New car thread (With Pictures)

[Green_Speed_Machine]

I managed to sell my Mazda 2 Privately for way more than I was being offered in trade in so I thought I would buy this to replace it...

Its a 2006 BMW e90 330d se with 96k miles on it.

On the advert it said it had 90k on it but I turned up at the independent dealership to find it had another 6k (which the dealer said was a typo....)

Anyway, its fully HPI clear, full bmw service history and he agreed to put 6 months tax on it.

It also came with a 3 month Bronze Warranty Wise warranty on it but I managed to get him to put a 1 year Gold warranty on it as well...

Anyway I quite like the colour and the spec of the car,

It comes with xenons, cruise control, front and rear parking sensors, heated leather seats, extended lighting package, bluetooth etc.. No idrive but i wasn't too bothered as the older idrive isn't great...

It also came with the 18" wheels which I think look good. In addition the guy put on a full new set of Bridgestone run flats all round and gave the car a full service.

The car is generally very clean, no dents and a couple of tiny scratches on the outside but he said he would polish them out before I picked it up.

I also noticed that the airbag and seatbelt warning lights were on but he said he would sort that out too...


Anyway here are some pictures..

Opinions welcome!

 

[Cub.]

I like it. But then again, here is my 330i 😂😂

Is it a manual?
Enjoy! :smile:

 

[Green_Speed_Machine]

Haha that looks familiar..... great minds..

I thought I would go for the diesel as the price of diesel is now below petrol at the forecourt.

Yeah it's a manual which is what I wanted.

Is yours? I've noticed that you can't really rush the shift from 2nd to 3rd? How is your gearbox?

What mileage do you have on yours and what is the spec like?

 

[Cub.]

Haha that looks familiar..... great minds..

I thought I would go for the diesel as the price of diesel is now below petrol at the forecourt.

Yeah it's a manual which is what I wanted.

Is yours? I've noticed that you can't really rush the shift from 2nd to 3rd? How is your gearbox?

What mileage do you have on yours and what is the spec like?

Spec is virtually identical to yours, but has the idrive unit with sat nav. Mine doesn't have heated seats though.

I'd have preferred the derv but I got offered this petrol one for crazy money, so I snapped it up.

It's done 111k now and I absolutely love it. Does everything I need it to with refinement and comfort and it goes pretty well too.

Gearbox - mine is fine 2nd to 3rd, but the gearbox is very precise and notchy, as on all BM's. Good buy!

 

[Green_Speed_Machine]

Yours looks nice mate. I paid probably the going price for mine but at least I got a years gold warranty. Hopefully I won't need to use it!

Can't wait to pick it up on Saturday.

 

[The Chubby Pirate]

How can he tax it? I was under the impression new keepers have to tax it? Is it different rules for car dealers?

 

[Green_Speed_Machine]

I was under the impression that dealers can still tax it? If he can't he will be taking the cost of tax off the car...

 

[_Tom]

He cannot put tax on it and he'll know that..
Nice motors the E90's though. I was looking at them recently and even my 320d wasn't bad when mapped.

 

[Chrisgti6]

You'll have to tax it, he'll just knock the cost off the price.

 

[Green_Speed_Machine]

Yeah he's going to knock the money off the car. Also just found out through the dvla website that the car is only moted until the start of march next year even though he said it had a full years mot... not impressed.. I'll be asking for a whole year or money off...

 

[fixedgear]

I currently have a 330D M Sport Coupe, in the same colour.

Gearbox is much like previous M3's, very notchy as stated above.

Great cars overall.

He can tax the car for you.

 

[Crybert]

Might be worth changing the gearbox oil. Royal purple (I think it's called) is great in BM gearboxes, will make a huge difference and won't cost too much

 

[Green_Speed_Machine]

Thanks Cribert good advice. I think i'll do that along with a general tidy up as there are a few tatty items on the car anyway...

 

[Ian_182]

I think these are really nice, and a good family bus.

 

[Green_Speed_Machine]

Thanks mate. Im picking it up this afternoon. Pretty excited!
I just hope its a decent one...
I did my own full hpi check on it yesterday and it all came back clean.

 

[Green_Speed_Machine]

Picked the car up earlier and i'm really impressed how solid it is for a 9 year old car with 96,000 miles on it.

It looks like from its history it was a company car for the first three years and has been really looked after..

The only thing that's scaring me at the moment is the cost of the run flats! £200 a corner.. Ouch.. Think I might go for normal tyres as I think they are half the cost!

