Picked up my 123d. My Opinion & Questions
Discussion
Evening all,
I've been using this site a lot whilst looking into getting a new car, so thought it would only be fair to write something which will hopefully be useful to others.
So.... I was looking to sell my Z4 3.0 and E36 M3 Evo and running just one car, a 135i. However after a couple of test drives and despite being amazed by its outright pace, it just didn't excite or have the character like the M3 does. So updated the master plan to keep the M3 for trackdays, Nurburgring trips etc and get something economical for the day to day stuff, but still fun.
This is where the 123d M Sport roles in and boy does it fill the role perfectly. It's quick, economical, fairly practical, looks great and most importantly RWD. This is my first modern diesel and I am very impressed how things have moved on, the twin turbo setup eliminates any turbo lag. I picked her up on Saturday with just 2700 miles on the clock and saved £10,500 on the new price
. Got her from a dealership in London and drove her 580 miles back up to the north of Scotland. Done around 700 miles now. Car has 18" rims, folding mirrors, tinted windows, heated seats, leather seats, ipod kit & comfort package.
Two questions.
1) Can I set the car up so it automatically locks when I pull off, but not when unlocked and left unattended. Can just see my unlocking the car, throwing the keys on the seat before loading the bike on the roof and hearing the car lock up
2) What sort of mileage do these engines really start to loosen up for power and fuel consumption?
To save putting you guys to sleep I'll bullet point everything, any suggestions on problems would be great.
Positives
- 3 door looks much better than the 5 door, especially in Le Mans blue and M Sport kit
- Interior - Fantastic place to be, very good quality, comfortable, simple but has everything you need, quiet on the move, love the adjustable side bolsters.
- Great mid range, no turbo lag at all. Very nippy, hopefully got a lot more to come.
- Handles really well, steering is a little artifically heavy though. Loads of rear end grip even in the wet.
- Ride quality is perfect, good dampening. BMW have come a long way the suspension setup and run flat tyres, Z4 was terrible.
- Sound system, standard system better than I thought, but not good enough.
- Good boot size especially with the seats folded down.
Negatives
- Display for ipod on Business Head Unit is very poor, only display 10 characters or so.
- MPG varies a lot with just 10mph difference on motorway. Not talking silly speeds here.
- Still only averaging 46mpg on a 580 mile motorway trip home. Hope it will improve with miles, car only done 3k miles. What do you think?
- Need to stretch just to reach functions on the centre console furtherest from the driver seat. Very poor design.
- Could be user error, but when I stall it
ops: do you need to remove the guy and start again? Got stuck in the middle of a roundabout.
- Hard to keep car at a steady speed on the motorway, sensitive throttle.
Problems
- Gear Lever Vibrates a lot on idle and low rpm
- Engine light came on the other night, after flooring it through the gears, just orange thankfully and hasn't come back on since.
- Sometimes can smell something "burning" I step out the car and it's not the brakes.
- Head Unit sometimes loses it's bass\treble settings.
Future Mods
- Roof bars with bike racks to save damaging the interior
- Alpine kit audio upgrade
- Replace the dash trim with the aluminium accent trim (think that's what it's called, anyone want to swap? )
- Pro Head Unit for better ipod display
- Fit Cruise Control
Woke up the next day looking forward to giving her a good clean and polish
I've been using this site a lot whilst looking into getting a new car, so thought it would only be fair to write something which will hopefully be useful to others.
So.... I was looking to sell my Z4 3.0 and E36 M3 Evo and running just one car, a 135i. However after a couple of test drives and despite being amazed by its outright pace, it just didn't excite or have the character like the M3 does. So updated the master plan to keep the M3 for trackdays, Nurburgring trips etc and get something economical for the day to day stuff, but still fun.
This is where the 123d M Sport roles in and boy does it fill the role perfectly. It's quick, economical, fairly practical, looks great and most importantly RWD. This is my first modern diesel and I am very impressed how things have moved on, the twin turbo setup eliminates any turbo lag. I picked her up on Saturday with just 2700 miles on the clock and saved £10,500 on the new price
. Got her from a dealership in London and drove her 580 miles back up to the north of Scotland. Done around 700 miles now. Car has 18" rims, folding mirrors, tinted windows, heated seats, leather seats, ipod kit & comfort package. Two questions.
1) Can I set the car up so it automatically locks when I pull off, but not when unlocked and left unattended. Can just see my unlocking the car, throwing the keys on the seat before loading the bike on the roof and hearing the car lock up
2) What sort of mileage do these engines really start to loosen up for power and fuel consumption?
To save putting you guys to sleep I'll bullet point everything, any suggestions on problems would be great.
Positives
- 3 door looks much better than the 5 door, especially in Le Mans blue and M Sport kit
- Interior - Fantastic place to be, very good quality, comfortable, simple but has everything you need, quiet on the move, love the adjustable side bolsters.
- Great mid range, no turbo lag at all. Very nippy, hopefully got a lot more to come.
- Handles really well, steering is a little artifically heavy though. Loads of rear end grip even in the wet.
