2023 BMW 330i Touring Review: Space on the Road

The new BMW 330i introduces an estate variant into Singapore’s standard 3 Series lineup

2023 BMW 330i Touring

Launched: April 2023 – Price S$368,888 with COE and VES (June 2023)

Five-door, mid-sized estate, five seats

245hp, petrol, VES C1, 7.7l/100km

PROS

Smooth, tractable engine

Spacious interior

User-friendly interface

CONS

Less agile than equivalent 3 Series sedan

Boot floor could be deeper

SINGAPORE

On the heels of the recently updated BMW 318i sedan, BMW has launched an estate variant of the BMW 3 Series here, the 330i. It’s only the second time that a standard BMW 3 Series is available in Singapore in wagon form, and to sweeten the deal it comes fitted with BMW’s uprated M Sport Pro package and the top specification Operating System 8 as standard.

First up, the 330i Touring is part of the seventh-generation, G21, also known as G20 series for the sedan, that was first introduced to the world in 2018. This here is the mid-life update of that car, or what BMW refers to as the ‘Life Cycle Impulse’, or LCI in short.

Visually, it has the same front end as the 318i sedan with the M Sport Pro package, but as it’s the 330i with a punchy 245 horsepower, 2.0-litre turbo engine, it also gets the larger M Sport brakes with blue painted callipers with the M logo printed on the front set.

Like much of BMW’s current range of cars, there’s some active aerodynamics at work here. The slants and grilles on the front end open progressively only when the car’s engine needs additional cooling. Otherwise, they’re closed off for better aerodynamic efficiency and fuel economy.

Round the back, it’s obviously unique with the squared-off off rear end that gives you more carrying space.

The full M Sport Pro kit is made up of the front and rear bumpers, an extended M high-gloss Shadowline trim on the window frames, BMW kidney grille with double bars in black, M Sport suspension upgrade, and the bonus 18-inch, M light alloy wheels in the Double-spoke style 848 M Bicolour.

There’s no power upgrade despite the M Sport connotations, and the fact that BMW likes to put the ‘Pro’ word into almost all of its option kits shows just how crazy the business of marketing with big-gimmick words has become.

As defined by dictionary standards, ‘pro’ is the short form of ‘professional’, which essentially communicates the idea that you are in a paid profession for your skills, like a professional race-car driver. As to what an M Sport Pro kit means, well, driving a car fitted with it doesn’t make you an M Sport professional, whatever that means.

But back to the car, from the driver’s seat the whole forward view is identical to the sedan, and in this generation, BMW has ditched the old-school drive selector lever for a little nub that leaves the centre console with a very low-profile look. There’s a super panoramic, curved wide screen that’s similar to that found in the iX and i4 cars, running BMW’s newest Operating System 8 with the very clever BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant voice-operated system.

At 4,713mm in length, the 330i Touring is a little bit longer than the sedan’s 4,624mm. That little extra goes to the boot, which has 500 litres of space with all the seats upright, and expandable to 1,510 litres with everything folded flat.

Powering the car is a four-cylinder, 2.0-litre turbocharged engine with no electric assistance of any sort. Output is sent to the rear wheels through an eight-speed gearbox, and on paper the car has a very similar performance to the Volkswagen Golf GTI. It’s a planted, confident car, but despite the sports suspension and steering, it’s more of a cruiser than a bruiser. If you want fast and hard-hitting, there’s the BMW M3 for that.

The car drives with a steady confidence, though the thick-rimmed steering wheel is still a love-it or hate-it thing. It’s that little bit quicker than a Skoda Octavia RS. BMW sports sedan enthusiasts however, may argue that the Octavia RS is front-wheel drive and therefore driven from the wrong end.

It’s sharp in that typical BMW fashion, the brand builds cars to fit into niche segments. The 330i Touring is tempered by the fact that it’s a car that is tuned more as a medium sized grand tourer rather than an all out sports car.

Like almost all modern, high power turbo engines, the 330i’s power unit has a very wide powerband that allows it to pull very strongly from low down in the rev range, and brisk overtaking on the highway is never an issue.

The car’s rear hatch has a unique, twin opening hatch. You can swing open the whole door like a normal wagon, or you can just unlatch and open the rear window glass when you don’t want to or have room to open up the whole door.

As it stands the BMW 330i Touring is a very pricey car at nearly S$370k with COE at time of launch. Yet there’s an intangible sense of completeness to the whole package. It’s got the power, poise, and carrying capacity. The drawback for the 245 horsepower though, seems to be its relative lack of fuel economy. It’s rated at 7.7L/100km, but in actual urban use we recorded around 8.7L/100km.

If this is far above what you can afford, there’s a much more affordable estate on sale in Singapore in the form of the Skoda Octavia Combi, which may not have the performance of the 330i, but as a stylish, large load-carrying car, it’s a more affordable alternative.

However the reputation of the BMW 3 Series precedes the car, and in Touring form it has that little extra special magic.

BMW 330i Touring 

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