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Edmunds test drives the BMW 435i and describes it as very close to perfection. Here is an excerpt from their review:
So Close to Perfection
It all comes together to create a driving package that’s nearly perfect in its abilities and comfort. Our only complaint? The broad gap between the Comfort and Sport modes of the adjustable dampers.
There are five modes: EcoPro+, EcoPro, Comfort, Sport and Sport+. The first three of the modes use the Comfort setting on the dampers, while the top two use the Sport setting.
In Sport, the 435i is extremely firm and tends to jiggle over short, sharp bumps while it wallows too much in Comfort. Sport might work well on a track, but as one of the BMW chassis engineers told me, it’s a marketing setting: intentionally stiff to remind people that they’re in the Sport mode they paid for.
That may be the public’s perception of how the most “sporty†setting should feel, but it’s not the most efficient way to get around in the real world. We found Sport way too skittish throughout our test route in Portugal.
So Easily Likable, Lovable Even
The shame of it is that the rest of the car is all there. It’s an easy car to be immediately comfortable in, especially sitting so low in the chassis that you feel almost as if your butt is below the propshaft. The steering feels even better sorted than the suspension, the electric system finally delivering the sort of intuitive tacking that BMW lost in the switch from hydraulics.
But it’s the chassis that stars, with its wider front track biting hard into corners, flitting out the other side in a marvelous example of chassis balance and suspension geometry. It feels faithfully, progressively lovely.
That feeling of loveliness is helped by a tried-and-trusted powertrain that feels similarly progressive, sophisticated and composed. It’s as sweet and free a revver as anything that crunches a limiter in the sixes and it feels as though it’s got plenty of urge left in it, should BMW choose to jailbreak its own software.
