Discussion
So after being really impressed by an M135i on a test drive (much more so than the A45 AMG I tested it back to back with) I gave my local BMW dealership my ideal specification and waited to see how long it would take them to source me a car. Within a week, I'd bought this:
A 2017 M140i in Alpine white, with Coral interior.
The spec isn't huge- basically just ZF 8-speed automatic gearbox, heated seats, comfort pack and privacy glass.
It's my first automatic and first turbo six, and so far it's been fantastic. Only covered a hundred or so miles, most of which have been the the rain, but so far I can't fault it- even the ride on run-flats is pretty good.
A 2017 M140i in Alpine white, with Coral interior.
The spec isn't huge- basically just ZF 8-speed automatic gearbox, heated seats, comfort pack and privacy glass.
It's my first automatic and first turbo six, and so far it's been fantastic. Only covered a hundred or so miles, most of which have been the the rain, but so far I can't fault it- even the ride on run-flats is pretty good.
Ten days in and it's already been damaged by some cretin in a supermarket car park. Parked behind it, left handbrake off, rolled into the rear bumper.
Thankfully appears extremely minor but I'll have a proper look in the daytime. Old gent responsible was mortified and very apologetic, but still very frustrating.
Thankfully appears extremely minor but I'll have a proper look in the daytime. Old gent responsible was mortified and very apologetic, but still very frustrating.
Met up with a couple of friends in Bristol, took a drive then headed back to Clifton for some food.
I think I've sussed why the ride is so pliant compared to other cars I've tested- having looked up the tyre codes, it turns out they're non-run-flat Pilot Super Sports rather than the run-flat versions.
General opinions- keep model badge and M-badges on the wings, or remove them? I'm leaning towards remove at the moment.
I think I've sussed why the ride is so pliant compared to other cars I've tested- having looked up the tyre codes, it turns out they're non-run-flat Pilot Super Sports rather than the run-flat versions.
General opinions- keep model badge and M-badges on the wings, or remove them? I'm leaning towards remove at the moment.
Edited by ManOpener on Sunday 25th February 20:57
ScoobyChris said:
Mine is currently running 17" steelies for a bit of additional stealth 
How do 17" wheels fit over the brakes? Any clearance issues? I was thinking about a set of 17" winters but having spent a bit of time digging through the Apex Wheels catalogue, I'm wondering whether the standard Style 436M's wouldn't be great as winters and whether I could justify something like SM10s or FL5s in 18x8.5 ET35 all-round.moffat said:
ManOpener said:
even the ride on run-flats is pretty good.
Nice car OPDon't understand why your car is on RFT's when it comes stock with lovely non-RFT Michelin's as standard???
RFT's are terrible - should be your first mod to destroy them and get some MP4S's!!
Pilot SuperSport, which have been fantastic except for in the -3.5°c temperatures this morning on ungritted roads, when they were, er, suboptimal.
Edited by ManOpener on Monday 26th February 11:11
Spent a couple of hours giving it a proper clean, polish and wax on Saturday, but by Tuesday it was filthy again. It rained all day Sunday (typical) and I had wet commutes to and from Swindon on Monday/Tuesday.
Managed to take a picture in town before it got filthy again.
Ticked over 10k miles on Wednesday, driving to Manchester. Loved every minute of the car so far.
Across ~250 miles of motorway at 70, punctuated with average speed camera sections, I managed 45.6 mpg according to the display which was pretty surprising. Makes up for the mid-20s I'm getting everywhere else!
Managed to take a picture in town before it got filthy again.
Ticked over 10k miles on Wednesday, driving to Manchester. Loved every minute of the car so far.
Across ~250 miles of motorway at 70, punctuated with average speed camera sections, I managed 45.6 mpg according to the display which was pretty surprising. Makes up for the mid-20s I'm getting everywhere else!
Edited by ManOpener on Friday 20th April 16:34
J4CKO said:
So cars tend to gravitate to a figure and dont deviate that much regardless of how you use it, but the sheer range is incredible, mid teens is very possible, and so is mid forties.
