BMW 3 Series Review & Prices

The BMW 3 Series is like Alan Shearer. No, it’s not from Newcastle, but like Shearer it has for generations been a reliable and impressive performer, able to out-shine European and world opposition at the highest level, and is still going strong even in its advancing years.

While Audi might be re-inventing the A4 as the new A5 (rather confusingly) and Mercedes has brought out a new C-Class while BMW was just updating the 3 Series, this is still a car that looks and feels totally cutting edge, especially in how it drives. Though if you would also consider an electric car, the Tesla Model 3 feels more futuristic still.

In terms of styling, the most recent round of updates for the 3 Series haven’t changed that much. There’s been some small nipping and tucking around the lights and grille, some new wheels and paint options, but the overall shape and style remains the same.

That’s both good and bad — good in that, overall, the 3 Series is still a handsome thing. Bad in that it hasn’t addressed some design mis-steps, such as the way the 3 looks overly bulky around the rear wheelarches. Basic Sport models get chrome trim around the radiator grille, while M-Sport models look a little more glowering with blacked-out trim.

Watch: Audi A4 v BMW 3 Series v Genesis G70 v Mercedes C-Class

It’s in the cabin that you’ll find the bigger changes. BMW has binned the (rather attractive) separate digital instruments and infotainment screen in favour of the big, curved, combined screen setup taken from other models such as the 4 Series and 5 Series. This means that the 3 Series now has the latest and most up to date infotainment software — which can update itself via over-the-air links — but even though the old iDrive click-wheel has been retained, there are some fiddly bits to find your way around on the screens, and the graphics don’t look quite as nice as they used to.

Space in the cabin remains unchanged, which means you get just enough for four adults to sit in reasonable comfort, but there’s not the stretch-out space you’d find elsewhere. The boot is practical, especially in the Touring estate, but remember that the plug-in hybrid 330e — a hugely popular model with business user-choosers — loses quite a lot of that space to the battery, to the point where a basic VW Golf hatchback has a bigger boot.

Not that you’ll care about boot space much when you’re sitting up in the driver’s seat. The BMW 3 Series has long been considered the best of its breed to drive, and that hasn’t changed, despite the fact it’s bigger and heavier now than it has ever been. While we have to wait to see what Audi has cooked up with the new A5 saloon, the 3 Series most definitely has the beating of the otherwise-impressive Mercedes C-Class when it comes to the driving experience.

The engine range has shrunk somewhat in the past few years — your choice at the base of the BMW 3 Series lineup is now restricted to the petrol 320i or the plug-in hybrid 330e. Bye-bye diesel 320d — we shall miss your combo of easy-going performance and exceptional economy, though there are plenty of excellent used examples to be found.

In fact, there are now no diesel 3 Series models at all, something of a shock when you remember how wildly successful they have been over the years.

Mind you, the 330e looks like it might be settling into the 320d’s economy shoes, not least because a big battery upgrade now means that it can do as much as 62 miles on electric power alone, if you remember to charge up the battery (which can’t, alas, be fast-charged from public DC chargers).

Of course, if it’s serious performance you want — but you don’t fancy the expense and insurance cost of stepping up to a full-on M3 — there’s the brilliant M340i with its 374hp, straight-six, 3.0-litre turbo engine. Whisper it, but that’s actually a more enjoyable car to drive even than the mighty M3 itself.

If you want to bag yourself a great deal, check out Carwow’s BMW 3 Series deals. You can also get a great price on a used 3 Series as well as other used BMWs from our network of trusted dealers. Carwow’s Sell My Car service takes the pain out of moving your old motor on, too.

As with almost all new cars, the 3 Series has seen its prices creep up and up of late, but the most basic four-door saloon model, in 320i Sport guise, is still more affordable than Audi’s new sleek-looking A5 saloon, and it’s considerably more affordable than a Mercedes C200 saloon. A 330e plug-in hybrid is also a good bit less than a Mercedes C300e plug-in, but Audi hasn’t yet released prices for the A5 plug-in.