- Ride quality is perfect, good dampening. BMW have come a long way the suspension setup and run flat tyres, Z4 was terrible.
- Sound system, standard system better than I thought, but not good enough.
- Good boot size especially with the seats folded down.
Negatives
- Display for ipod on Business Head Unit is very poor, only display 10 characters or so.
- MPG varies a lot with just 10mph difference on motorway. Not talking silly speeds here.
- Still only averaging 46mpg on a 580 mile motorway trip home. Hope it will improve with miles, car only done 3k miles. What do you think?
- Need to stretch just to reach functions on the centre console furtherest from the driver seat. Very poor design.
- Could be user error, but when I stall it
ops: do you need to remove the guy and start again? Got stuck in the middle of a roundabout. - Hard to keep car at a steady speed on the motorway, sensitive throttle.
Problems
- Gear Lever Vibrates a lot on idle and low rpm
- Engine light came on the other night, after flooring it through the gears, just orange thankfully and hasn't come back on since.
- Sometimes can smell something "burning" I step out the car and it's not the brakes.
- Head Unit sometimes loses it's bass\treble settings.
Future Mods
- Roof bars with bike racks to save damaging the interior
- Alpine kit audio upgrade
- Replace the dash trim with the aluminium accent trim (think that's what it's called, anyone want to swap?
)- Pro Head Unit for better ipod display
- Fit Cruise Control
Woke up the next day looking forward to giving her a good clean and polish
Edited by scz4 on Monday 24th November 17:35
Edited by scz4 on Tuesday 25th November 16:27
sniff diesel said:
Deano_BMW said:
a stealers or a good indy can programme it mate so the car automatically locks once you get up to a certain speed.
What good is that then if you get carjacked at the traffic lights?
scz4 said:
- Still only averaging 46mpg on a 580 mile motorway trip home. Hope it will improve with miles, car only done 3k miles. What do you think?
Economy will improve as you put a few miles on the clock. My 335d got better and better up to about 10k miles, initially averaging low 30s then mid 40's. Even with a map enhancement it still produces good mpg.
Jules.
Neil.D said:
sniff diesel said:
Deano_BMW said:
a stealers or a good indy can programme it mate so the car automatically locks once you get up to a certain speed.
What good is that then if you get carjacked at the traffic lights?
so what if the lights were red and the speed was 0mph? Would they unlock again?sniff diesel said:
Neil.D said:
sniff diesel said:
Deano_BMW said:
a stealers or a good indy can programme it mate so the car automatically locks once you get up to a certain speed.
What good is that then if you get carjacked at the traffic lights? so what if the lights were red and the speed was 0mph? Would they unlock again?Neil.D said:
sniff diesel said:
Neil.D said:
sniff diesel said:
Deano_BMW said:
a stealers or a good indy can programme it mate so the car automatically locks once you get up to a certain speed.
What good is that then if you get carjacked at the traffic lights? so what if the lights were red and the speed was 0mph? Would they unlock again?There's also a function to re-lock if none of the doors are opened - say for example if you press the button in your pocket by accident when close to the car. If you open a door and leave your keys on the seat, then close the door it doesn't then re-lock unless you press the key.
Another function is the full opening/closure - if you keep the lock button pressed it will close any open windows and lock the car, the same in reverse to open all the windows and unlock the car. Take care with that as I was laying the fire in the house one evening, bent over with the key in my pocket which opened the car and all the windows - didn't find out until later when I took the ash out to the bin....
If you've got one of the nav options it's programmeable through the i-Drive, if not through the stalk as has been mentioned.
A good resource for 1-series info is www.babybmw.net
I've got one of these on order and will echo your thoughts about the sound. First job will be to retro-fit the Professional HU and speaker upgrades (may not bother with the Alpine amp as I've heard that it can go on and off with the Start/Stop all the time which would irritate the hell out of me and that the Pro HU is better all-round than the Business one. Might also retro-fit USB at the same time, although I wasn't aware you can retro-fit cruise.
The HU/speaker package, USB and cruise were options I wanted but took me out of budget. I opted for the 18" rims, comfort pack and xenons (having had them on the ST and then driving a non-xenon equipped 123d on test, I couldn't have a car without them) and I'll probably get the windows tinted by a guy I know locally once it's delivered.
Really looking forward to getting mine, although I'll really miss the Focus when it goes.
The HU/speaker package, USB and cruise were options I wanted but took me out of budget. I opted for the 18" rims, comfort pack and xenons (having had them on the ST and then driving a non-xenon equipped 123d on test, I couldn't have a car without them) and I'll probably get the windows tinted by a guy I know locally once it's delivered.
Really looking forward to getting mine, although I'll really miss the Focus when it goes.
On the indicator stalk there is a switch in the middle, when the ignition is on keep flicking it down until a picture of a key is displayed where the mileage is and press select (BC button on the end) flick down again until you see a pic of a door with an A in the middle and an arrow, select again and click yes. DA locking is now set.
All your other settings are there too but it kicks you out after each funtion has been entered, which is annoying.
Hope thats clear enough
All your other settings are there too but it kicks you out after each funtion has been entered, which is annoying.
Hope thats clear enough
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