I was thinking...shouldn't it be a BMW or Prius C? They are more similar in size....my neighbor has a BMW and my Prius looks like a giant next to it.
The Bimmer is great for one thing. Ready? It is a chick magnet! That is all. Girls love guys who drive Bimmers. But frankly they are not worth the money you spend on them. So if you get a M3 get a Platinum Card and some new clothes, have a confident swagger, and have fun. Enjoy the moment.
I've owned a BMW and I can say that it's not really a chick magnet. In Los Angeles, so many people have BMWs that it's not really a big deal at all. In addition, it's not high school anymore. There's rare cases where your car will help you pick up a girl. Most of the time, you're either driving past a girl who you never get a chance to talk with because they are looking at you from afar. In other cases where you park, the girl would have to coincidentally be there when you come out of the car. Then, you'd still have to do the work of talking to her. With or without a BMW, talking to the girl is what is most important, not the car itself as long as it's a respectable car. Lastly, do you really want to pick up a girl who is into you because of your car, and not into your personality? The real question is whether you personally like the BMW. That was my biggest issue with making the switch. The soul of a BMW is so different than the Prius. The experience is amazing in certain ways that a Prius could never be. But on the flip side, the Prius is also a car in other great ways a BMW could never be.
Ok the experiment is get 10 dates on match dot com. 5 of the dates pick em up in a 20 year old beaten to the ground car and 5 dates a fairly new model M3. Be the same person on all 10 dates. See how many accept date #2. A car is a extension of the personality. The 20 year old car says you make no money and are extremely poor. If the car is restored you may be nostalgic and live in the past and not the present. I can say that a Prius will help you catch a quality gal because your sending a message of frugality, lover of nature and the environment and an early adopter of technology. You enjoy new technology. You like taking care of others. The BMW will attract a gold digger gal who is living for the moment and I not interested in a relationship just a spontaneous moment and a morning after pill. The car says money problems, wasteful, no regard for others, self centered, and a poor decision maker. You like to flash. All hat no cattle.
Unless I got lost somewhere in this thread, isn't the OP's name "santamonicagirl"?? So why are we talking about picking up girls?? If you really have the itch for a European vehicle, I'd say do it and get it out of your system. I got a smart fortwo, loved the way it drove (ok maybe not the handling part but rear-engined, rear wheel drive was fun) and the way it sounded (they've managed to make the 3 cylinder engine sound pretty growly under full throttle. I definitely was expecting some crude noise but was pleasantly surprised. It sounds better than the 1NZ-FXE engine under the Gen 1/2 Prius). However, it got old pretty quickly as it was in the shop 5 times, of which only one was routine service. - Secondary air intake pump failed (after 850km!!! ~520miles!!!) - Shifter got stuck in/out of Park (had to jam it into P so that I can take out the key. Towed to dealer) - 12V battery drained and needed a boost - Wipers hit the frame on "HI" speed - Driver's seatback had some play - Fan blower motor failed - There's water sloshing in the hatch window somewhere after its first thunderstorm. Never figured out how to get it out. - "passion" sticker (yes sticker, not emblem) wasn't stuck on straight Issues with my 2010: - CD player skips (store-bought or CD-R. Worse when it was new and worse when it's cold, as in below freezing) - A few rattles (the smart had no rattles)
Rip your disks to MP3's. Audio CD's are usually played realtime with a small buffer. So bumps/vibrations/evil will cause skips. This was true in my Honda Civic and pretty much every car I have ever had with a CD player with the exception of the glovebox-mounted 6-CD player in the previous Lexus RX350. MP3 disks are data which is compressed and variable, so a larger buffer is needed. Therefore more audio data is pulled from the optical media which can be hampered by bumps/vibrations/evil and is stored in RAM at a time. So it will take many seconds of bad reading to cause a skip which wont happen on paved roads.
I guess I should've been specific with my CD-R lol. They are MP3 CDs. I've used different computers too to see if it was a particular writer that was causing the problem. None of them skipped when played on the home theatre system (left it playing for 3 hours+). The Prius will skip even if the car isn't moving.
I have a Prius, and a V10 M5 with all the Dinan upgrades. When I want to get my speed/handling/fun fix, I drive the M5. I drive about 80 miles per day, and so the Prius gets most my driving. Not only is the M5 expensive to drive in terms if maintenance, gas, tires, etc...but each mile depreciates the car so much more. I have the best of both worlds =) Droid RAZR HD MAXX
I went from BMW 523i to a BMW 530i M Sport to a Prius and whilst I really loved my BMWs, right now I'd choose the Prius. The reason I got my Prius had nothing to do with green issues or fuel economy but everything to do with me really liking the technology of the Prius. One final point, if you've ever had the misfortune to drive a BMW 530 M Sport on super low profile tyres, that are only available in summer compound in the UK, on snow then almost anything feels like a good alternative.
It's a bit entertaining how BMW has put 'auto-stop' selectable feature on some (many) of their cars. Engine shuts off at a stop, but it's reported (by CR) it feels sort of like you got rear ended when engine kicks on to go again. New BMWs are might fine to behold, but expensive and not made to be as practical as Camrys, Accord, Prius, etc...
When I want to get my speed/handling/fun fix I step on the accelerator;-P But to the point of the question, between the BMW and Prius there would be no question. We picked the Prius, twice. More efficient, less expensive (initial, and to maintain) and wonderful tech.
Since you mentioned enjoying driving an Audi: Maybe consider a VW or Audi (or other German) diesel. That will get you past a lot of gas stations, and have a lot of low-end torque too.
It sounds like you should broaden your options. The Prius and 328i are very different types of machines, so you're comparing apples to oranges. You first need to find out whether you are more an apple person or orange person. Then, you also need to consider that there are other cars out there that fall in between the 2 choices, for example, the Honda CR-Z (may not be the best example, but you get the idea). Just keep test driving, there's bound to be a car out there that fits your financial/ergonomic/mpg/etc. needs.
I have a few friends that I have said similar statements to them. They love their leased BMWs, but then sometimes complain about being "broke". Silly if you ask me. I kept my last car for 12 years. I would have kept on driving it but we moved across the country and it didn't make sense to transport it here.
