30K miles P.A in a 140i

[Pig benis]

Hello folks

I have just been offered a fantastic new job and I am going to treat myself to my first decent car. My current car is a mint 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX PPP which I adore and I would like to keep my daily drive up to a similar, if not higher standard.

I've been reading on the forums etc that a 140i will achieve 40mpg on a run, well my daily drive will be m4/m5/A419, so lots of straight, monotonous roads which should help the MPG.

Now my next car will be chucked straight into being a daily drive and fun weekend car . So my questions to you knowledgeable BMW folks are -

1) Am I mad for considering a 140i for 30k pa?
2) What are the servicing intervals on this car?
3) What kind of MPG are you guys getting?

Realistically I will be doing this mileage for 1 year, as I plan to sell my house and move to where my job will be. I've been toying with the idea of buying a 5k sh*tbox and then selling up the following year. But I just want a nice car, I've always had loud and obnoxious Jap stuff and I can finally afford to spunk some decent money on an awesome motor.

Oh and before PHers talk about finance, this will be a finance free car

Thanks all

PB

[kiethton]

Perfectly fine for the job, we just picked up a high spec 2.5 year old one for £18.5k and all is going well

With the cruise, limits set, HK and adaptive LED's it's easy to drive too

[aeropilot]

Pig benis said:

I've been reading on the forums etc that a 140i will achieve 40mpg on a run

If you drive at 50mph everywhere, when there's no other traffic on the road at the same time....

I think you need to be thinking of 30mpg as an average when factoring costs, not 40.

[kiethton]

aeropilot said:

Pig benis said:

I've been reading on the forums etc that a 140i will achieve 40mpg on a run

If you drive at 50mph everywhere, when there's no other traffic on the road at the same time....

I think you need to be thinking of 30mpg as an average when factoring costs, not 40.

This is definitely the case with the GF's M135i

Will do ~34mpg in eco @ 80 indicated, she averages ~20mpg as her commute is 3 miles each way in traffic....

[Pig benis]

I knew it was far too good to be true. Darn. Well I'm still not deterred, as it is a car that I want. I'll have to crack out the calculator and not just man maths in my head.

Thanks for the quick replies guys

PB

[PTF]

We had a manual M135i. It did 34mpg average over 18k miles. A run would see this up into around the 40mpg area, but you'd have to have a steady right foot, look well ahead, plan usage of brakes and heavy throttle, etc.

We did some long runs in it, where a tank was used up over a weekend, and it would see 37mpg on those tanks. The long term average was dragged down by more local usage.

Maybe we're light drivers though the wife and I as my current 130i is doing around 33mpg average, which seems to be high for them.

And my wife once got 34mpg out of a tank on our 02 WRX wagon, which surprised even me!

So i reckon if you're steady then in an auto 140i you'll be near to 40mpg on a run. The B58 is supposedly more economical, plus the auto is more efficient and longer geared than the manual.

Hope that helps

[louiebaby]

Surely the answer is:

Keep the Scooby for fun and snow days.
Get a 730d for the schlep until you've moved house:

www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/20170329381...

[Pig benis]

PTF said:

We had a manual M135i. It did 34mpg average over 18k miles. A run would see this up into around the 40mpg area, but you'd have to have a steady right foot, look well ahead, plan usage of brakes and heavy throttle, etc.

We did some long runs in it, where a tank was used up over a weekend, and it would see 37mpg on those tanks. The long term average was dragged down by more local usage.

Maybe we're light drivers though the wife and I as my current 130i is doing around 33mpg average, which seems to be high for them.

And my wife once got 34mpg out of a tank on our 02 WRX wagon, which surprised even me!

So i reckon if you're steady then in an auto 140i you'll be near to 40mpg on a run. The B58 is supposedly more economical, plus the auto is more efficient and longer geared than the manual.

Hope that helps

How on earth did you manage 34mpg from an WRX Impreza? That is incredible, the most I've ever got from my Impreza is 27mpg and that is with a very restrained right foot.

I have yet to do my new commute in rush hour, so I'm not sure how much stop start traffic there will be. All I know is I want a petrol 6 cylinder for this drive, as I'm going to hate how far I have to drive and I want to do it in a car that I love.

Thank you for your reply, it has been most helpful

[Pig benis]

louiebaby said:

Surely the answer is:

Keep the Scooby for fun and snow days.
Get a 730d for the schlep until you've moved house:

www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/20170329381...

I have run this past the other half, and she has banned me from having 3 cars (I also have a Defender). Plus as much as I love my Impreza (50k miles and 2 owners from new), I would like to have a daily driver that isn't so in your face. Maybe I'm growing up, or maybe it is how many times a month my partner calls me a "chav"

[PTF]

Personally i'd do the following:

1) put the scoob into storage
2) get a 530d/330d auto for wafting to work long distance
3) move so job is closer
4) sell 330d and take scoob out of storage

[Smuler]

Get a new partner ?

