Our last weekend with the 3 Series and it was all mine. I'd like to say we spent it all on yellow-striped blacktop, but the truth is we went to the laundromat (and by the way, it wasn't the only luxo car in the lot... this is LA after all), Toys 'R Us and the grocery store, while making a few laps up and down the freeway. Not that it mattered much. This car has a way of making even mundane driving tasks feel special.

I hadn't been behind the wheel in 10,000 miles (not since my summer road trip to British Columbia), but after a good 5 minutes, everything felt natural again -- the shape of the seats, the grip of the steering wheel, the utter legibility of the orange-lit gauges, the smooth ease of a heel-and-toe downshift.

I still think the inline six is incredible. It feels as smooth and unflustered at its 6,750-rpm redline as it does right off idle. But is it perhaps too potent, smooth and quiet? I bet most people who buy automatic 330s never experience the upper reaches of the tach -- there's no great need to work the engine past 4,000 so it gets off living a life of leisure. And as much I like this 3.0-liter, I wish BMW offered smaller engines in U.S.-market 3 Series cars so I could afford to buy one new... I'd take a 320d any day.

Not that I wouldn't be willing to buy a 330i on the used market. After almost 25,000 miles, the only sign of wear in our long-termer is some peeling of the coating on the plastic trim on the driver-side door grip/storage pocket.

This definitely shouldn't happen in a car this expensive, but as commentors are likely to note, had this car been in the care of a single, doting owner, this deterioration probably wouldn't have occurred so quickly.

Erin Riches, Senior Content Editor, 24,831 miles

Humble apologies, as I am yet one more Inside Line editor praising this spectacular BMW 330i from top to bottom. Recently, Chief Road Test Editor Chris Walton distilled it perfectly. When BMW designs cars, they pay such careful attention to everything from the driver seat. And it feels it. The engine note is wonderful, the shifting is tight, the acceleration is fantastically quick, and it's so easily drivable every day. Enjoyable. Safe, quick, involving, and wonderfully fun. Designers and engineers have driven this car repeatedly during its development and paid complete attention to absolutely everything related to driving. Taking pride in making it all RIGHT. It was the first Edmunds car I ever drove, and I was in love from the start: It felt completely confident and solid, with an absolutely magical-sounding engine note, fantastic shifting, and steering so tight that I could blast it around sharp curves with complete and utter confidence.

Lest you think this is a puff piece.... there is that, that, that, RED. What a friend once described as "midlife-crisis red." Look-at-me red. My-life-has-meaning red. PLEASE pull me over for driving this fiery-comet-red car!! Reminds me of people who put aftermarket rims on a Rolls-Royce Phantom, just in case you weren't quite sure they were rich and powerful. This beautiful, perfect, spectacular BMW that gilds the lilly with a retina-scorcing bright red paint job so you know this is a spectacular, wonderful, quick, solid car. So during my very quick evening drive home on a wonderfully empty stretch of highway, I couldn't completely relax. Every set of square headlights in the rearview became a cop in a violent mood. But that still couldn't detract from my pleasure very much. What a wonderful machine. Just get it in silver. Anything but red.

Doug Lloyd, Copy editor

We'll be running final performance numbers on our BMW 330i at the track next Tuesday, December 12 as our long-term test officially ends that day.

Local residents should expect to see several tearful editorial staffers chasing a vehicle transport down Santa Monica Blvd. late the following morning.

Kelly Toepke, Manager of Vehicle Testing

A few posts ago, I briefly mentioned our 330i's run-flat tires (RFT) and the ongoing online debate about them on various message boards, including our own Carspace. Most of the heat is directed at the Bridgestone Turnaza EL 42 17" all-season run-flats found on car without the optional sport package. Many wondered aloud why we hadn't said anything here about our 330i. As I said before, our 330i, with the sport package, features 18" Bridgestone Potenza RE050A RFTs, a different animal entirely. For the most part, board denizens with these tires were less upset. Indeed our 330i doesn't ride way outside the envelope of expectation for a German sports sedan with a sport suspension and sport package. Oh sure, the ride is a bit short, and sometimes stiff, but that kind of thing goes with the territory. Or does it?

