Well after a year’s ownership id thought i write a little
review
PERFORMANCE
For a Diesel it’s great. The 6 cylinders make it sound nothing like a 4 cylinder diesel, sound from the cabin while driving, sounds pretty beefy if I’m honest. Performance from the stock 231 BHP and 500NM torque will see 0-62 in 6.7 seconds and tops out at 155 MPH, having mine mapped to around 275BHP and 600NM torque I’m seeing around 0-60 in about 6 seconds, the pull from the stupid amount of torque is insane. Revs max out at 4500rpm, which if you hit it, actually sound and fell like 6000rpm in petrol, gear changes from the 6 speed manual box are nice and tight.
ECONOMY & RUNNING COSTS
Considering the performance the economy is great. I often see 42-47 MPG on a 150 mile journey (120 miles motorway & 30 miles urban traffic). Costs me around £80 to fill the tank with Shell V-Power (£1.40 a litre) and I should see about 550 miles for that. Tax is about £200 a year and cost me around £400 a year to insure. As far as servicing goes it uses Long life Castrol Edge oil so can go 19,000 miles before an oil change, but it takes 7.5 litres of oil which is about twice the amount of oil for a normal car so sort of cancels out the long life bit lol, just means you don't have to change it so often. Cost of oil and pollen filters about the same as on any car, about £5-£10 each. Changing the air filter is a joke and takes around 1-2 hours to complete by removing most of the engine plastic trims, covers and strut brace to get to it. Bimmers tend to run wider rear rims, and being RWD the more expensive back tyres wears out quicker than the fronts. I’m paying about £320 for a set of 19" Falken rears. Also be aware that most electrical things you upgrade or change in a modern bimmer need coding to work which makes retro fitting anything pretty tricky, but there are lots of people\companies out there offering coding services. Having a pair of folding mirrors coded can cost you in the region of £100-£200, that’s just for the coding :shock:. General BMW spares and fitting at the dealers or specialist also come in quite pricey to anything else I’ve owned (Ford, Fiat, Seat and VW)
IINTERIOR
I was quite disappointed with the standard interior, the black Dakota looks grey and I hated the brushed aluminium trim that was splattered all over the dash and door cards so carbon wrapped them. Standard seats look boring but quite comfy, changed the fronts for a set of reclining Cobra Misano seats . Good leg room in the front and back, even if you’re tall like me and have your seat far back, there’s still a good amount of leg room for the rear passenger behind you. The iDrive is pretty damn good except for the sat-nav which looks graphically dull and is running 2007 maps. I Dash mount my iPad mini 2 and run the tomtom app with traffic and camera subscriptions which is far better than any built in sat nav you’ll find in any car so it’s not really a
problem for me. The black cloth roof lining an pillars are a nice touch and everything seems very solid and well built, no rattling. The M sport springs are quite stiff so give a bumpy ride for stock springs but is easy to live with. One thing I found quite annoying is its rare to find a E90 Saloon with folding rear seats, which means your limited to just the boot space, gone are the days of packing a Ikea kitchen in the boot like I could on a hatchback, lack of rear wiper is sometimes annoying too. Cup holders are very good and don’t hang over your head unit which means no spilt coke over your stereo. Overall the interior is roomy and well laid out. The car is packed with some useful stuff though like auto lights and rain sensors, electric windows front and back, heated front and rear windscreens, dual climate control, cruise control, auto dimming mirror, hands free Bluetooth with voice control.
EXTERIOR
I found the M sport look quite pleasing to the eye, only thing i found quite dated on the Pre-LCI was the red halogen rear lights with the silly white bits in, I changed the rear lights and tailgate for the LCI LED rear lights and tailgate and it gives it a much fresher, aggressive but modern look. Exterior led welcome lights are a nice touch, as are the gloss black mirror base plates and window edging. M Sport models give you a sportier looking front and rear bumper as well as side skirts and
lower sports springs.
HANDLING & BRAKING
I found the handling of the car quite poor when i picked it up, but then realised it was running budget non-run flats. Changing the tyres to a decent brand improved the handling in the dry and wet no end, and standard factory fit m sport springs and front strut brace
help provide decent grip when approaching such things as roundabouts at speed. I’ve found the standard brakes to be pretty good, rear discs are quite large too, maybe because it’s RWD.
ICE
I found the iDrive very useful giving all sorts of information about the car. It monitors everything, your tyre pressures, brake pads, DPF and tells you how much life is left in the serviceable components. Also acts like a computer letting you change most of the settings for the car like speed limits, lights, indicator timings, daytime running lights, detailed trip computer, sat-nav etc. DVD drive lets you play DVD mp3's but not DVD movies, well at least not on the Pre-LCI version. Has Bluetooth for hands free calling which paired well with my iPhone 5S giving me all my contacts on the iDrive. Also has voice control so you can call up menus on the iDrive. Visual parking sensors with distance control on the iDrive is also useful, not only can you hear when your close to something the iDrive displays how far away a particular item is and where about it is. Sound in general is pretty poor. The BMW professional 4 speakers and 2 small subs under each seat isn’t really enough to create a decent surround sound and is severally lacking tweeters and better bass, which again is an option called Logic 7 which I’ve been told sounds amazing and tempted to retro fit this.
OVERALL
Has the perfect blend of performance, economy and space and I would say probably the best for its age in this field. It has a nice solid feel to drive and feels quality. They look good but doesn’t necessarily have the wow factor as there ae so many of them on the roads, can look better if you make them a little unique. My only disappointment with this car was the lack of extras that i would expect to be standard on a car of this calibre and with retrofitting being costly due to extra coding required I would recommend anyone buying one of these to get one with the extras such as Xeon lights, iDrive, folding mirrors, heated seats, sunroof, folding rear seats etc. I would defiantly get another one, possible the 335D Xdrive in auto next time around.