Very true. I'm averaging about 28 overall which is not markedly different to the considerably less powerful Leon it replaced. I've only been able to repeat 45+ once, and on a "spirited" 15-mile A-road drive at the weekend I manged 19.7. I'm sure I've seen lower but to be honest i haven't checked.My one gripe so far is the lack of customisability in the driving profiles.I would ideally like the Sport throttle response, power and exhaust flap settings with the steering in Comfort. I've only recently started playing with manual mode and frankly it's a revelation.
WRT the PH sticker, the new site is up- https://pistonheads.shop/
Sigh.
Clipped by another car travelling far too fast on one of the local rat runs. I stopped, they didn't. It seemed to come off pretty cleanly but I couldn't find it despite looking for a good 20 minutes.
Can't imagine they're expensive to replace, no clip damage I can see, but a cherry atop the absolute turd of a week I've had.
Clipped by another car travelling far too fast on one of the local rat runs. I stopped, they didn't. It seemed to come off pretty cleanly but I couldn't find it despite looking for a good 20 minutes.
Can't imagine they're expensive to replace, no clip damage I can see, but a cherry atop the absolute turd of a week I've had.
Pica-Pica said:
ManOpener said:
Ended up buying the AutoID M3/4 style caps in gloss carbon for both sides as a replacement, with the discount from BabyBMW cheaper than buying a single correctly painted Ferric Grey cover from BMW.
I'll probably hate them when they turn up.
Perhaps that’s why you see so many around. Ha!I'll probably hate them when they turn up.
I wonder if they are a common part across all current BMWs?
BMW supply them in two options, primed or painted in Ferric Grey II. The primed are about £50 a corner, the painted nearly £140!
I think the AutoID ones fit basically everything the OEM ones do. Not surprising you see them given that a pair is £125 with discount!
D4MJT said:
Are you aware you can customise the sport and sport+ profiles?
I have the lighter comfort steering on my Sport profile, and have the firmer steering on the Sport+ profile.
I was not! Now intrigued. How does one go about this?I have the lighter comfort steering on my Sport profile, and have the firmer steering on the Sport+ profile.
-EDIT-
Never mind it, found it!. A revelation.
Edited by ManOpener on Monday 25th June 16:55
Just over 6 months and about 6k miles of driving and I'm overall still absolutely loving the M140i.
Don't think I've enjoyed it quite as much as when I got back from 2 weeks in Southern Spain having done 2,200km in a diesel Mitsubishi ASX.
I do have a couple of minor gripes, which I'm looking to solve in the coming weeks/months:
Stereo
I've got the standard BMW Hi-Fi stereo- not Advanced, not HK. It's frankly not great- it does the job, but it's never going to set the world on fire. Having experienced both Advanced and HK in the last 6 months, I can say with confidence I don't particularly like the HK system- it doesn't feel that well-balanced to me. The Advanced system felt like a significant improvement over the base one, but the cost of upgrading components (under-seat woofers and amplifier) after the fact is a bit silly.
As a (cheap) halfway house, I'm intending on fitting the Rockford Fosgate T3-BMW1 component kit. This comprises two 4" two-way front speakers, with a pair of 25mm silk diaphragm tweeters. F20/F21/F22 cars not fitted with the HK audio package (or the Alpine BMW upgrade) don't have tweeter pods- the prices for these from BMW and on eBay seem to vary massively but I've managed to pick up a pair for ~£75, including the HK tweeters. I'll probably get a good portion of this back selling the tweeter components alone. They replace the plastic interior trim parallel with the wing mirrors.
With the pods fitted, the Rockford Fosgate component kit is completely plug-and-play. Once it's bought and fitted I'll look at whether or not I need an amplifier, under-seat woofers or rear speaker upgrades, but the general consensus from other people who've fitted it is that it's a huge improvement. Plenty of OEM+ options for amplifier designed to fit the existing boot cubby-hole and under-seat woofers, and the HK pods for rear tweeters are relatively cheap from BMW.
Pro Nav screen retrofit
The 8.8" Pro Nav screen is franky much nicer than the little screen- I didn't realise how much nicer until I spent a bit of time in a colleague's extremely highly specced 118i. F20-22 specific ones are really expensive to buy alone, but the F30 (3-series) one is a direct fit, only differing in some of the plastic shroud. Two lines of coding is all that's required to implement the larger screen and all of its functionality, so I'm keeping an eye out for a Pro Nav screen at the moment.
