted 18-inch BBS RGRs with red center caps. (I wasn’t sure the red center caps would work on a blue car, but they tie in with the taillights nicely.) The ride is also remarkably better, although I have yet to get the EDC system sorted after replacing the factory suspension.
When I was just flying the line, a practical car didn’t matter for commuting the once-per-week toll-road jaunt to the airport; I could shoehorn myself into anything (an MG Midget, a VW dune buggy, and numerous Z3s, for example). Now, as a pilot-instructor, I drive to the training center daily. That commute is roughly 30 miles of heavy traffic on I-25, plus one of the worst roads on Colorado’s Front Range: I-270 through Commerce City. I’ve engineered my professional life to work weekends and off-hour shifts to avoid some of the traffic, which also allows better access to our highly stressed outdoor areas during the weekdays.
While we are still better off than most major cities, in the ten years between 2010 and 2020, the Front Range population increased by 16 percent, with a 30 percent increase in my county, making a more practical car like the F31 wagon a must. The longest commute I’ve experienced has been just over two hours, while my average off-hour drive time is roughly 30 minutes (I give myself an hour). My record was 18 minutes, but that was at 4:00 a.m. in the 335d, and also part of the reason I sold that car: It just insisted on cruising at felonious speeds.
The four-cylinder-powered 328d doesn’t have the same punch as the 335d, but it’s averaged 32 miles per gallon in mixed driving over 7000 miles, and it easily surpasses mid-40s in strictly highway driving. I thought about filming a fuel-economy challenge with it for Life’s Too Short for Boring Cars; we could repeat the 651-mile trek to the Prometheus Tree on one tank that we did in the first-generation Honda Insight.
However, with a 15-gallon fuel tank, the 328d would need to average only 43.4 miles per gallon—not much of a challenge. I routinely get nearly 500 per tank just on my regular commute.
The F31 wagon truly shines during that commute. It is the largest 3 Series I’ve ever owned, and the little bit of extra space is nice for putting the seat back, stretching out, and relaxing when nobody is going anywhere. The sport seats are comfortable, and the articulating headrest perfectly fits my hardware-laden cervical spine.
It’s also the most technically advanced 3 Series I’ve ever owned. The trio of collision alert, blind-spot warning, and lane-departure warning is nice, but I generally run with them deselected in order to avoid technology-induced cognitive decay. When traffic is creeping, the low-revving diesel engine is excellent, quietly puttering along at just over 1000 rpm. It rattles more than the six-cylinder M57 in the 335d, but the eight-speed ZF gearbox is superb.
Today, after six months and hundreds of arduous commutes, the best test the F31 wagon has passed is that I still look forward to driving it.
The reason we love these cars is the experience they offer. While the F31 is relatively numb compared to an E36, and has an annoying turbo delay, it still offers the experience that BMW has always provided so perfectly: the sport sedan. It’s a car that offers the fun of a sports car with the civility of a sedan—or, in the wagon’s case, the extra room to haul whatever I want to bring along. And as a diesel M Sport version of the last 3 Series wagon we had in the United States, this one is even better.
