Military commuter family requesting purchase decision help, highway MPG, 325i vs 330i

[Chefini]

I find myself having to commute on weekends from Tucson to Los Angeles. I have narrowed my search down to a 2001 - 2003 BMW 3 series. In my research I have seen that the advertised highway mpg for both the 2.5L and the 3.0L engines is the same. That is hard to belive that they actually get the same mpg. What I am really interested to know is what mpg can I expect for the 325 and 330 if I am cruising at 90mph on the long and straight Arizona highways. Thanks for the help.
Chef

 

[Kirby]

My 323 (2.5L) gets ~29 - 30 mpg on the open road, drops to ~27 mpg combined (80% hiway/20% local). I have not monitored the 330 that closely under that type of driving, but in all around (50/50) the 330 gets about 23 mpg.

 

[codex57]

Comparing notes, my buddy who has a 2003 330Ci and my 2003 325Ci get approximately the same gas mileage. We bought our cars about 2 weeks apart. Pisses me off cuz he's got so much more power yet I don't really get any better gas mileage.

The only time I beat him is on a long road trip. I can eke out about 2 mpg more than him. However, throw some city driving in with lots of traffic and/or hills and my mileage plummets. 50/50 highway/city driving will get me 23 mpg if I'm lucky. Pure city gives about 16 mpg for me.

Realistically, I see about 16 pure city/28 pure highway. 21-23 mpg fairly evenly mixed.

 

[Chefini]

But what about all of the posts that people are having such problems with bad gas mileage on their 330s? Is that just an intermittent annomaly in the performance 330 or is it in all 3.0L enginges?
Thanks,
James

 

[Bmw 325i 7803]

I find myself having to commute on weekends from Tucson to Los Angeles. I have narrowed my search down to a 2001 - 2003 BMW 3 series. In my research I have seen that the advertised highway mpg for both the 2.5L and the 3.0L engines is the same. That is hard to belive that they actually get the same mpg. What I am really interested to know is what mpg can I expect for the 325 and 330 if I am cruising at 90mph on the long and straight Arizona highways. Thanks for the help.
Chef

The 330i gets the better gas mileage for 90mph cruising since the 2.5 works too hard and needs 4000rpm to maintain that speed. The 330i also gets better gas mileage than the 325i, don't listen to the other posts about the 325i being better or the 330i (the NEW ones which doesn't apply to you) having poor gas mileage in the city. The 2.5 engine has no power and requires you to constantly hold it in the upper rpms range for decent acceleration. With an auto 0-60 of 8.3 seconds, compared to the 330i's 6.9/7.0 seconds; that 325i has 4 cylinder performance WITHOUT the gas mileage. With BMW a smaller engine DOES NOT mean better gas mileage.