I think you should go for the 140i
Closest I can compare is saying that my 335i driven very inefficiently was in fact only 8 p more to run a mile (fuel costs) than my X120d also driven very inefficiently that partners my M3

Over your 30k pa that’s 2400£ ; would I pay that for the extra buzz of a s/six petrol compared to a 4 cylinder diesel : Hell , yes

[Billy_Whizzzz]

Easy. I do 20k pa in my m140i. It is a manual thus higher revving and less efficient than an auto, gets driven quickly everywhere and it’s done an average of 28.6 mpg since September 2016. An auto would be in 31-32. It’s more efficient too than an M135i. Very nice place to be - love mine.

[Roma101]

Only done 3.5k miles in our new 140i (so engine still fairly tight). Getting high 30s on a long steady run is no problem at all. I reckon once it is run in, with a fair wind it will crack 40 mpg no problem.

[Pig benis]

Roma101 said:

Only done 3.5k miles in our new 140i (so engine still fairly tight). Getting high 30s on a long steady run is no problem at all. I reckon once it is run in, with a fair wind it will crack 40 mpg no problem.

This is excellent news, I'm blown away that BMW can make a 6 cylinder turbo charged monster achieve decent fuel economy. A good friend of mine runs a mapped 335d touring and he struggles to get near 35mpg on a run, this is the other car that I have been considering, however I just don't want to a diesel unless it will do 50+mpg and I know I would hate it. I want to enjoy my 2 hour a day commute .

Thanks for all the replies folks, you've been most helpful

PB

[12TS]

Roma101 said:

Only done 3.5k miles in our new 140i (so engine still fairly tight). Getting high 30s on a long steady run is no problem at all. I reckon once it is run in, with a fair wind it will crack 40 mpg no problem.

You'd really need to keep below 65mph to get 40mpg IMHO.

When I compare the trip with the actual (i.e. odometer and actual fuel consumed from the pump at fill up) I find it optimistic by about 2mpg.

There will be cheaper ways of doing it, but if you're going to be using for that length of journey it will need to be dependable and enjoyable. Very capable car IMHO and a nice place to be.

[335d]

A 1 Series would be a long way down my list of choices for doing 30k miles a year. I like the M140i, it's very cheap, and it's probably the last chance to get a 6 cylinder engine in a small hatchback, but it seems like the wrong choice for your usage to me.

You will only get anywhere near 40mpg on a run if you don't use its performance. Take a look at real world data before believing some of the wishful thinking http://www.fuelly.com/car/bmw/m140i . By comparison here is the data for a 335d http://www.fuelly.com/car/bmw/335d .

However, if I wanted a 30k a year motorway hack, much as I like my 335d, I wouldn't choose one for that mileage. A 5 Series, probably a 530d would be my choice - quiet, comfortable and a decent turn of speed. The M140i is a buzzy little box by comparison.

[louiebaby]

Pig benis said:

A good friend of mine runs a mapped 335d touring and he struggles to get near 35mpg on a run

I run an E39 540i Touring, and can just scrape 30mpg on a motorway run. (250 miles, cruise at 0.75 - 0.8 leptons, A/C on, relatively unladen.)

[AllyBassman]

It's got a glorious 6 cylinder turbo charged engine.... and you're concerned over MPG's?

Something is wrong in this thread. Get a 120d if you want MPG!

A 135i/140i is surely not a car you should be farting about hypermilling everywhere. Enjoy it and fill it up when it needs petrol. Simples.

[PTF]

12TS said:

Roma101 said:

Only done 3.5k miles in our new 140i (so engine still fairly tight). Getting high 30s on a long steady run is no problem at all. I reckon once it is run in, with a fair wind it will crack 40 mpg no problem.

You'd really need to keep below 65mph to get 40mpg IMHO.

When I compare the trip with the actual (i.e. odometer and actual fuel consumed from the pump at fill up) I find it optimistic by about 2mpg.

There will be cheaper ways of doing it, but if you're going to be using for that length of journey it will need to be dependable and enjoyable. Very capable car IMHO and a nice place to be.

Yeah mid-30s would be more realistic unless you're exclusively doing long journeys on dual carriageways and keep the speeds sensible. The ODO on all of the BMWs i've had has always been 2-3mpg optimistic.

I ran an E91 325d auto as a commuter and that was excellent (don't know why i changed it for an E92 325i manual!), but even when trying VERY hard it would struggle to get more than 47mpg on a run, and when calculating it after filling up it would be 44mpg. I tried driving it "normally", without trying to be economical and it showed 43mpg on the trip and 41mpg calculated, so in the end i stopped trying and just accepted the fact that there wasn't much in it!

Yes the M140i would be a nice place to be, but so would any F-series BMW whether diesel or petrol. I wouldn't say that an M140i would set your world alight on a dual carriageway commute. Sure it'd be nice to hear the noise, but for that commute i'd be in a 530d auto

[p1stonhead]

OP, if you have a job paying you well enough to buy a 140i cash, is the difference between 30mpg and 40mpg over 30,000 miles really going to bother you? Its only £1500 (assumed 120p per litre).

I would assume its going to average 30mpg. You will enjoy it a lot more than hoping it gets 40mpg average and being dissapointed all the time.

Also that way if you are averaging 35mpg (seems to be reasonable), you have 5mpg in reserve to put your foot down

Write off the £1500 straight away as a 'fun tax' and get on with enjoying it more.