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BMW 120d Sport/SE
by TC333 The wife was offered a BMW 120dSE as a company car a few years back. I was not to happy to begin with as i was not to keen on the shape of the car and also though a 3 series would be a better size for us. I am not going to go into facts about the spec etc as i am sure you know these already so here is my view after living with this car ... for 2 years. The car has quite firm suspension but this is not as bad as in the Mini Cooper we had before it. The firm suspension comes into its own on twisty country roads. It is a delight throwing the car into bends with confidence. The 2L engine is pretty responsive for a diesel and pulls well. Overall the car feels quite fast and the gear sacing works well. The car came in black with the added option of piano interior trim. We also had the sat nav business option fitted. The screen is nice and large but it can be a bit hard to see as it is positioned on the top of the dash were sun can shine onto it. The bluetooth for the phone works very well and the controls on the steering wheel all do the job well. The seats offer good support and we can drive for long period of times with no problems. The car has proved big enough for our use though if we had children or taxied people around in the back more this would not be the case. I can not quite understand why there is a cup/bottle holder underneath the arm rest as you can not have the arm rest down if you have a bottle there! Biggest fail on rear wheel drive is the driving in ice or snow. This is even worse for the 1 series as it is so light. We just left the car at home when it would not get out of our drive this past winter and made off in our 2nd car... a Peugeot 107! Not to impressed with the run flat tires which do cost a bit to replace but if you keep the tire pressure where it should be you can get good wear. We just replaced the tires at 38000 so thats it good wear! Read the complete review |
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BMW 320d SE Saloon
by chrisandmark My current car is a BMW 320, it is (apparently) a D SE model and was first registered in 2002. This car is an automatic and (again, apparently) is in the saloon style, we've owned it for around six months now and although I've never had any leanings towards BMW I do think this car is a cracker. I wasn't impressed when Mark chose it, with ... four children I was hankering after a seven-seater car, but from the very first time I drove it I felt comfortable - surprising even myself as I'm not a very confident driver, especially in new (to me) cars. Can I just place a quick disclaimer here. As will no doubt become apparent, I know nothing about cars. Mark will help me out with some of the techie guff, but this will mainly be my personal opinion about points that appeal (or not) to me. If you want specs and other important stuff go to Which? Car, where cleverer people write. But anyway, my car. It's silver, has a gorgeously sleek style and just looks good. The bodywork is in brilliant condition for an eight year old car, there are obviously a few scratches on it but this is to be expected and believe me I've seen other cars of the same age that look like skips by now! There's no sunroof on our particular car which is a nuisance as I do like a sunroof to open in the nice weather, but then again sunroofs do have a habit of leaking so I suppose this is one less thing that can go wrong. This is a diesel model, the same car is obviously also available in petrol but with also having the automatic gearbox Mark decided that diesel would be (slightly) more economical to run. Which is negligible. Basically this car weighs nearly two tonnes and fuel is very, very expensive at the moment so the BMW is naturally heavy on the juice. A tenner doesn't go anywhere in this tank, it holds over 60 litres so to fill it up would cost around £85. Scandalous! Miles to the gallon is fab on a long run, I love driving it on the motorway because you can actually watch the 'miles left' display going UP once you reach optimum speed. It will, however, punish you if you boot it past the speed limit. Here's an example; one day last week I put a puny tenner in just to get me home, there were 87 available miles but after getting the speedo to 85 mph for one single junction on the motorway (just under three miles) I looked down and saw I now had just 34 miles left! That's 40 miles worth of juice wasted on a 5 minute late-night bomb down the M42. Won't be doing that again. Well, I might. This car is fabulous at speed, I *cough* can't say I've done more than 85 but it definitely shifts and I just know it'd go much faster than this. It handles well at all speeds, but honestly you do have to watch your speed as the steering is so tight and ride so smooth that you can easily underestimate the speed that you're actually travelling at. The interior in ours is a high quality cloth, there's a more premium model available (just jumble up the letters on the back of the car *somehow* for this slightly different model number) which has leather seats but this wasn't a priority for us. Mark said you can pay up to £1000 more for the leather interior - and with four kids including a sticky accident-prone toddler and a sicky newborn I think the cheaper, washable cloth is the best option. A lot of people are under the impression that leather is easier to keep clean, but this isn't necessarily the case - and anyway, baby seats have a habit of scuffing leather car seats so it's not always worth going for the luxury option in my opinion. There are a few small storage boxes dotted around the handbrake area, these I find useful for David's dummies and other bits and pieces that are coming on a trip with me. There's an extra cigarette lighter socket behind the front seats, ideal for charging my phone on a journey or for plugging the kids' portable DVD player in. The glovebox isn't huge; this doesn't bother me in the slightest as I never use the glovebox in whatever car we're using, but Mark is irrationally irritated by having such a small amount of space to fill with junk! There's a handy pen holder in there though. This is the first time I've driven an automatic car and I love it. This car changes through the gears smoothly and has never left me revving away in a too-low gear, obviously there's no clutch but there's a well angled plate where it should be - allowing manual drivers such as myself to push down on that whenever the urge comes on you to fiddle with the gearstick! You can also flip it to work as a manual gearbox. I have no idea why you'd want to do this and haven't tried it as once you're in manual