[The Dowager Countess]

The girl and I took a road trip from Boston to Washington DC to see some friends. When we started the trip the new car had less than 200 miles on it and now it's got about 1500. I drove mostly on the highway- kept it around 80 almost the whole time and the trip was pretty uneventful. I do have a better familiarity with my car now though. Here are my random thoughts:

-These tires fucking suck. They ride horribly over bad pavements and accentuate any slop in the suspension. They need to go.

-The steering feel is great- Not quite as good as an e36 M3 or even my old e46 but much better than anything I've driven since those cars.

-The size of the car is much better than my old e46. I like a small car and feel far more confident cornering hard and finding gaps and the like with the more e36 proportioned 128i.

-The car could use just a little bit more hp and torque. It's almost perfect though.

-The M Sport suspension doesn't deserve the "M" label- it isn't M and it isn't sport....it feels a little sloppier than I would like and the whole thing is prone to more understeer than I'd like.

-The seats and steering wheel and shifter and all the ergonomics are pretty close to flawless. I don't think I'd change a thing there. The clutch could be a little bit tighter and shorter- it's a pretty long throw.

-Compared to my e46 I never found myself looking down on an empty road and going "oh, shit I'm doing a buck twenty"...part of that is the power difference and the slightly shorter wheelbase for sure-the e46 was also heavier and quieter- but most of it is the shitty tires and coupled with a sloppier suspension. honestly, i think the damping and the spirngs are probably fine- it's not that the thing isn't stiff enough- it's that there feels like there's some flex in the subfram and the stiff non-grippy tires exaggerate it.

I love the car though. It's better than I could have expected. It will be perfect after some of these nit picks are addressed.

oh- it's a 2013 128i in white with no options except for the M Sport package.

My girlfriend liked the ride in it too- and also would like everyone to know that of all the clear channel hip-hop stations on the east coast- new york has the best one- hartford has the worst one- and boston and philidelphia are tied for third behind dc.

oh- and the climate control system is kinda stupid and the car gets shitty mileage- but we knew that before and i could not care less about those things.

hey, thanks for reading.