I drove it for a fair bit today and I love it! Was getting 56 mpg on the motorway (At a steady 70 :wink and 40 around town. I just need to learn to drive differently with a big diesel as I've only ever owned petrol cars... Perfect time to buy now with the lower diesel prices as well.

Its absolutely solid and there isn't a single squeak or creak from the car anywhere.

I'll put up some decent exterior and interior shots after I wash it tomorrow.

Oh and its rapid... :tonguewink:

 

[Green_Speed_Machine]

Gave the car a quick clean before taking it out for a long drive and took some pics.

Love this car already! Hopefully its reliable.

Cheers

 

[riz]

2nd to 3rd will never be great on these boxes.

For maintenance I would change the Diff oil ( ring Cotswold BMW for parts, plugs etc) & also check your Thermostat sensors ( guide on net)

 

[Daniel]

Why is everyone saying the dealer cannot tax it?? Of course he can.

 

[Herr Flick]

Yep, anybody with a bank account/debit card can tax a car. DVLA don't give a f**k who pays them.

 

[imprezaworks]

V5 in your name and a cheque to the post office and jobs a gud un

 

[Frasers Cup]

Why is everyone saying the dealer cannot tax it?? Of course he can.

Yeah he just went onto the dvla website and used his card to tax the car for me for 6 months.
The car is going in on Thursday to get an airbag light sorted on the dash. It's supposedly the airbag module under the passenger seat that's faulty. £700 new from BMW! To be fair to the dealer he's paying for it as we agreed before I bought it.

Just bought some led angel eyes to freshen up the front end.

 

[Frasers Cup]

Received new angel eye bulbs after waiting nearly a week for them. (Supposed to be next day delivery) Didn't come with instructions but it did come with all the tools needed to remove the arch liners and the bulbs.

Didn't start very well when I took them out of the box. Found that the bulbs were too wide for the plastic covers!

So I had to hacksaw the ends off as they were obviously for another model of bmw... (Not impressed) (£40 for two of them...)

Took about 30 mins per side to remove liners, old bulb and put new one in and put it all back together.

Its definitely made a difference from the yellow angel eyes to a bright white to match the xenons inside the rings.

However i've noticed that one of them is whiter than the other which is either down to the fact that I found that one of the headlights has been replaced recently and the other hasn't, or there is a difference in colour between the bulbs. (I may swap them over to rule this out).

Anyway here are the pics. Comments welcome!

Halogens before

Halogen ring with xenon on

Std Halogen rings

Led fitted

Before and after

 

[Frasers Cup]

Led fitted

Leds with xenon and full beam (still halogen)

Both lights upgraded (May be able to see that left light isnt as bright...)

 

[rob_clio197rs]

Picked the car up earlier and i'm really impressed how solid it is for a 9 year old car with 96,000 miles on it.

It looks like from its history it was a company car for the first three years and has been really looked after..

The only thing that's scaring me at the moment is the cost of the run flats! £200 a corner.. Ouch.. Think I might go for normal tyres as I think they are half the cost!

I drove it for a fair bit today and I love it! Was getting 56 mpg on the motorway (At a steady 70 :wink and 40 around town. I just need to learn to drive differently with a big diesel as I've only ever owned petrol cars... Perfect time to buy now with the lower diesel prices as well.

Its absolutely solid and there isn't a single squeak or creak from the car anywhere.

I'll put up some decent exterior and interior shots after I wash it tomorrow.

Oh and its rapid... :tonguewink:

If you do go for normal tyres you will need an inflation kit and a foam kit or a sparewheel or you will get caught out with something simple as a puncture. Ive seen this happen a thousand times at my dealer because of the very same reason people dodging runflat expenses

 

[Frasers Cup]

If you do go for normal tyres you will need an inflation kit and a foam kit or a sparewheel or you will get caught out with something simple as a puncture. Ive seen this happen a thousand times at my dealer because of the very same reason people dodging runflat expenses

Yeah I'm going to get a spare when it comes to replacing the run flats and I've got an inflation kit in the car.

 

[philmots]

If you look at where the bulb goes you'll see the 2 cut off ends of the rings facing you, the LED shines into these edges and the light travels through the rings.

The edges have a little ledge on them that sit into a grove on the inner headlight, it's very easy to knock them and cause them to sit further into the headlight and therefore further away from the LED, causing that one to be a lot dimmer.

Had same on my 335d, it was doing my head in till i realised!

 

[Frasers Cup]

If you look at where the bulb goes you'll see the 2 cut off ends of the rings facing you, the LED shines into these edges and the light travels through the rings.