mode the gearstick is used as a kind of olde worlde column change, which is far too much thinking when you're supposed to be concentrating on the road! Sport mode is waaaay cool, combine a switch into sport gears with pressing a little button on the steering wheel and you'll get a nice little burst of speed to push you back in your seat. This is mainly used for overtaking on 'fast' roads, I don't like using it myself (as I'm a chicken) but love the effect when Mark puts it into sport. Again, this kills the diesel so I don't recommend you make it a habit. Maintenance. Now, I do know it doesn't maintain itself - but Mark takes care of all that. It hasn't had any major jobs needed since we've owned it and on Monday it sailed through the MOT with not a penny needing to be spent on it. Services are due every 5000 miles, you don't need to take it to a BMW specialist to get the 'book' stamped and any reputable garage/shop can do all the necessary oil changes and whatnot. The car has a pollen filter and this needs changing every so often, this is an extra cost on top of the service but service-time is apparently the right time to get this done. Mark has told me to add something here. This year of BMW is awkward to work on as even for the most common problem you'll have to raise the car into the air and work from underneath. I can see why this would be a pain. To be fair Mark does know his way around a car, but last week he tried (and failed miserably) to take the dashboard panel off - to say he was angry is an understatement, I thought he was about to smash the car in temper at one point! This particular car came with a BMW Business Entertainment System, which is an impressive way of saying it's got a brill stereo. The CD multi-changer is in the boot and will hold six CDs - remember, it's in the boot. There's no point in taking a bundle of CDs out with you, you've actually got to put all your CDs in at the start of your journey and flick from there. I hate this and would rather feed my CDs into the console one at a time, it's a good job for excellent steering wheel stereo functions as I'd be in a mess (or an accident!) if I had to keep faffing with the actual stereo controls while I was driving. So, BMW have put the CD player in the boot and put a cassette hole in the console. I thought the Germans were forward thinking - a cassette player as the main mode of sound in 2002? Blimey, even Renault had a CD player as standard by then. The speakers are fab; I love to turn the music up (when the kids aren't in the car!) and you don't have to turn it up too much to get it pumping. My only complaint about the BMW 320 D SE is the size of the boot. It's TINY. I'm using a large three-wheeled travel system for David and I honestly can't fit my supermarket shopping in at the same time as the pram, which is a holy nightmare as a few times I've had to load shopping bags round everyones feet to get it all home. Which isn't ideal. It's definitely not as versatile as a hatchback, but then we knew it was a saloon when we bought it. Insurance isn't too bad, everyones is obviously going to be different but I was pleasantly surprised with a £387 policy from Swift Cover. Not bad for fully comp with a few extras, even with my eight years no-claims I was struggling to find an affordable premium so I grabbed this one straight away. The car came with standard BMW alloys, we've since bought wider set of wheels and had a light tint put on the windows. This makes the car look less like a middle-aged man's runaround, and adds a bit if 'special' to it. I think Mark may be having a mid-life crisis, but I do like the way he's making the car look so damned cool. I do love this car, as you can probably tell. The driving position is perfect once I've adjusted the seat; I'm only just over five feet tall so it's a good job I can raise the seat as I do feel very low down while driving the BMW. I love the accurate rear parking sensors for the same reason - Mark'd kill me if I reversed this into something, as I did with this previous pride and joy! I feel safe in it too, the way the car holds the road in all conditions makes it a reliable and comfortable car to both drive and be a passenger in. Read the complete review |
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BMW 530d SE Touring
by thecompaqguy I've recently acquired an E61 530d Touring (2008) - it's a great car - comfy, front electric seats - powerful 3-litre diesel engine - unlike the first reviewer, I went for a manual gearbox as the auto is more akin to a binge drinker. It still isn't frugal, but that's the price of a performance car. You can get 42mpg if you are careful, ... though thrash the car and it will punish you at the pumps. The way petrol prices are rising in the UK, and the way the current ConDem (Conservative-LibDem) government are hitting the motorist, it's best to open an account with Total or get your hands on a fuel card. £70 to fill the tank, the car prefers long motorway runs, if you want a city runabout, get a BMW 116d. I too have run-flat tyres, they're as stable as Katie Price, but lack of a spare means I'm stuck with them. The iDrive system takes some getting used to, it's easier to open a safe at your local Nationwide than to put in a radio station. The most recent 5-series (F10) has ironed out the annoying aspects of iDrive. The car will warn you of any fault (especially with these damn run-flats), and you'll get used to the car's dimensions (surprised I didn't need a bus licence what with its huge size). The car looks great, and comes with some nice alloys. The MSport is the one to go for, and the 535d is so quick with over 300bhp. The 530d has 235bhp and a top speed of 152 mph. The 6-cylinder engine is a peach. The BMW's only achilles heel is the Swirl Flaps - have these taken out by a BMW specialist - as these are known to work loose from the manifold and make their way into the engine, leading to a costly rebuild or replacement. These are less common on the newer engines, but the first ones from the 53 plate (2003-2007) were more likely to suffer this fault with higher mileage. PMW Chelmsford will take care of your Swirl Flap issue, and look at www.bmwland.co.uk for more info on Swirl Flaps. It's a great investment, despite that issue with the swirl-flaps, goes like the clappers, has the badge kudos and a good example can be bought from about £8k upwards. Insurance is a little costly for a 3-litre diesel, road tax is £115 for 6 months, sometimes I feel like West Ham United's senior accountant, wondering where the money will come from, to keep my head above water... :) Read the complete review |
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