Discussion
To follow on from my thread on my moon mileage Alpina, here we are...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Since I've now done over 115k over my time with the Aplina. I felt it was time to replace it.
The list was pretty expansive over what I'd consider, sub £100k, fits the dog in, pref 4wd.
That list doesn't knock many cars out.
I'd looked at things from V8 defenders, to Taycans.
In the end I started looking at used cars, mainly a £75k Defender 90 2023 on 25k miles and a £67k M3 Touring 2023 on 22k miles.
Both were nice, and the defender was a right laugh but its MPG over the last 9k miles was 16.1. I'm not sure I could stomach that. So M3 it is right. Drove it, liked it, but it didn't have the options I wanted, which is mainly ACC. Since I spend a lot of time on the motorway and its nice option to have.
So kinda stuck again. Went onto the stock search site on BMW to see if there was a new one in the spec I was. No dice.
Fast forward a bit and I was shooting down south with Tesco and ended up about 15 mins from Sytner Maidenhead so thought I'd pop in to see what they had.
They had this:

Now I don't mind black, it hides the hideous front pretty well, but Black on Black on Black is way too Bradford/Birmingham for me. So I wasn't blown away.
The spec though for me was perfect:
Carbon interior trim - £1200
Tech Pack - £1975
Driving assistant professional (needed to have AAC) - £1250
Acoustic glass - £200
Heated steering wheel - £250
All the bits I'd want without any extra tarty bits.
Also the LCI I didn't know had happened with the 3 series, had really tidied the interior up! Especially the centre vents.
That made it £98k on the road though....
So £98k is bare bare bare dolla.
I said its far too rich for me and went to leave.
They said, its a September sales event, BMW are contributing £4500 and giving a 5.9% interest rate.
If you take it before the end of September we can do you a deal.
Then 90 mins of back and fourth happened.
In the end we settled on £79k on the road, with the first 6 services covered by BMW and the wheels refurbished in satin silver and warrantied by BMW.
I was pretty happy with that, was it was less money than some of the used ones I'd looked at.
Fast forward to 5 days later when I collected it.



Time to see if silver wheels were a good idea....

So so lovely. Why BMW don't offer 826m's in silver I'll never know, they are lovely looking wheels. Far far nicer than the silver 825m's that they offered.
Queue a not so quick drive round the M25 where it drove itself which was bliss.
To a night stop in Cambridge to see a friend.


I love it.
I've got springs and spacers to fit to it too, to lose the front arch gap

The dog fits fine too!
I've booked it in for its running in service on Thursday. Exactly a week after collection.
Of the 800 miles I've done so far its probably driven 500 of those itself and not put a foot wrong. Great system and way better than just base ACC.
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Since I've now done over 115k over my time with the Aplina. I felt it was time to replace it.
The list was pretty expansive over what I'd consider, sub £100k, fits the dog in, pref 4wd.
That list doesn't knock many cars out.
I'd looked at things from V8 defenders, to Taycans.
In the end I started looking at used cars, mainly a £75k Defender 90 2023 on 25k miles and a £67k M3 Touring 2023 on 22k miles.
Both were nice, and the defender was a right laugh but its MPG over the last 9k miles was 16.1. I'm not sure I could stomach that. So M3 it is right. Drove it, liked it, but it didn't have the options I wanted, which is mainly ACC. Since I spend a lot of time on the motorway and its nice option to have.
So kinda stuck again. Went onto the stock search site on BMW to see if there was a new one in the spec I was. No dice.
Fast forward a bit and I was shooting down south with Tesco and ended up about 15 mins from Sytner Maidenhead so thought I'd pop in to see what they had.
They had this:

Now I don't mind black, it hides the hideous front pretty well, but Black on Black on Black is way too Bradford/Birmingham for me. So I wasn't blown away.
The spec though for me was perfect:
Carbon interior trim - £1200
Tech Pack - £1975
Driving assistant professional (needed to have AAC) - £1250
Acoustic glass - £200
Heated steering wheel - £250
All the bits I'd want without any extra tarty bits.
Also the LCI I didn't know had happened with the 3 series, had really tidied the interior up! Especially the centre vents.
That made it £98k on the road though....
So £98k is bare bare bare dolla.
I said its far too rich for me and went to leave.
They said, its a September sales event, BMW are contributing £4500 and giving a 5.9% interest rate.
If you take it before the end of September we can do you a deal.
Then 90 mins of back and fourth happened.
In the end we settled on £79k on the road, with the first 6 services covered by BMW and the wheels refurbished in satin silver and warrantied by BMW.
I was pretty happy with that, was it was less money than some of the used ones I'd looked at.
Fast forward to 5 days later when I collected it.



Time to see if silver wheels were a good idea....

So so lovely. Why BMW don't offer 826m's in silver I'll never know, they are lovely looking wheels. Far far nicer than the silver 825m's that they offered.
Queue a not so quick drive round the M25 where it drove itself which was bliss.
To a night stop in Cambridge to see a friend.


I love it.
I've got springs and spacers to fit to it too, to lose the front arch gap

The dog fits fine too!
I've booked it in for its running in service on Thursday. Exactly a week after collection.
Of the 800 miles I've done so far its probably driven 500 of those itself and not put a foot wrong. Great system and way better than just base ACC.
Looks very good from the rear with quad pipes and wide wheel arches.
I m probably the only one who doesn t mind the front.
Never spotted the front wheel gap, does look weird indeed. Especially for a M car.
As a member of the black wheel hater club , great to have them silver!
Thanks for starting this thread, looking forward to folow.
Any interior pics?
I m probably the only one who doesn t mind the front.
Never spotted the front wheel gap, does look weird indeed. Especially for a M car.
As a member of the black wheel hater club , great to have them silver!
Thanks for starting this thread, looking forward to folow.
Any interior pics?
Looks like its in my perfect spec albeit about £78k more than I can afford 
Agree on the silver wheels, BMW need to catch up and realise that the majority probably don't like black wheels anymore as there are just too many ancient pov spec Audi A3s in the 'wrong' hands sporting them now (IMO).
I'd even keep the tints.

Agree on the silver wheels, BMW need to catch up and realise that the majority probably don't like black wheels anymore as there are just too many ancient pov spec Audi A3s in the 'wrong' hands sporting them now (IMO).
I'd even keep the tints.
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