The edges have a little ledge on them that sit into a grove on the inner headlight, it's very easy to knock them and cause them to sit further into the headlight and therefore further away from the LED, causing that one to be a lot dimmer.

Had same on my 335d, it was doing my head in till i realised!

They are sending out a proper set to fit my car. Thanks for the advice I'll recheck how they are mounted when I get them in.

 

[philmots]

No bother.

Put two fingers in and nip the ends they'll probably wiggle a bit, if you gently pull them towards you and down you'll feel them locate.

 

[Frasers Cup]

A bit of an update on this...

I've bought a private plate to hide the age of the car and I've also ordered these which I like and they modernise the rear end of the car to make it look like the lci facelift... (Only 150 quid for them too...)

 

[Frasers Cup]

Also ordered led numberplate bulbs to replace the old yellow halogens. Not bad for £2!

Bought a set of replacement side indicator covers as the originals were brittle and yellow..


Before

After

 

[Frasers Cup]

And finally I gave my pipes a quick polish as they were annoying me...

I'll spend some proper time on them at the weekend..

Before

After

 

[Frasers Cup]

Thats it for now.

I'll put up comparison pictures on the new led rear lights when they are fitted.

Cheers

 

[Frasers Cup]

Managed to fit the new rear lights this afternoon which only took about 30 mins!

They are the same style of the lci facelift lights although the bootlid lights are a slightly different shape.

Quite impressed with them for the price I paid and I think it really freshens up the back of the car...

Before

Half done

Finished!

Just need to put the private plate on now!

Comments welcome!!

 

[Frasers Cup]

I think I may need to look at getting someone to try machine polishing the paintwork as there are loads of imperfections such as bird droppings that have damaged the paint, scratches and hazing all over the car.

I will also need to buy a clay bar as the paint feels really rough.

 

[Daniel]

Get someone from here that's local to you to do it.

Where do you live?

(Great improvements though, new bulbs and lenses freshen it all up a treat and it's the first thing I do too)

 

[Frasers Cup]

Get someone from here that's local to you to do it.

Where do you live?

(Great improvements though, new bulbs and lenses freshen it all up a treat and it's the first thing I do too)

Thanks mate I'm quite impressed with the rear lights for only 150 quid. One of the angel eye leds isnt as bright but I've been sent out a replacement set.

I live in Glasgow. I don't think the car was really looked after cosmetically before I bought it but it has been maintained well mechanically..

 

[Frasers Cup]

Bit of an update...

The dpf warning light came on which is my fault... I have only been doing short stop start journeys recently and have been too busy to take the car for a good motorway blast. Maybe I should have bought the 330i instead!

Anyway luckily I got the car with a years warranty wise gold warranty (with dpf covered) which is at least something!

So i took the car to a specialist bmw garage and they said that two of the glow plugs are showing faults which will stop the car from running its regen to clean the dpf.

So they said it would be better to replace all 6 along with the module as it takes a couple of hours labour to remove and refit and they are only 9 quid each..

Luckily the warranty company are covering most of the cost but they are only paying for 35 quid an hour labour! Never mind... However the garage said that one of the threads has seized on the glow plug on cylinder 2 so they will need to get someone in to drill and tap the head so they can fit the new plug! :-(

But its not all bad news. They gave me a mini cooper s which has been tuned to "over 200 bhp" which im actually quite enjoying! Quite rattly and noisy compared to the 330d but its good fun to drive, quite nippy and handles really well. (IMO better than my 172 cup). I think my 172 had a fair bit more body roll and less outright grip. I think the chassis is std on the cooper as well... However the engine characteristics are quite different. The supercharged cooper s feels a bit lazy compared to the n/a 172 cup but has alot more grunt low down where the clio likes to rev. I also like the supercharger whine when you rev the mini out. You just need to adapt the way you drive different cars I suppose.

I now find myself looking at the classifieds for a cooper s as I don't really need a larger 3 series or a diesel!

I think i'll hopefully get my car back tomorrow. I was going to take some pictures of the cooper s but its plastered with the garages stickers lol.

 

[-Dan-]

Nice E90, I would personally get rid of the DPF more hassle than they're worth, makes such a big difference in power delivery once mapped!

 

[Frasers Cup]

Thanks mate. I was thinking about dpf removal and a remap but I've heard they are tightening up on this for mot's. Plus the owner of the garage said he used to do them a lot but he says that he got sick of the clouds of smoke off them after they were removed.