As a nice safe small family sedan these cars are great but they are a bit pricey. If your intent is to drive them on the street 100% they are perfect compromise car for people with small children.
Get them on the track and their sedan foundations start showing very quickly. Overly soft suspension tuning, weak suspension mounting points etc. Ask anyone who has taken a BMW 1 series from street car to a serious track car. Its a very very expensive journey.
I live in the mountains and I drove a 135i and didnt like the overly soft suspension tuning. First offramp I took the car pitched and leaned. And I really didnt like the overly heavy steering feel of the 1 series. They just dont have happy lightweight feeling of a typical sports car. I would have had to go route of complete suspension rebuild to meet my tastes. But as a Autobahn cruiser its perfect. Nice interior, great linear power, soft ride. Just sort of a boring car to me.
I know a few race car development guys and they hated the weak suspension mounting points in the 1 series. BMW seems to have a hard time with making rear suspension strong in entry level cars. Seems strange since the rest of their cars are fairly robust. Many of their cars end up cracking in the rear when people put stiff suspensions and race tires on without reinforcing rear suspension pickup points.
If I was in the market for a Sedan the 135i would probably be high on my list but it falls off with competitors like Cayman and 370Z when I'm looking at a sports car.
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