You could shop outside the premium class for an alternative, and if you do, don't ignore the new Skoda Superb, which isn’t anywhere near as desirable as a 3 Series nor anything like as good to drive, but it’s huge inside, well-built, and a bargain compared to the Beemer.

It’s also worth considering a Tesla Model 3 as an all-electric alternative. The Tesla’s quality isn’t as good as that of the BMW, but you can get a rear-drive Model 3 with a 318-mile range for slightly less than the price of a basic 320i.

The 3 Series remains supreme to drive and improved refinement levels have lifted it up to Mercedes levels, but it can be a bit uncomfortable over bumps

In town

In Sport trim, the 3 Series’ suspension is quite soft, so it rides well around town. That said, bear in mind that M-Sport models come with stiffer, lower suspension so they can be a bit more uncomfortable, especially on urban roads. Still, you can spec your sportier 3 Series with adaptive suspension, which when set to Comfort mode, does cope well with bumps. Even with standard M-Sport springs and dampers, it has exceptionally good suspension control, so that it recovers quickly and smoothly after hitting a bump, so even though it’s a bit jiggly on a rough road, it never feels flustered.

It’s worth remembering that the 330e plug-in hybrid gets slightly stiffer suspension again, as it has to be tightened up to cope with the extra weight of the battery and hybrid system, but of course the upside of that is that you can cover 62 miles on electric power alone, and probably more than that if you’re just driving around town.

The turning circle is only average, though, and the 3 Series isn’t quite as nippy in town as, say, a Mercedes C-Class. The steering is lovely — weighty but not heavy — but the brakes can be a little snatchy until you get used to the pedal feel. The eight-speed automatic gearbox is absolutely fantastic, though.

When parking, the standard front and rear sensors, and the rear-facing camera, make life easier, although visibility out is hindered by thick rear door pillars (less of a problem for the Touring estate). Optionally, you can have a very clever Active Parking Plus system that includes a 3D surround-camera system, and steering that parks the car for you. It can even learn, and repeat, regularly used manoeuvres such as how to reverse onto your own driveway.

On the motorway

The 3 Series is truly at home on the motorway, and it’s really quite refined (although the four-cylinder diesels do get noisy when you really put your foot down). Acceleration from 50-70mph is especially impressive in the 320i, but much better in the 330e thanks to its electric motor, so BMW clearly knows what its customers want and need, although you need to give the eight-speed automatic gearbox a second or two to kick-down. Any 3 Series makes for a pretty effortless way to cover big miles, especially since BMW improved the car’s overall refinement, lifting it up to Mercedes levels.

On a twisty road

Stick your 3 Series into Sport mode and you’ll get meatier steering feel, sharper gearbox and throttle responses, and if you’ve got the adaptive suspension fitted, stiffer shock absorbers - which help to reduce body roll through faster corners even more.

With standard rear-wheel drive, the 3 Series just feels so engaging and agile, with super-sharp steering that’s very precise. You always know exactly what the 3 Series is doing, and so it builds a huge amount of confidence on a twisty road.

It is genuinely good fun to drive too — BMW has really nailed it with this 3 Series. In fact, it might just be the only car you ever need. For maximum thrills, get the 374hp M340i with its 3.0-litre straight-six engine, but to be honest even a humble 184hp 320i provides more fun than most other cars on the road.

As far as saloon cars go, the 3 Series is about as practical as it gets. There’s enough space in the back, and a decent boot, though it could be more versatile

There’s very good storage space in the front of the 3 Series’ cabin, starting with big door bins that have a separate section for holding a bottle of water. There’s a pair of decent cup holders, sensibly located next to the gear selector, and they’re not too deep so if you’ve got a small cup of coffee, it’s not going to disappear down into them. That gear selector is now a small toggle switch, instead of the old ‘big sticking up thumb’ gear lever that you got before. It doesn’t open up any more storage space, but it makes the cabin in general feel more open and spacious.

