2008 BMW 135i
Current Mileage: 16,256
Average Observed Economy: 21.7
Blame the combination of a hectic travel schedule and our own meddling with perfection for the fact that our 135i barely left the Motive garage for most of September. Since the last update, we've logged just 1156 new miles in the little coupe, which is too bad.
While a series of out-of-town press trips found the 1er parked in long-term parking for longer than we would prefer, we also voluntarily took it out of commission for a little cosmetic enhancement. The 1 Series has been out in Europe since 2004, but the coupe body style went into production less than a year ago. That means aftermarket bits are still mostly in the making. In an effort to give the Alpine White coupe a little more attitude, we decided we'd have the taillights darkened just a bit. The goal was to simply dial up the drama a notch or two without taking it over the top. We enlisted the help of Jon DeSalvatore of Jon's Tinted Taillights, who specializes in the magic of mood lighting.
Using a professional-grade, transparent, smoke-colored paint, Jon applies his voodoo directly to the factory lenses in varying degrees of darkness. And since we didn't have a spare set of taillights sitting around, we had to remove ours and send them off for refinishing. Now before you assume this procedure is a glorified Nite Shades rattle-can job, you should see the results. The preparation and application are flawless, delivering a final product that looks like it fell out the mold like that.
We were going for a subtle enhancement, but we didn't want the mod to go unnoticed, either. We selected the medium tint option in the hopes of achieving our modest goal, but were shocked when we opened the box to discover our lights were virtually black. Surely, we thought, they'd look brighter outside with some sunshine passing through them. Only they didn't. The look of the taillights is now very much like the 1-series itself — polarizing. People either love or hate the new look, but few are ambivalent. We're planning to remedy this as soon as possible; we love the quality of the work and the potential for distinction, but can't really deal with harsh contrast of the black lights on the stark white body. We'll also have the center brake light painted to match the new, much lighter refinish.
The down time has given us a chance to thumb through the comment log, and it seems some of the 135i's initial charm is wearing off. The Yokohama s.Drive tires that were fairly quiet when new have become excruciatingly noisy on less-than-perfect pavement, especially concrete surfaces, with only a few thousand miles on them and with no visible wear. The moan was so overwhelming that one staffer actually pulled over on the Chicago Skyway to make sure he hadn't flattened a tire or two. And while the H&R suspension is about perfect for highway drives and smoother roads, it can be imposingly harsh over potholes and pavement seams at the lowest speeds. Adding the cost of the coilovers and rear swaybar to the 135i's $39,175 sticker price brings it to within spitting distance of a 335i coupe, which for some of us is a more suitable sport coupe thanks to its extra wheelbase.
Still, others among us prefer the shorter wheelbase and 200-pound weight saving of the 135i and have a hard time justifying the added cost of the mechanically identical the 3-series, even if the more compact specs don't actually translate into a discernable difference in either performance or economy compared to the bigger coupe. What's undeniable, however, is just how magnificent the twin-turbo drivetrain is — there is torque everywhere, it seems. Sixth gear can carry you from 40 mph on up with ease, and if you use the throttle judiciously you can goad close to 30 miles out of a gallon of premium on the highway. Not bad for a car that can hit sixty in just five seconds and run with the big boys on the Autobahn.
