E90 M SPORT DIESELS

[estoril M]

Hi all,thinking of buying a diesel E90 m sport(saloon), just curious on what they are like to own/drive and which engines are the best? The 330 appeals to me but is it worth paying that bit more them or is there not much difference between the 320, 325 and the ?

Thanx

[briers]

Love my 335d coupe but I'd say the pick of the bunch is the 330i with a manual box.

Terrific engine, quick, economical, sounds great and is agile paired with the great chassis.

Only trouble might be snowy winters. Oh and expensive runflats.

The 2.0d unit is fairly typical. Go for a 3 litre and just go straight to the 330 range. The extra grunt is welcoming yet just as good on fuel as 325d. Don't discount petrol unless you do 20k pa.

Edited by briers on Thursday 26th August 23:40

[pat the plumber]

we have a 330d touring, great engine, great mpg, very expensive tyres "18's" hard ride and appaulling in the snow, even with a bag of sand in the boot.
The twistier the road the better the car feels, eats the motor way miles, it's hard to know what car we'll get next

[psymonr]

I've got an 330d m sport e90, I tried a couple of 320d m sports (a 163 and a 177) and I have to say they need to be worked hard to get anything out of them in my opinion, whereas the 330d can accelerate pretty hard in the correct gear, or can be used in quite a lazy way on motorways etc. not so with the 320d I found. One version I wanted to try but didn't get round to was the Alpina D3, I believe it is a tuned version of the engine in the 123d (with a new turbo I think), according to some magazines, the handling is better on the Alpina than the bmw 320/325/330d m sports and I think they look great, are a bit less common and will probably return better mpg than the 330d, oh and no run flats on D3s!

[MidlandDan84]

I have an E90 320d M Sport with almost 65K on it. Overall very happy with it, does everything i ask in pretty good comfort, quick enough most of the time, been reliable *fingers crossed*. Managed over 52mpg on a recent trip down to Perpignan and back.

However, if you can afford a 330d then you would probably find it a step down to the 320d, im waiting another 18months before i can afford and justify a 330d, i drove one recently and was very impressed!. Sure the 320d is slouch, but the 3.0 diesel is very smooth and the power is effortless.

[Smalleyboy]

I have an E91 320D Msport (163) which I have owned for 4.5 years and have done 88k miles in it. No major problems and I really liked the car. I bought it because we were expecting our first child which was quickly joined by another. Now they are that bit bigger, I can get away with less space and on that basis I pick up an E92 320D Msport (177) tomorrow morning.

I do about 20k miles per year so the 320D offers a good balance of performance and economy. However, if I did less miles then I would go for the 330D or possibly the 335D in either touring or coupe guise. I'm not a huge fan of the saloon as I think the Touring is hard to beat. I would bypass the 325D for one of its more powerful siblings.

[Mits]

I went from a csl>D3>330d

The D3 has better handling and a smoother ride (no runflats), but the turbo lag and the manual gearbox in traffic made me go to the 330D.

330D is quieter as its 6 cylinder, more grunt and mpg is still good. The D3 would do around 450-500 per tank in town whereas the 330D does 300-350. I've ditched the runflats and had it lowered, with ride being no worse than the standard m sport suspension.

330D is the one to go for, but if you can live without the performance and mpg is a priority then get the 320.