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Even though it's a non iDrive-equipped car, I'm not a big fan of our BMW's radio. Excuse me: "Audio head unit." For a start, having the same buttons assigned to different functions, depending on the menu level I'm at, is not my cup of tea, herbal or otherwise. Menu-based setups take the driver's eyes off what he or she should be looking at: the road.

But at least the 330i has steering wheel controls, which make up for a lot of egronomic sins. Once your favorites are programmed, simply toggle through the different modes with the upper left button, and switch between presets via the arrows to the right. Simple. Useful. And once you've live with 'em, vital. Like roll-up windows, you'll never want to go back.

But on one frustrating point, at least, they blew it on this car. The mode selector goes from "Sat" to "Aux" to "CD" to "Tuner", but doesn't distinguish between AM and FM, as every other such-equipped car on the planet can do. So when you want to switch bands, as us traffic report dependent LA commuters do every 5 minutes, the steering controls can't help. It's the little things that gnaw at you.

Still, it's a bitchin car, and I'm going to hate to see it go.

Dan Edmunds, Director of Automotive Testing @ 24,431 miles

Anyone ever read Larry King's newspaper column? If he wrote for us, it would go something like this:

--For the record: Push-button starting is goofy.

--That said, the BMW 330i is capable of virtually anything you throw at it. Every time I drive this little red wonder it's like learning that lesson anew. If you're in the market, by all means...

--One other aspect of the 3 is that the controls are snotty, German and bizarre. But they are at least usable once you get the hang of not using a knob to tune the radio. So I'll let it go. And all is forgiven because you can simply jam a CD into the player and it will load. How long must we continue to push "LOAD" and then "Choose a Slot" before the stereo will accept my death metal jams?

--I've been to Bavaria. Twice.

Mike Hudson, News Editor

I've been spending a bit of time scanning various BMW and Carspace boards, and one topic in particular grabbed my attention: Run-flat tires, or RFTs in chat room shorthand. Seems that quite a few folks are up in arms. It's the same with the minivan set, where run-flats are also making tentative inroads. In fact, a run-flat piece I wrote appears as a sidebar to our latest minivan comparo that went up today.

The Bimmer drivers wanted to know why the Inside Line staff hadn't complained about our 330i's RFTs, since so many of them were complaining about theirs. With that in mind, I weaseled some time in our soon-to-disappear (sigh) 330i long-termer.

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I was recently informed that our time with our 2006 BMW 330i sedan is soon coming to an end. With that thought looming, it gave me pause to reflect on why I love this car so much.

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We've noted before that our BMW 3 Series has a hill hold feature they call their "Brake Start-Off Assistant."

It doesn't hold forever, but it gives you a second or two to move your foot from brake to accelerator without having to use the hand brake on hills.

This weekend while I was gallivanting around, I got cut off by a crazy lady in a Bentley who blasted around me at a traffic light then proceeded to drive about 10 mph in front of me.

This caused me to get stuck at the next red light on a very steep hill. No matter what car I'm in when I get stopped at this particular red light, I roll backwards, manual or automatic tranny. There was no one behind me so I decided to put my faith in the hill hold feature when the light turned green. Sure enough, even on this super steep hill, it held the car in place for a second while I moved my right foot to the accelerator.

I remember when I first learned to drive a manual transmission car, I felt like every red light was on a monster hill and I would get paranoid about how close the cars were behind me. Why don't all cars have this wonderful feature? I really could have used this when I was learning to drive.

Donna DeRosa, Managing Editor @ 23,257 miles

Yesterday I decided to do a little basic maintanance on our long-term BMW 330i. First I checked the oil. And I checked it at 70 mph. That's right. Unlike most cars, which force you to stop and pop the hood for such care, the BMW allows you to do it from the comfort of its heated driver's seat. You just press a couple buttons and wait a few seconds. As you can see, the oil level was fine.

Then I decided to check the air pressure in the car's tires. For this job I did have to stop the car. I also had to go in the garage and bust out the trusty old air pressure gauge. Turns out all four tires were about 5 lbs. low (32 front and 36 rear is spec), so I pumped them up. Oddly enough I noticed an increase in ride comfort once the tires were at the proper inflation. Maybe our fuel mileage will improve as well.

Inside Line Executive Editor Scott Oldham, 22,599 miles