Delivery Day for Our BMW 320i

At last, our BMW 320i (F30) had arrived! It was a 2014 model with a manual transmission—and my very first car. I never imagined my first car would be a manual. (I explain how that came about here.)

人生初の愛車を購入！BMW 3シリーズ（MT）に出会い、注文するまで。

While we waited for delivery, my husband kept saying:

Seriously, are you actually going to be able to drive it? You’re not going to end up saying, “Let’s buy the Golf back,” are you? lol

I kept replying, as if trying to convince myself as much as him, “No, I’ll be fine this time. I’ll definitely be fine this time. (-_-)”

The weekly forecast called for heavy rain on delivery day. “Of course it would,” I thought, and resigned myself to a washout. But the day before, the forecast suddenly changed to sunshine. Our recent driving trip to Fukui had also turned out sunny despite an ominous forecast, so perhaps I’d finally graduated from being a rain magnet. (Though saying that will probably make it rain again.)

The BMW sales representative was bringing the 320i to our house, where it would be swapped for our Golf. So that morning, I emptied everything out of the Golf, vacuumed it, and got it ready to go. Knowing this would be the last day to see it parked alongside our Panamera made me unexpectedly sentimental.

From BMW Delivery to My First Drive

The car was due to arrive in the evening, so my husband wrapped up work early and came home. As the time approached, I grew more and more restless, waiting for the moment to arrive. Then the salesperson called to say they were outside. Our whole family stepped out—and there it was…

Whoa—it’s finally here!

Even so, it didn’t quite feel real. The salesperson walked us through the car’s controls, and I was impressed by how easy iDrive was to use and how good the audio sounded. I also learned for the first time that you can switch between Sport, Comfort, and Eco Pro driving modes. lol

After checking over the Golf and confirming everything was in order, the salesperson said, “We look forward to helping you again,” and drove off in it. Thank you, Golf. Goodbye… I’d felt this before, but goodbyes can be surprisingly anticlimactic.

Once we’d waved off the Golf, I said, “Well, we might as well take it for a drive!” and let my husband go first. The moment he started driving, he exclaimed:

What is this? It’s totally different from the Boxster! It’s so easy! There’s no way you could stall this thing! Even Mina can handle this one!

He was laughing as he drove.

I see… It did look easy from the passenger seat, and the gear changes seemed smooth, with none of the jolts I’d expected. Then I noticed the fuel gauge was a little low, so we headed out to the main road to fill up.

And then it was finally time for me to take the wheel.

“I can do this. I can do this.” I told myself as I adjusted the seat and steering wheel. I moved the gear lever through the gears—“one, two, three, four”—then thought, “No point overthinking it. Right, let’s go!” and gathered my courage.

I managed to get moving, at least. But I had absolutely no spare attention for conversation. At one point, I said, “I’m trying to get into second, but it won’t go in! (ﾟдﾟ)!”

What are you doing? The gear lever is so light! You’re gripping it way too tightly!

Then I complained, “I have no idea what gear I’m in! There’s no display telling me!”

What do you mean? You can usually tell by feel—by the engine sound or whether the car seems to be struggling!

Before long, my husband was laughing beside me:

Seriously, what’s going on? You look completely rigid from over here. Like that comedian’s catchphrase: “stiff as a board!” lol

Oh, right—the Japanese comedian Kato Zabungle and his “I’m stiff as a board!” routine. (-_-) But at that moment, I really was stiff as a board, so I couldn’t argue. I didn’t even have the headspace to relax and reset. We kept going until we came to a stop at a traffic light on a gentle hill.

Here it was at last: a hill start.

I let the clutch bite, gave it a little extra gas, and cautiously pulled away. The car didn’t roll backward, and I managed it. “Yes! Nice!” I thought, only to mess it up the next time—and then keep repeating the cycle.

I made it through the steep hill by the station without incident when the light turned green. By then, though, I was soaked in sweat from head to toe. (lol)

Maybe because I was getting tired, I stalled while pulling away from an ordinary traffic light. “Oh no, oh no!” I thought as I pressed the clutch, and then the engine restarted automatically.

Whoa—what a great feature… That was a relief. After a few stalls and plenty of stiff-as-a-board moments, I somehow made it home. Then my husband said:

Let’s check whether the auto hold really doesn’t work on a hill. It’ll be good to know before you start driving it tomorrow.

We switched drivers and tried it on the slope outside our house. The brakes held for about two seconds, then the car lurched backward. We tried a few times and got the same result. My husband then said:

I’ve heard of “hill-start assist,” which holds the brakes for about two seconds after you take your foot off the brake on an uphill slope. This BMW has it too! That’s good news!

So that was why I’d managed to pull away without rolling backward earlier… It wasn’t down to my driving skills after all. (-_-) With plenty of new-car nerves still on my mind, my first drive of the day came to an end.

The next day, I drove the BMW to drop off my older daughter at kindergarten. I was still tense and stalled several times, much to the frustration of the drivers behind me.

But when I went back to pick her up that afternoon, I drove far more calmly than I had that morning. I guess it really does come down to practice. Maybe I’ll get the hang of this after all. Right—I’m going to keep practicing!

I’ll share my husband’s first impressions of the BMW 320i (F30) in a separate post.