Mirrors
I had Carbon AutoID M3/4 style mirrors for about a week. The quality was pretty good, but the fit and finish of the OS one left a lot to be desired. I managed to pick up a replacement primed mirror cover from eBay for £9, sprayed it myself and fitted it. Obviously the paint finish isn't quite factory standard but it's still pretty good- this was only meant to be a stop-gap whilst AutoID made me up some colour-coded M3/4 style mirrors in Ferric Grey II. These were supposed to be shipped Friday 4th August, but still haven't arrived and it's not entirely clear what's happened to them- hopefully they'll turn up soon.
Paddles
I recently got the opportunity to drive a DCT M2, and one of the biggest differences I noticed was the shape and style of the paddle shifters. The standard paddles are a bit of a weird shape, and don't extend very far upwards- the M2/3/4/5/6 paddles feel significantly longer (they only look a little longer, but the difference felt much more significant.
M140i on left, M2/3/4/5/6 on right.
Again, these are plug-and-play, requiring no coding of any sort. They can be had fairly cheaply from the US (about $120 for a pair plus shipping).
Other
Still tempted by the M Performance exhaust and limited slip differential...
Don't think I've enjoyed it quite as much as when I got back from 2 weeks in Southern Spain having done 2,200km in a diesel Mitsubishi ASX.
I do have a couple of minor gripes, which I'm looking to solve in the coming weeks/months:
Stereo
I've got the standard BMW Hi-Fi stereo- not Advanced, not HK. It's frankly not great- it does the job, but it's never going to set the world on fire. Having experienced both Advanced and HK in the last 6 months, I can say with confidence I don't particularly like the HK system- it doesn't feel that well-balanced to me. The Advanced system felt like a significant improvement over the base one, but the cost of upgrading components (under-seat woofers and amplifier) after the fact is a bit silly.
As a (cheap) halfway house, I'm intending on fitting the Rockford Fosgate T3-BMW1 component kit. This comprises two 4" two-way front speakers, with a pair of 25mm silk diaphragm tweeters. F20/F21/F22 cars not fitted with the HK audio package (or the Alpine BMW upgrade) don't have tweeter pods- the prices for these from BMW and on eBay seem to vary massively but I've managed to pick up a pair for ~£75, including the HK tweeters. I'll probably get a good portion of this back selling the tweeter components alone. They replace the plastic interior trim parallel with the wing mirrors.
With the pods fitted, the Rockford Fosgate component kit is completely plug-and-play. Once it's bought and fitted I'll look at whether or not I need an amplifier, under-seat woofers or rear speaker upgrades, but the general consensus from other people who've fitted it is that it's a huge improvement. Plenty of OEM+ options for amplifier designed to fit the existing boot cubby-hole and under-seat woofers, and the HK pods for rear tweeters are relatively cheap from BMW.
Pro Nav screen retrofit
The 8.8" Pro Nav screen is franky much nicer than the little screen- I didn't realise how much nicer until I spent a bit of time in a colleague's extremely highly specced 118i. F20-22 specific ones are really expensive to buy alone, but the F30 (3-series) one is a direct fit, only differing in some of the plastic shroud. Two lines of coding is all that's required to implement the larger screen and all of its functionality, so I'm keeping an eye out for a Pro Nav screen at the moment.
Mirrors
I had Carbon AutoID M3/4 style mirrors for about a week. The quality was pretty good, but the fit and finish of the OS one left a lot to be desired. I managed to pick up a replacement primed mirror cover from eBay for £9, sprayed it myself and fitted it. Obviously the paint finish isn't quite factory standard but it's still pretty good- this was only meant to be a stop-gap whilst AutoID made me up some colour-coded M3/4 style mirrors in Ferric Grey II. These were supposed to be shipped Friday 4th August, but still haven't arrived and it's not entirely clear what's happened to them- hopefully they'll turn up soon.
