BMW M140 (at last!)

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J4CKO said:

Not regretted moving my M135i on, sounds like you had a similar experience of like not love.

My son moved to a Golf R, I temporarily bought the Fiesta so he could buy his new one, decided to keep it. Its harder to live with than the BMW and way slower but it is so much more fun. Said this ad nauseum for the last three years and put my money where my mouth is, they arent for everyone but they are bloody good.

I guess so.

They’re really good cars, but now I’m not using it so much it misses the mark; they’re properly quick, but now I’m not using it so much it lacks that sparkle to really tickle my funny bits. I know that sounds like I’m a spoilt brat with major first world problems!

I might really regret it and miss it, we’ll see.

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Mr Tidy said:

A shame your M140i is going, but given current circumstances it makes sense.

I was looking for an E91 three years ago but manual 330is with the N52 engine were few and far between and the ones I found were up for silly money, so I talked myself into a 325i.

But I soon realised it was just too lethargic so after a year I tried again! Manual E91 330is were still silly money, 130is had gone up so I got a manual E90 330i (N52 again) that does have Bi-Xenons!

I've been really pleased with it, but it will be interesting to see what you think of your 130iLE - with the EPAS.

On the tyre topic I collected my Z4MC in December 2019 on a drizzly grey December day with temperatures between 0 and 10 degrees C and found the MPSS tyres really lacking in grip. But last summer they were great! By all accounts MP4s are supposed to cope better with lower tmperatures, etc. although I haven't tried them.

It’s a shame but I can’t justify hanging into it especially whilst it seems to be worth good money.


I did think about a 325 which are more plentiful than 330’s at the moment but I got bored of sifting through so many turds. It’s seems the E9x is going through it’s bad period. Lots had limited spec although the coupes are better than the tourings.

I don’t mind this generation of EPAS. My other half’s 125 cab has it and it’s probably a bit nicer than the EPAS in my 140i.

I seem to be one of the few people who doesn’t mind the MPSS. I had a few moments in the winters but probably no more than I had in previous BMW’s. One thing I did find is that they’re rubbish once you get near 3mm of tread. The PS4’s seem to be pretty highly regarded.

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cerb4.5lee said:

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I seem to be one of the few people who doesn’t mind the MPSS. I had a few moments in the winters but probably no more than I had in previous BMW’s. One thing I did find is that they’re rubbish once you get near 3mm of tread. The PS4’s seem to be pretty highly regarded.

I think I prefer the MPS4 on the 370Z to the MPSS on the M4 if I'm honest, however the MPS4 aren't put under much pressure because the 370Z doesn't have a lot of torque, whereas the M4 has a lot of torque so the MPSS are made to work far harder to be fair(so they feel less grippy to me).

I’m the dry the MPSS are very good, certainly in my experience. Once the temperature drops they need to be treated with a bit of respect or at least wait until there is some temperature in them.

How much tread is in the rears? Once they wear they’re crap. My last pair at 3.6mm were dire even in the dry with reasons ambient temps.

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pmorg4 said:

I know exactly what you mean, it's very difficult to get a decent E91 with even the most basic of options ticked. I really wanted one with Xenons as a minimum as halogens are hopeless, but even though it was a paltry £400 option when the car was new very few seem to have ticked it. Yet there are plenty with the £2000 pro nav and £2000 leather options, neither of which I care much for!

I gave up trying to find the right spec (particularly as I wanted a manual 330i E91, which in itself is a small range of cars), so I ended up with a pretty basic spec with only leather, pro nav, and the bizarre sliding centre armrest option. My view is that the only options that I really care much for are xenons, so I've since bought a set from eBay that are just waiting to be retrofitted when I can be bothered to remove the bumper, and the basic audio setup which is awful but can be significantly upgraded beyond what you get with BMW's "HiFi" option without too much effort. You could argue for heated seats, personally I'd rather have cloth/alcantara in which case there's no need for heated seats.

Anyway, I think the 130i would be a lovely car and in many ways more fun than the 330i, the only reason I didn't go for one was my need for the additional space. They really are the end of an era, cars to be enjoyed while you can still get them at a reasonable price.

I really wanted to avoid halogens because they’re awful. My other half’s 125i has them but xenons seem to be selling for crazy money at the mo so was trying to avoid the retrofit if possible.

The 130i has the middle hifi option, so hopefully it’s not too crap.

ScoobyChris said:

cerb4.5lee said:

Something I do like on the M4 is that it shows you the tyre temperature as well as how much air there is in them. Does your M140i have that feature as well?

It's not shown as standard, but easy to code in.

Chris

My car did that from factory. I don’t know if it was because it was an LCI2 car, but I definitely didn’t have to turn to code it in like I did in a friends 530d.

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AnneTeak said:

Welcome to the 130i club, make sure you join the group on FB. I did consider switching to the 135i/140i but the 130i is so much more special - has become part of the family!

Thanks. I’m already member of the group having tried to buy one for my other half in January.

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mholt1995 said:

Sad to see you leave the F2X family but great to see you're still sticking with a 6 pot 1 series

Thanks, it’s officially gone. I’ll start a new readers thread for the car over the next few days.

So far, it seems like a pretty good decision. Is it bad that I didn’t look back at the 140i as I walked off to the new car?

The 140i was a very, very good car but it never got under my skin.

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Armchair_Expert said:

I thought you loved it more than that, so this feels like it happened really quick. You have to do what's right for you though. I don't know how much longer I will keep mine to be honest, this weather has really put a downer on ownership. The babybm forum has also put a downer as it seems over half of fellow owners are cretins.

I thought I did too. Perhaps I didn’t glance back because it looked cack without the diffuser etc. Perhaps it had just run it course, dunno. I’m not saying it was a bad car, it wasn’t. It was easily the best car I’ve owned. I think Covid has made me look at it very very differently. When I was using it loads it made so much more sense. Say in the drive, doing very little not so.

I wouldn’t let a forum taint your ownership of a car. If you’ve ever glanced at the owners group on FB, you’d run a mile; it’s full of absolute throbbers. This months weather has been balls. I think the roof on the E88 has been down twice and it’s filthy.

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Armchair_Expert said:

Your now up at 3am pining your lost car! Yes your right, but I need a break from that place, so many experts that are not experts, and an unwillingness to accept genuine experience on certain topics. Its refreshing being away from it all. I am on 2 of the FB pages, take them with a huge pinch of salt and just passively observe, some of the stuff on them is unreal.

Hope you find a worthy replacement. I just looked at my online values and they are frankly silly. WBAC have upped my value by around 6 grand since January. That's like a 35% increase. If I hadn't spent so much on perfecting it, I would sell it. If someone offered me a fair price I would probably still sell it.

Ha ha.

If the values of hadn’t been so high, I’d have kept it until I could jump into an M car of sorts. Getting rid of it for the price I did just seemed too good to be true, hence I did.

The prices of things that I’d have liked instead were ridiculous so buying one of them felt like financial suicide because surely these prices can’t last?

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J4CKO said:

Yeah, agree on the FB group, unbelievable some of the cretins on there, all "FU" numberplates and ridiculous attitudes.

Sounds like you had a similar feeling to me on the M140i, great car but missing something thats hard to put your finger on.

Yeah I think you’re right, they’re missing something that I can’t quite put my finger on.