This issue of how fancy a bmw 320d might be is dealt with in the second sentence.

I think BMW has something going for it with fit and finish, but I’d agree you’d get more bang for the buck with an Asian car.

The thing has a diesel engine, it's in a different class than those cars. You'd have to get pretty wild with turbos to make any of them perform with similar torque && economy. Or step up to all electric drive which would be even more expensive.

Once again. BMW 3-series is not a fancy car. 5-series? Maybe. 7-series? Totally. If you care about things like CarPlay, It makes zero sense to get BMW 3, because you can get a fully loaded Acura for the same price.

Depends a lot on where you come from. BMW is very fancy in Denmark. In Switzerland, it’s one of the most common cars.

Holy cow you downvoters. Fancy BMW is 7 series. High taxes do not make cars fancier.

I drive one of those, have weird carplay trouble once a week or so. Pretty quick to solve with a reboot though.

Luxury car software tends to be pretty terrible.

It's a massive bummer that a luxury 7-series does not have good software, but it doesn't make the car less fancy. It has gorgeous interior, amazing fabrics, etc. The OP could simply acknowledge that BMW's software sucks. I'm pretty sure most brands have the same software installed on all of its models.

Oh yeah, it is weird to call a 320d a “luxury car”. Even in Nordic countries with super high taxes it’d be weird to describe anything below a 5-series as “luxury”.

If you live outside the big cities, a BMW is a pretty rare sight in Denmark, even if its just a 3-series.

A rare sight, sure. A ridiculously expensive car? Definitely. A luxury car? no.

There are a plenty of actual luxury cars in Denmark.

I guess it’s rather pointless to argue about where to put the bar for "luxury". For some, it might be Audi or BMW, for other it might be Ducati or Bentley, it’s not exactly a scientifically defined term.

Oh, this is certainly pretty pointless.

However these vehicle classifications tend to be fairly well standardized and “luxury” has a specific meaning.

Even in Denmark a 3-series will fall in the D-segment as a ”store mellemklassebil” and isn’t a “luksusbil” in the F-segment.

If everyone is driving Toyota Aygo or Citroën C1s, a BMW 3 is pretty damn fancy.