E92 335i SE Coupe

[Mazdarese]

Well, I decided to move on from my Mazda 6 MPS and get something a bit more refined. As hard as I try to do less miles, I've averaged 20k miles a year for some time and most of them are commuting rather than driving. The MPS is a fantastic quick car, but can be hard work to drive.

So, I've looked at quite a few E92's and settled on this. I couldn't justify the extra £3k for the 335d, plus I preferred the petrol car anyway. I also decided to save money by getting a well-specced SE rather than M-Sport.

Monaco Blue
Dakota Black Leather
Pro Sat Nav
Business Hifi
19" 230 style alloys
Voice control
Bluetooth
PDC front/rear

Pick it up next weekend hopefully

[Mazdarese]

wackojacko said:

Very nice, they have to have the 19's to look good.

Cheers. I agree with you on the wheels, and those 230 ones look much better in the flesh.

[Mazdarese]

Max M4X WW said:

Really nice wheels, quite sleek in SE trim and not the usual M Sport!

I'll be debadging it too I think. I've got two years BMW warranty so i'm going to have to resist the temptation of a 350bhp remap.

[Mazdarese]

KennyGT said:

Very smart. Looks great. You will love it

Cheers Kenny. I can't wait!

[Mazdarese]

Thanks for all the compliments.

Schmeeky said:

I've no idea what a business Hi-Fi is though - does it just play the Greatest hits of Alan Sugar?

I think it's called Business. Not sure, but it's an upgrade anyway, but not Harman Kardon.

bmthnick1981 said:

My mate had one of these with the 19's on, he bent 2 wheels on pot holes, dont think they are made from the most sold stuff. Is yours on runflats? I dont think they are cheap either!

Lovely motor thought, will be a beast once remapped i'm sure. DMS are supposed to be good.

Yeah, it's on run-flats and I've heard about the problems with cracking wheels. But, from what I've read the 230 style wheels aren't affected. I've got a 2-year warranty anyway, but fingers crossed they'll be ok.

[Mazdarese]

W00DY said:

I think the SE with 19"s is definitely the way to go. Very nice!

Is it an auto or manual?

Thanks. It's an automatic with the paddle shifters (which I'll never use!).

Caulkhead said:

Coincidence time - I gave back my company 335d with 230 19" wheels and bought a Mazda 6 MPS!

You've chosen the right BMW IMHO - the 335i is overall a better car than the 335d. Unfortunately those wheels ruin it despite looking great - you'll be wishing for your comfy MPS back after a few weeks of crashing about on anything other than autobahn-smooth roads and they also had a big problem with the rear tyre inners wearing out very quickly, but that may have been solved by now.

Overall though, an excellent choice!

That is spooky! I've test driven it a couple of times already and it felt fine, although I do recall one particularly heavy 'crash' when I went through a pot-hole. Time will tell!

melvster said:

Nice on Mazda, glad you finally took the plunge. Looks a very well sorted example, kind of prefer the SE to the sport model.

Cheers Melv!

[Mazdarese]

anyideas said:

I've got the same wheels and sorry to say they suffer too. Both my rears cracked last month however one was within the 2mm tolerance the warranty allows for so this was replaced without a problem. The 2nd wheel was over the tolerance (2.6m) but they took it to BMW head office who replaced it as a goodwill gesture.

Cracking car BTW.

Thanks for the heads up. I suppose all I can do is keep my eyes open.

So, if they crack and it's longer than 2.6mm then it's not covered by warranty?! How does that work?

[Mazdarese]

danyeates said:

Very nice.

Monaco blue, stunning, classy colour! I am biased though!

Biker's Nemesis said:

Nice looking car.

Cheers BN.

I've just been out for a passenger ride in a colleagues hired 330d saloon and it's made me want to pick up my car even sooner!

[Mazdarese]

AV12 said:

Nice car. I have just borrowed one of these from a friend. It was manual I loved it and that my riend is a very nice motor. Well done.

I think after this you may find it hard to see past RWD and straight-six...

That's good to hear, and thank-you.

Fingers-crossed the DVLA paperwork will come this week and I can go collect the car.