Paddles
I recently got the opportunity to drive a DCT M2, and one of the biggest differences I noticed was the shape and style of the paddle shifters. The standard paddles are a bit of a weird shape, and don't extend very far upwards- the M2/3/4/5/6 paddles feel significantly longer (they only look a little longer, but the difference felt much more significant.
M140i on left, M2/3/4/5/6 on right.
Again, these are plug-and-play, requiring no coding of any sort. They can be had fairly cheaply from the US (about $120 for a pair plus shipping).
Other
Still tempted by the M Performance exhaust and limited slip differential...
Oh the business nav screen is totally fine, but the 8.8" Pro ones occasionally crop up for around £300-350. Given it was the best part of £1k as an option when new, seems like a worthwhile upgrade to me. The fancier Pro iDrive controller is even cheaper (I've seen them for as little as £150).
The main reason I'd want MPE over anything else is to preserve warranty, I've got a little over 18 months left. They sell on the second hand market for pretty much the same price as they are new so you wouldn't end up losing much.
The Birds kit is tempting, I'd also like to try a car with Koni FSDs and KW Street Comforts for comparison. KWs are supposed to be very good, the price is about the same as the Birds kit, and they're adjustable too.
The main reason I'd want MPE over anything else is to preserve warranty, I've got a little over 18 months left. They sell on the second hand market for pretty much the same price as they are new so you wouldn't end up losing much.
The Birds kit is tempting, I'd also like to try a car with Koni FSDs and KW Street Comforts for comparison. KWs are supposed to be very good, the price is about the same as the Birds kit, and they're adjustable too.
Edited by ManOpener on Friday 24th August 10:59
That's pretty much the outcome I wnt- a ride more in line with something like a Megane RS which I find firm but pliant, without the bounciness and crashiness on broken surfaces at high and low speeds respectively.
The M4 Lower Control Arms and Tension Struts are supposed to help the steering feel (which bothers me less than it might others because my last car had an electromechanical rack which was truly awful) and they're on my nice-to-have list, along with some lighter flow formed wheels (the Style 436Ms are very heavy). I think Dinan or one of the other tuners do a Monoball lower control arm kit which is supposed to be very good in the improving steering feel stakes, but it's more expensive than the M4 parts!
The M4 Lower Control Arms and Tension Struts are supposed to help the steering feel (which bothers me less than it might others because my last car had an electromechanical rack which was truly awful) and they're on my nice-to-have list, along with some lighter flow formed wheels (the Style 436Ms are very heavy). I think Dinan or one of the other tuners do a Monoball lower control arm kit which is supposed to be very good in the improving steering feel stakes, but it's more expensive than the M4 parts!
Another few months and few thousand miles down, nothing major to report. Picked up parts for some of the upgrades listed above, but yet to have anything fitted.
MPE might be coming sooner than I'd thought, though- this morning I had to grab something out of the boot after I'd started the car and it sounds very much like I've got the beginnings of the dreaded exhaust valve rattle. Will have to give Cotswold a call and have them have a look at it.
MPE might be coming sooner than I'd thought, though- this morning I had to grab something out of the boot after I'd started the car and it sounds very much like I've got the beginnings of the dreaded exhaust valve rattle. Will have to give Cotswold a call and have them have a look at it.
Fantastic weekend, did ~600 miles across 2 days, driving some of the best driving roads in Wales with a couple of mates.
Car was absolutely faultless, supremely capable and confident.
It has, however, reinforced the need for a diff and possibly some suspension work.
Whilst the car is/was great as long as you're well-prepared and take the time to settle the chassis before the corner (and surprisingly easy to judge and place even on some of the rougher roads), it's slower to settle than I'd like and could definitely do with more front end grip under hard acceleration. Definitely rewards being nice and smooth/progressive rather than really grabbing it by the neck...
Car was absolutely faultless, supremely capable and confident.
It has, however, reinforced the need for a diff and possibly some suspension work.
Whilst the car is/was great as long as you're well-prepared and take the time to settle the chassis before the corner (and surprisingly easy to judge and place even on some of the rougher roads), it's slower to settle than I'd like and could definitely do with more front end grip under hard acceleration. Definitely rewards being nice and smooth/progressive rather than really grabbing it by the neck...
Edited by HM-2 on Monday 1st April 11:36
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