Yes, our member Advevo drives 135i. You probably know him as being allergic to weight and big cars
This is his review and after reading it, I dont know if he like the 135i or not. But he like it better than M3 V8.


"Today was the day. I could drive the car all day. It sit s now in my garage. Tommorow i bring the 135i back to my dealer.

First

The ediff. The ediff works perfect if youre used to a complete opendiff then it wil be a nice gadget. I did 3rd gear slides today at 100km an hour. I did a doughnut with the car. I really wanted to know if it can do that. Not that i do doughnuts everyday But i just wanted to see if the ediff does it work properly. It can do a doughnut. Second gear drifts are easy. So will it be replacement for a real mechanical diff. No. My 130i has a mechanical diff than is soo much smoother and nicer. You can feel the 135i rear brakes doing its work. Just keep on flooring the throttle and the ediff does it work. Lets just say its 70 procent the fun of a real mechanical diff. If you can live with 70procent. you can t go wrong with it. For me i am used to a mechanical one it s sure is no replacement for a mechanical one for me.

If you have more questions about ediff please ask.

A little movie says more than 1000 words



Then the next thing.

Bmw has fooled us again.

What have they done. They have put a gearing of 3.08 in the rear diff. That s way to long. The car gets to 180km in 3rd gear. We did a test with my 130i with 265hp. Because the 130i has a shorter rear diff 3.46 the 130i stays on the bumper of the 135i up to 240km hour. Bmw has done this to make A more comfort or with a shorter diff setting the car gets to close to a e92 M3 in speed.

The suspension is great. Sporty but not to hard. Perfect for daily use.

Seats are a little on the high side same as 130i also to high up. But seats are better than the 130i they much softer to sit in.

Car looks

From some angels its just an awesome car. From other angles i don t know. Maybe i need to get used to it.

For me it s a nicer car to drive than an E92 M3 it only need some tweaks that s a shorter rear diff and mechanical LSD. And some weight loss. Than it s an awesome machine for daily and some track/driftwork.

If there are any questions please ask."

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You heard the man, ask questions

Nice drift..

Awesome drift

I hope he comes here too to tell us about his experience.
BTW, you spelled his name wrong J-M

Hey Andre, good to see you enjoying the 135i. I drove the 123d last weekend and despite its weight thought it a very good car. The steering was much better than the E92 M3 I tested at launch, and the whole car felt very balanced and enjoyable to get out of shape.

I look forward to hearing your impressions once you've fitted a mechanical diff and tweaked it a bit.

Steve

I was so convinced about the car that i ordered an alpine white today despite the weight. yeah i am crazy i know

I have talked negative about the car. But the 135i is a cracking car. Ok it has it faults but you can change things to youre liking with aftermarket stuff. A friend of mine has a white e92 m3. I drove / drifted it a lot. That car feels more like e39 m5. If thats youre thing the e92 is the car for you. The 135i feels more like e36 m3. More agile more sporty more fun. I already knew the 1 series was the best fun car bmw has at the moment. I sold my e46 m3 smg for a 130i. How about that. Horsepower is not everything. It is the package which must be good. I don t need a 420hp v8. 300hp in a small car is enough just bring weight down. You can t go wrong with a 130i hatch 123d or 135i They need some aftermarket stuff to sort out some weaknesses besides that perfect cars for daily drives and the big plus you can have driving fun with it and they don t feel like cruise ships on the road.

Very smooth control and drift. I want to do that too

Do you drive on tracks a lot? Congrats on the order. You seem like the perfect owner of such a car.

I have raced almost all my life.

from 9 years till 18 gokarts.
1 year formula ford
2 year formula renault
that i stopped for work.
Since a few years started racing again. i have raced z3 mcoupe/m3 e36 m3
Drive dutch supercar challenge in m3 v8 gtr 500hp last year.
Now i am driving winter series in a E90 v8 480hp.
Next year my race team builds a new 1 series hatch about 1100kg with new m3 v8 engine for the dutch super car challenge. That thing will be a rocket.

^^
Wow, I guess you are more than competent to drive an 135i like that. Any mod plans for your pearl or are you going to keep it stock??

Andre, I agree with you. I enjoyed the E92 M3, but when I drove it back to back with my M3 CSL it felt like a very different car. I am still curious to see what the E92 CSL will be like, but I will be surprised if it retains the compact feel of the E46.

The 1-series Coupe really feels a better balanced and more dynamic model than the 3-series. I haven't driven the 135i yet, but that 123d felt like it had been designed by better engineers than had worked on the E92 M3. Go figure.

I look forward to hearing more of your experiences either on bm3w/mtorque or germancarzone...

The problem with all cars is that they are getting bigger and heavier with each generation. The 3er coupe has grown up very fast. I'm 180cm tall and I can sit in the back seat of the E92 without any problems. It's quite a spacious car with a little overweight compared with it's predecessor.

Hopefully BMW won't make the next generation 3er coupe larger, but in stead focus more on cutting the weight.