Another small storage tray can be found in front of the cupholders, as well as a big lid that covers that whole section up. You’ve got a decent storage box under the front-seat armrest, and another lidded cubby down by your right knee for ‘secret storage.’ The glove box is a bit mediocre though, as it’s quite shallow.

Space in the back seats

Getting in and out of the back seats is easy, thanks to doors that open up wide, and it’s a nice touch that the seat padding extends all the way out to cover the wheel arch so you’re not bumping against hard metal.

Space is very good for a car of this size, with impressive knee room and a place for your feet under the front seats. The rear seat bases are quite long, too, so the backs of your legs are better-supported on a long journey.

Headroom is fine, but if you need to sit three people across the back seat, there’s a massive transmission tunnel to work around. The middle rear seat is actually reasonably roomy aside from that though.

For child seats, there are ISOFIX points in the back, with neat flip-up covers for the anchor points, and there’s enough space to get a bulky rear-facing seat in without having to move the front passenger seat forward.

The windows are a little on the high side, so the view out for kids isn’t that great, but they do get two USB-C sockets and a 12-volt connection. There are helpful seat-back nets for more storage, and cupholders in the flip-down armrest.

Boot space

In terms of boot space, the 3 Series is on par with any other four-door saloon of a similar size. It actually has 480 litres of space, which is the same as an Audi A4, quite a lot more than the 455 litres of the Mercedes C-Class and way ahead of the 330 litres you get from the Genesis G70. Remember that the 3 Series Touring estate gets a bonus 20 litres bringing it to 500 litres overall (with 1,510 litres if you fold the back seats) but 330e models lose lots of space to the hybrid battery, leaving the 300e saloon with just 375 litres.

The rear seats split-fold in a 40:20:40 ratio, so you can just fold down the narrow centre bit if you need to carry something long. The boot opening is a good size, but there is a bit of a load lip if you need to get something heavy in or out.

There are helpful storage nets at the side of the boot though, as well as tie-down hooks and a 12-volt socket. There’s an optional electric bootlid, which seems spectacularly pointless on a saloon. Just lift it up yourself…

Levers in the boot make it easy to unlock the back seats for folding, but they’re annoyingly not sprung, so you have to lean into the boot to push them down. They fold almost (but not quite entirely) flat, and there’s enough room to fit in a mountain bike, with wheels attached, when they’re folded. There’s also a folding centre-section of the rear seat to allow you to fit long, narrow stuff even when you’ve got people sitting in the back. With the seats up, there’s enough room for two large and two medium suitcases, AND a set of golf clubs or a baby buggy, which is very decent.

The inside of the 3 Series really is what you might call classic BMW — even with the big new screens, it still feels logical and sensible, although it’s not quite as simple to use as it was

The 3 Series now gets the same big, curved screen that we’ve already seen in the likes of the iX and the i4, which sits on top of the dashboard, doing away with the old separate instrument binnacle and centre touchscreen. This brings it bang up to date and compete with the newer Mercedes C-Class

It’s a very high-tech setup, with all-new graphics that thankfully do away with the old, slightly dark, BMW digital instrument panel. It’s a bit of a shame that you can’t customise the instrument panel layout as much as you can in the C-Class, and that some of the graphics look a bit ‘PlayStation’ at times, but for the most part it’s an impressive addition to the 3 Series’ cabin.

There are actually two screens — one for the instruments and another for the infotainment. The infotainment has fairly sensible menu layouts, and you’ll find your way around it easily enough but it can be a little confusing at times. It’s also annoying that BMW has taken away the simple and easy-to-use physical buttons for the air conditioning system and put them on the screen, where you have to press a ‘button’ to get to a separate menu to adjust things. It’s a bit of a faff.

You can control the infotainment system by touch, by voice, by using the old-style iDrive click-wheel controller down on the centre console, or by using the buttons on the steering wheel. It can get a bit bewildering at times.

Up front, there’s a USB socket and a 12-volt connection in with the cupholders, and an optional wireless phone charger too. A USB-C socket can be found under the front-seat armrest.