[Mazdarese]

AV12 said:

Mazdarese said:

That's good to hear, and thank-you.

Fingers-crossed the DVLA paperwork will come this week and I can go collect the car.

No worries.

Don't forget this place if you should need "extra".

Just spoken to my wife who is at home, no post this morning

I will of course be tweaking at some point, but probably only after the warranty has expired.

[Mazdarese]

AV12 said:

Warranty expiry eh? Worth doing some investigation with Birds to see if anything does invalidate it..

If all good then extend

Damn, I wish you hadn't shown me their website!

Interesting!

[Mazdarese]

GregE240 said:

Lovely car OP. Love the colour too.

We recently bought an E90 330D SE which is a wonderful car RUINED by tyres. Less than 2 weeks in to ownership I had the RFs removed, and 4 conventional Michelin Pilot Sport tyres fitted. Wow. Just wow. The steering and handling were transformed. A can of tyre gunk and a compressor / breakdown cover is well worth it for decent handling, rather than the car trying to rattle your fillings out.

Enjoy it, would love one next.

Thanks Greg!

I'm amazed that BMW released the car if the run-flat tyres have such a negative impact on the ride, but too many people have said the same thing for it to not have some truth. I can't dump all four tyres straight away though as it will cost me a fortune to replace them, but when they need changing I'll look at standard tyres.

Ethan2312 said:

Very nice Car, love the colour and wheel combination on this!

I used to run a 320d M sport coupe, accept in a rather boring silver, this was company policy and not my choice.

One thing to consider, if you’re buying from a none BMW dealer check your warranty will cover a damaged/cracked Alloy wheel should the issue occur. Just before I returned mine I took it to Williams BMW Manchester for an MOT. (Just passed the 3 year mark in age)

When the garage called me saying it was completed I was shocked to find out it had failed due to the rear alloys being badly cracked and would need to be replaced in order to pass the MOT (Both rear alloys that is!)

For about a week it went on that BMW would not replace the damaged alloys, even though this is a huge problem for them. I was very close to paying a thousand pound myself to get them replaced as they didn’t budge on their “it’s not our fault” position. Thankfully though a very helpful chap in the dealership managed to contact BMW, send them my wheels and after a further day or two BMW confirmed they would replace both wheels.

Although your alloys are not known to have this problem it has been known to happen, I would contact BMW to see where you stand just encase this happens to you (mine was just over 3 years old so technically out of BMW standard warranty but they still replaced them), they may say no or they may say they would need to look into it, either way it’s a grey area BMW do not like admitting liability for!

Also, definitely get NONE run flat tyres, changes the entire feel for this car and 200% improves the ride on 19's

good luck and enjoy, lovely car!

Thanks for your kind words and advice

My car, when I blummin' get it, is a BMW approved used car with 2 years BMW warranty so I am pretty sure that the wheels will be covered for what appear to be manufacturing defects.

---

So, the paperwork was apparently submitted at my local DVLA office last Monday to transfer number-plates and apparently "takes two weeks". Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease let it happen this week!

[ArsE92]

I picked the car up on Saturday morning and I'm smitten. I was on the 'phone at 9am to Direct Line arranging the insurance, then had to wait for my 'appointment' at 11:45 to pick up the car, that was a long couple of hours.

I arrived at the dealership at 11:44 and my immaculately cleaned car was parked out front with my numberplate on, and all I wanted to do from that point was dump the Mazda and go on a hoon in the new car. Both my wife and I said it looked nicer than we remembered it, as daft as that sounds. The whole buying process has been great, far too easy. The only delay being the DVLA sending out documents 2nd class

It's fantastic to drive, effortlessly quick, and sounds very very fruity. Over the weekend we've been to Chester and back, then up to The Lakes yesterday, and it's averaged 29mpg which I'm very happy with.

My Ipod integrates really well with the iDrive, letting me browse my all the usual categories via the iDrive wheel. The Sat-Nav is also very useful, with working (didn't work on the Mazda) TMC it alerted us to 'potential traffic problems on your route' on our way home from Windermere yesterday

Currently delighted, and will get some more pics up when I'm home.

