I think I'd take the handling of the IS over more power, but this is a next-gen car we're talking about. It should be faster.

 

BMW Ultimate Care is free... Now if you want to upgrade it, then you pay. But for a lease, you need nothing more than the free package in my opinion.

 

I'm leasing but my next car will be a purchase and reliability is more important to me than more power. For me 300+ is plenty of horsepower for what I use it for. And it's not that I hate BMW but I've read and heard enough about reliability issues to know enough to stay away unless I continue leasing and drive it as more of a weekend car. I know a couple friends that are mechanics and they all have told me to stay away from BMW, also because it would be a daily driver for around 30,000 km/yr.

 

I don't see Lexus not significantly adding power to the next gen. I think they know they have to, otherwise it's nothing more than a slight refresh to the design.

 

Congrats on your new ride. I traded for the M340i and pretty much agree with every point on your list. It took me about 3 weeks to fully adjust to iDrive but now I'm adjusted and really happy with it. I found you can access pretty much every single feature in iDrive with a voice command, which is nice. The 8 button shortcuts can bind to anything in iDive that you can highlight. I still have trouble with the e-brake... so used to pushing it with my foot!

Now that I've completed my 1200mile break-in, I'm contemplating messing around with launch control this weekend :-D.

 

Thank you. I saw your post on the 2 month impression and it was a good read, congrats on your M340i. As far as the iDrive, I'd say I'm on the same page as you now. It took me a good 2-3 weeks to adjust to it (overwhelming at first) and now it is extremely simplified for me after setting everything to how I like it. I haven't set the 8 shortcut buttons, and if you have what are some of the ones you've set it to which help? I've noticed in my car even with the voice command set to activate with "Hello BMW', it will start when you just say BMW which is odd. Going to try to test out whats causing that in the menus. Agree on the e-brake lol, and I'm also used to the start/stop button being next to the steering wheel and not on the center console.