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Personally the tradeoffs are not worth it for me. Sure, it's efficient, powerful, compact. So was my 1.8t back in 2001. I had an APR chipped 1.8t and it was an interesting little undersquare torque machine. The torque gave it character, but it was no fun to rev-up. The power was available almost off idle, in fact the chipped 1.8t had more torque than N52, it was available almost through the entire rev range. It was just nowhere nearly as satisfying as smoothly accelerating to redline in the N52. The N52 is a gem of an engine esp. in 330i form with the dual stage induction. No four cylinder can deliver power as smoothly and as acoustically satisfying as an inline-6. I would be willing to bet that the 3 Series does not make it to Car and Drivers 10 Best list for the 20th time in a row, and they will list one of the reason due to the turbo 4.
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