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I have spent many many hours comparing rear passenger space between F10 & F30, & apart from headroom, there's really not a lot in it.
The first thing to do is to adjust the front driver's seat on both cars to my normal driving position, after that we sit 3 persons at the back. Wht we found is the legroom and kneeroom to be more or less the same between both cars - sitting with a normal posture I can fit 2 fist lengths longitudinally on both cars between my knee & the seatback of the front seat. There's virtually no difference between both cars save for abt 1cm. My rough measurements are corroborated by the measurements of front & rear legroom obtained by roadtest reports done by Autobild on both cars (available to download from bmw.de).
Now comes the width of the rear bench. According to my tape measure, there's a difference of 3cm between the 2, but, the rear bench on the F30 is actually more comfortable to sit on than the F10 if there are 3 pax. The reason being the backrest on the F10 is heavily dished for the 2 outer pax (when nobody is sitting in the middle), so if there are 3 pax in the rear then the outer 2 pax are, due to the limited width, forced to sit at an uncomfortable angle as part of the torso is sitting on the outer "bolsters". There's no such problem on the F30 as the rear backrest is less dished so the outer 2 pax sits at a better posture. Of course there'll be no problem if there are only 2 pax, but the actual comfort of the seats between the 2 are very close. The lower waistline on the F30 also contributes to more comfort - it feels less claustrophobic.
If u talk abt quality of the interior, then the F10 has higher perceived quality (tho not actual). It's mainly to do with the design rather than the materials itself (the plastics are identical between the 2). As an example, the F10 feels better cos part of the gear lever console is covered in leatherette - the rest is in wood/alu & leather on the armrest. For the F30 there's no leatherette but there are still the wood/alu & leather armrest. So the difference is different types of plastics. Another example is the door cards. The main difference between the 2 is the location of the wood/alu trims. The F10 has it running alongside the doors with a satinised chrome border, whereas the same trim without border is fitted on the door pulls on the F30. Apart from that the materials used are very similar, save for the lack of linings on the bottom of the door bins on the F30 (it's only on the side). Having said that cars such as X3 & X5 have no linings at all.
If u talk abt penny pinching then a lot of flesh has been cut from the transition from E6x to F1x, much more so than the transition from E9x to F3x. As a previous poster said, they drastically cut down the amt of alu used in constructing the F1x, so much so the F10 gained abt 120kgs compared to a similar E60 (i.e. F10 N53 528i vs E60 N53 530i), all for a gain of 2cm in width & 6cm in length. On the other hand the F30 is abt 30kgs lighter than the equivalent E90 (i.e. F30 N55 335i vs E90 N55 335i), yet the F30 is abt 9cm longer than the E90.
I have made a lot of comparisons between the 2 as both are priced the same with the same options in my market. The salesperson recommends the F30 over the F10 even tho the commission they earn on the F30 is less than the F10.
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