In my "recent" review of the BMW M235i, I listed several aspects of the car I loved and several I disliked. After having spent 5000km in the driver seat, I can summarise my experience of the car as a non-track driver as follows:
The car is ugly in white. I hate looking at it because of the colour. I strongly dislike the lane assist function as it is way too aggressive and makes too many mistakes. The navigation system started out working fantastic, however on a recent trip to Calgary I found it totally worthless. It missed a road closure that incurred a 190km detour, however it picked up on 8 non-existing road closures trying to route me on roads that would have increased my journey from 12 hours to 20 hours. Every time I passed one of these "road closures" the car went mad and tried to make me turn back. Once I passed this virtual point of no consequence, the car routed me around the next fake road closure. None of the 8 road closures on its display was correct - there were not even any road work equipment to be seen.
Eventually I turned off traffic info, and the road closures disappeared. However, it still routed me on a road that is 160km longer than the optimal route. And both routes were on standard national grade highways so it was not a "prefer highway" or toll issue. Bottom line - the route I picked to drive took 12 hours, the route it recommended for 80% of the trip would have added 8 hours to my journey.
That said, the car itself is fantastic to drive. I have no real issues with handling, performance, steering etc. I did complain about the wheels following the road too much, but it is a small issue. It is probably one of the best cars I ever drove.
However, when you look at a typical car review, they rate it poorly due to:
None of those issues are issues for me. The biggest annoyance that was not mentioned is the idiotic application of highly polished / reflective black and chrome finishing around the gear shift. Whenever I drive in daytime with the sun out, the reflections are angled exactly such that they reach my eyes in the small gap between my cheeks and my sunglasses - so there is literally nothing I can do to fix it except put something over it. This is an annoyance that bugs me every day, yet the car review complained about things I really did not find to be any issue.
Lesson learnt - take a review with a grain of salt and use your own judgement.