The overall layout of the controls is really good, with all of your driving controls grouped on the centre console next to the gear selector, but the movement of more and more controls to the big screen makes this new 3 Series slightly more frustrating to use than the old one.

The driving position is good, and you can get the seat nice and low for a sporty feel, but there’s enough height adjustment that smaller drivers can still see out properly. The steering wheel has plenty of adjustment too, but the pedals are set annoyingly off to the right a bit — it feels like your feet are in the front wheel arch.

In theory, the champion of fuel economy in the 3 Series lineup is the plug-in hybrid 330e. With its ability to run on electric power alone, it can return some spectacular economy figures (as much as 353mpg according to efficiency tests) but to do that you’ll have to plug it in and charge it a lot to get anywhere near that. However, it’s worth plugging the 330e in, as a full charge of the battery gets you 62 all-electric miles, twice the range of the old 330e, and almost a match for the 68 miles of the Mercedes C-Class plug-in.

On a longer journey, a 330e will return more like 40-45mpg — not bad, but at the same time not as good as the 60mpg you would have had from a carefully-driven diesel, which makes it a real shame for long-distance drivers you can no longer get one new. Go for the 374hp M340i and you’ll be lucky to get much better than 35mpg out of it…

The 330e is unquestionably the emissions champ though, with CO2 emissions of just 19g/km for the rear-wheel drive version, or up to 38g/km for the four-wheel drive model. The next best is the 147g/km for a 320i, depending on which alloy wheels you’ve fitted. The M340i manages an expensive 177g/km.

The 330e will cost nothing for the first year of tax for a private buyer, though the 320i isn’t hugely expensive. However, because the basic price of all 3 Series models is now more than £40,000 you’ll also have to pay the ‘pricey-car-surcharge’ in years two to six.

For company car buyers, only the 330e makes proper sense, with Benefit-in-Kind costs of just £94 per month. A 320i will cost company car buyers £226 per month, while an M340i will set you back £362 per month…

All 3 Series models conform to the latest Euro 6 emissions and RDE2 standards, so you’ll not get hit with ULEZ charges nor the first-year tax supplement.

The 3 Series has a full five-star safety and crash test rating from the independent experts at Euro NCAP, with a 97% score for adult occupants, and an 87% score for both child occupants and vulnerable road users.

As standard, all models get Active Guard Plus, which is an emergency automated braking system that can detect cyclists and pedestrians, and the bonnet pops up to cushion an impact if you were ever to hit someone. Plus, you get adaptive LED headlights, stability control, traction control, and tyre pressure monitors.

The dynamic brake lights also light up brighter under heavy braking to warn drivers behind you. You get front driver and passenger airbags, a driver’s knee airbag, and front and rear side head airbags. Only the front seats get pelvis and chest airbags, though.

For extra security, there are ISOFIX points in the rear seats, an airbag cutoff switch for the front passenger seat, plus built-in emergency calling if you have an accident. You can also specify high-intensity ‘Laser’ headlights that automatically dim for oncoming traffic, a head-up display that projects driving data onto the windscreen, and a Driving Assistant Professional, which helps to keep you in lane and a safe distance from the cars around you on the motorway.

There’s also the option of a BMW ‘CarEye’ built-in dash camera which automatically records what happened in the event of an accident, and there’s the option of a built-in vehicle tracker.

All BMWs come with a three-year, unlimited mileage warranty, and there are cost-options for extending that out beyond three years and up to 100,000 miles. There’s also an inclusive service plan for the 3 Series, which costs £1,004 up front, and which covers all your standard servicing costs for the first five years of ownership, or 62,000 miles. You can also get a pay-monthly inclusive service package for £25.99 per month.

The 330e’s hybrid battery is covered for the first eight years or 100,000 miles.

BMW also offers its own roadside assistance programme (you’ll need to get an individual quote for the cost), and also offers a specific insurance plan to cover cosmetic damage.

Generally speaking, BMWs are well made, and the current 3 Series has been in production long enough for most bugs to be ironed out, but there have been reports of niggles — especially with the infotainment system — will the new big screen layout be more reliable?