[BarryJI]

I wonder if it had the summer tires; I assume it did; the run-flats are not designed to please the sportier driver of this car.

It's an interesting read. I trust these guys to know how to drive a car on the edge of its traction envelope so I am sorry that the 228i with THP did not perform as they had hoped. In the small amount of reasonably aggressive cornering I've done in mine so far, I have found the car to be precise, predictable and I got no unpleasant surprises from the chassis/suspension but was was not driving -- nor am I likely to -- close to the edge. I do not think I would in a small coupe, actually; if one day I spring for a bucket-list 911, I'll do it in that.

I test drove the four-banger Mustang EcoBoost shortly before committing to the BMW and was very pleasantly surprised. The salesman allowed me to drive it very spiritedly once he saw I knew what I was doing and I found it really eager, revvy in a way a Mustang traditionally isn't, and genuinely quick. The car is, as they say, over-designed and a bit coarse but it is fun and the independent rear suspension gives it proper sports car manners. However, it feels heavy, like any Mustang, and I would no sooner get it going sideways through a turn than I would the BMW unless it was all decked out for the track.

The reason I think the review is a little unfair, even if it is technically accurate, is that where the BRZ is built to drive well under a lot of lateral G, neither the Mustang nor the 228i are designed to show well in this regime. Yes, there are sports coupes that do really well cornering at the limit but it's possible to fulfill -- in fact exceed -- almost every expectation of a performance sports coupe without cornering at speed by hanging out the rear end. My car just doesn't feel like it was built to get sideways and, yes, I would fully expect it to understeer if pushed too hard into a turn; I'd have to be pushing it really hard to loosen up the back end and I'm not sure I'd like how that feels. As I said, for me the ability to steer a car with my feet would be a requirement in a Lotus or a Porsche (or even the BRZ), not the BMW.

I hear what you guys all say about this being an endemic problem for BMW that applied to the 1-Series, too, and am disappointed that the car does not quite come up to scratch in this area (if it's true) but I still find it to be a fiercely quick and honest little car (with the THP) when driven hard in corners. I am a pretty competent and experienced driver of performance cars but taking my 228i to the edge of traction is probably beyond my talents, at least on regular roads, so these criticisms, while very strongly expressed, seem a bit esoteric to me.

Now we'll just have to see if they say the same thing about the M2.