[ArsE92]

AV12 said:

Great...sounds a fair bit louder/better than you'd expect doesn't it? Good work.

Yep, I'm especially happy with the noise. The Mazda, as great as it was, sounds like a vacuum cleaner, and my car before that was a 147GTA so I was keen to get some of that aural pleasure back, and I'm not disappointed. No sign of the crashy ride from the RFL's yet either, despite over 300 miles at the weekend on mixed roads.

I'm actually looking forward to getting up 4:30am tomorrow to drive to Bournemouth!

[ArsE92]

[ArsE92]

Karyn said:

Feeling the BMW love! Nice that the ride's OK on those tyres.

'Scuse me whilst I go all teenage-girly...

It looks lush, Arse.

Glad you love it!

Thanks Kazza! I might even let you experience my heated seats on level 3 at the "meet that won't happen".

SWoll said:

Very nice mate. Wouldn't fancy your fuel bills at 20k a year, but good on you for going for the i rather than the d.

And to agree with an earlier poster, you might not use the paddles on your commute but when you're after some fun they work really well.

Thanks Swoll. Most of my large commutes are for work and they pay 40p a mile, which covers the fuel thankfully!

I actually had a bit of a play with the paddles yesterday and I think you might be right, it's nice being able to shift down and hear that noise

[ArsE92]

Karyn said:

SWoll said:

Wouldn't fancy your fuel bills at 20k a year, but good on you for going for the i rather than the d.

It all works out OK, apparently.

He's got man-maths to prove it!

An Excel formula, no less. If it doesn't work out satisfactorily, I just reduce the 'fuel cost per litre' value.

Besides, 29mpg average up to now is brill.

[ArsE92]

SWoll said:

They're a lot better than people give them credit for. I think for 99% of people 99% of the time it is the best combination to have. Auto for day to day and traffic, paddles for fun. Anyone who slags off modern auto's with paddles either a) Hasn't driven one or B) is a bit of a masochist IMO.

Yep. I, rather ignorantly, thought "Bla, torque convertor auto with paddles to make it seem sporty, no need". And then I drove it.

Right, hoon home!

Edited by ArsE92 on Monday 14th November 18:41

[ArsE92]

CobolMan said:

And a change of name too! I thought I hadn't seen your MPS this week, it was quite distinctive amongst all those dark BMWs in the Radders carpark Looks very smart (and I don't generally like BMWs).

Cheers Cobes! I'm off-site this week but when I'm back you'll notice me trying to preserve the bodywork by parking miles from anyone (like that's possible).

[ArsE92]

Three year bump!

Well, I've still got the car

This is the longest I've ever owned a car, and although I considered moving on to an E90 M3 earlier this year I decided to save the cash ready for a house move next year.

I actually still think the 335i is a great car - a good all-rounder. I have had very few issues (touch wood) in the 32 months I've owned the car, save for a couple of cracked wheels replaced under warranty.

So, the plan is to keep the 335 until early 2016 which is when I'll get (fingers crossed) a 997 for my 40th birthday present to myself. To keep the car feeling fresh I've embarked on a programme of upgrades and I'll use this thread to log my progress:

Done:

JB4 - Fantastic piece of kit. I love all the additional functions that you can control from the steering wheel buttons. You can switch maps on the fly, hijack your fuel gauge and/or oil temp gauge for different functions (intake temp, boost pressure etc). Oh, and the extra power is nice.

Dual Cone Intake - Sounds ace! You can really hear the air being sucked in and get some decent turbo noise too. All reports suggest there's no power drop from heat soak so I'm happy to keep them on.

Non run-flats - Conti Sport Contact 5 are now on the rear. OEM Bridgestone RFT's still on the front until they are due for a change. Even just changing the rears has made a load of difference.

Debadged - easy and makes the rear-end look smoother.

To do:

CCC to CIC conversion - upgrading the iDrive and Sat-Nav etc from the older pre-2010 version to the later hard-disk version. CCC is starting to show it's age now and some of the added features of CIC are great (email etc) - Scheduled for August.

Intercooler - TBC

Catless down-pipes - TBC

Bring it on!