Voice of the Customer

TMCnet - The World's Largest Communications and Technology Community
 
| More
Voice of the Customer Featured Article Archive

TMCNet:  Albuquerque Journal, N.M., Ken Walston column: BMW 328i distills sport-sedan essence

[May 31, 2008]

Albuquerque Journal, N.M., Ken Walston column: BMW 328i distills sport-sedan essence

(Albuquerque Journal (NM) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 31--The 3-series, BMW's best-selling range, is now in its fifth generation.

Over the years, this compact has earned a reputation as one of the world's premier enthusiast cars, thanks to the company's single-minded pursuit of well-balanced performance.

From its powerful, economical and smooth engines to its crisp handling, potent brakes and driver-oriented cockpit, the 3-series exemplifies the sport-sedan genre. It's the one all other manufacturers attempt to emulate, with varying degrees of success.

If there is one word that defines the sensation of driving a 3-series, it would be confidence. There is a certain heft to the controls -- steering, clutch and shifter, even the switchgear -- that imparts just the right degree of feedback so the driver knows exactly how the car will respond to inputs. It's a feel that's more often found in European machines than American or Japanese, which often tend to have overly light controls.

And BMW has managed to distill that sensation and engineer it into its entire line, from two-seater sports cars to SUVs and big sedans.

Our 328i tester came well packed with options, including the Premium Package (lots of convenience devices such as power front seats); the Cold Weather Package (folding rear seat and heated front buckets); and most important, the Sport Package (17-inch wheels/tires, paddle shifters for the automatic transmission, sport-tuned suspension).

The latter gives the 3 phenomenal grip in corners but also delivers a somewhat stiff ride. If maximum handling isn't a requirement, the standard suspension might be a better bet for more sedate drivers. Inside, the sport seats are just about perfect, with firm support and an adjustable underthigh cushion. The front offers plenty of room; the rear seat, not so much. The trunk too is fairly small. The latest 3-series builds on a long tradition of designing cars for people who love to drive. It continues to set the standard by raising the bar, generation by generation, leaving BMW wannabes struggling to catch up. That hasn't happened yet.

2008 BMW 328i

BASE PRICE: $32,400

PRICE AS TESTED: $42,925 (incl. delivery fees)

VEHICLE TYPE: Four-door, four-passenger compact sports sedan

POWERTRAIN: 3.0-liter, DOHC inline six-cylinder; 230 horsepower; 200 lb.-ft. torque; all-wheel drive; sixspeed automatic transmission; rear-wheel drive

WHEELBASE/LENGTH:

108.7"/178.2"

CURB WEIGHT: 3,406

EPA FUEL RATING: 19 mpg city/28 highway

To see more of the Albuquerque Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.abqjournal.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

[ Back To Voice of the Customer Community's Homepage ]


FOLLOW US

FREE Voice of the Customer eNewsletter

Subscribe Now

Featured White Papers

  • Seven Best Practices for Speech Analytics: Speech analytics is valuable for identifying issues in the contact center. However, limiting its use to the contact center only considers a portion of all customer interactions and subsequently only reveals a small part of the voice of the customer. This paper discusses how organizations can optimize their Speech Analytics implementation strategy to realize the promise of this exciting technology.
  • Understanding the Voice of the Customer: Today's contact centers involve a sea of information that must be captured, processed, and distributed on a daily basis. Effective use of this information enables companies to remain competitive in an increasingly aggressive and customer centric marketplace. An overwhelming percentage of the information that circulates in a contact center's audio recordings, documents, web pages, and emails is unstructured in that it resides outside of a normal structured database and cannot be managed efficiently. These unstructured items contain valuable information, yet this information historically has been difficult to organize, categorize, and access.

Case Studies

  • Aflac: Aflac, the leading provider of guaranteed-renewable insurance turned to Autonomy to help them automate the process of monitoring their contact center agent for quality and compliance. The company now has a system that can offer continued improvement in agent quality and productivity while enhancing the customer experience. ...
  • Avaya: Avaya, a global leader in business communications, inherited 880 websites as well as numerous intranets and extranets when it was spun off from Lucent Technologies. The sheer volume and diversity of the sites and the over 500 content creators resulted in inefficient content distribution rife with divergent branding, messaging, and product information. ...

Video Showcase

    Interview with Autonomy: Rich Tehrani interviews Simon Hayhurst, SVP of Autonomy

Featured Events

  • Multichannel Analytics with Autonomy Explore: In today's world of constant connectivity there are a variety of direct and indirect channels of communication between an enterprise (or a brand) and its customers. 80% of these valuable interactions are generated in a human-friendly, unstructured format across multiple touchpoints and channels. With this ever growing mountain of information how do you extract the emerging trends and topics of interest to the enterprise? ...
  • SES Chicago 2011: Marketers and SEO professionals attend SES Chicago each year to network and learn about topics such as PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, local, mobile, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, usability and more. The conference offers 70+ sessions, intensive training workshops, and an expo floor packed with companies that can help you grow your business. While you're at it, network with peers and leading industry vendors. Programmed by the SES advisory board, you can be assured - SES content really is king! ...
 
 
| More