mpoweredguru

On 6/12/2022 at 10:49 AM, Revocet said:

The petrol does sound great on full throttle in sport mode.  Picked up my M340i Touring last week (green one on the other thread) and drove back to the South Island.  Fuel economy is great in eco cruise mode with 650km range ...... for a car that has 370hp on tap and 0-100 in 4.5 secs.   It was a great drive down (incl the Kapiti coast  weather bomb on Thur afternoon) - a no regrets purchase !  Amazing how these 3's have morphed to similar dimensions of the new E60 530i I had back in 2004.

What a run-in ride! Congratulations, and hope you enjoy the hell out of it (while we still can enjoy cars like this). 

Top Gear, AutoExpress etc often refer to the G21 as the ultimate BMW, and car in general, and I understand why, now.  Quick, loads of room, economical, and still look like a BMW (instead of a BMW's long lost cousin who's face got run over by a tractor and has an enzyme or two missing). 

Talk to Arrow Wheels. They build and repair wheels, have been around for several decades, and all the racing teams I know use them. They’ve done magic with all my wheels, Porsche, Alfa Romeo, and BMW. 

I love mine.

I could have bought an M340i (and BMW did try and sell me one when I tried to out-of-region special order the D, which they don’t do any longer), but I can’t fill up, drive to Bay of Islands, drive around for a week or two, then drive back, and not as have to fill up for another week in that. I can in the diesel. 

Not to mention to the torque. Any time, anywhere. If pushed, I’d say the only thing I miss about the petrol is the sound. 

There could be another for sale if I can find the Alpina I want. I don’t like iDrive 8, so trying to get pre-LCI. The one that appeared yesterday is sadly not VATQ: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202206086569797

I’m currently waiting to hear if I can have an August build slot. If so; I’ll have about 2 weeks to amend the build to what I want before it’s locked in. August build means the car won’t arrive until Jan though. The next diesel build run is on October, so won’t see the car until April next year. 

There is a nice B3 available, too: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202205055355393. A more comfortable, torquier M3 Touring without a face like a dropped pie. 

My F31 330D I went from Bridgestone to Continental, to Michelin PS2s, and definitely found the Michelins better from a comfort point of view. 

My M340D Touring arrived with Bridgestones, which aren’t great, although the car is much better than the F31. I’m awaiting an ETA on PS5s, and if the launch in NZ is too far away, I’ll run with PS4s. 

As others have mentioned; if it’s really an issue, try non-RFTs. The difference isn’t that great these days as it was when they first came out, but it may be worth trying.

Ultimately; it could be worse - it could be an X3M Competition! I test drove one and kept pushing the comfort button, but it was already in ‘comfort’, which really was a misnomer. They are AWFUL. It has a hard no from me about 2min into the drive. BMW really need to take a leaf from Porsche’s book on how to make a car handle, and still ride amazingly. 

As C-130 says, talk to Lance and the guys at Arrow Wheels in Glendene. They manufacture racing and road wheels, and can fix anything. 

The work they’ve done for me has been brilliant. I’m about sell my 2014  330D Touring, and the wheels now look brand new (I kept them straight for years, then someone borrowed the car and managed to damage 2 wheels in half a day!).

They also repaired a wheel on my M340D after someone ran me into a kerb. 

Bonus round: The person who ran me into the kerb was going way too fast in their X5 on the wrong side of the road because their side had parked cars, while talking on the phone. Guess their profession 🙄

9 hours ago, isis said:

How easy was it to organise the purchase from Synther and getting it shipped out here? Seemed pretty quick and seamless!

Sally and Lincoln from European Car Imports took care of everything. I could have done it myself, but they've brought in 100s of cars, and are handy to have if there are hiccups along the way. It was 8 weeks from order to sitting in my driveway. 

10 hours ago, balancerider said:

Apart from the Macan it sounds like our taste in cars is very similar. The current gen D3 is very appealing, there's a low miles green one on UK Autotrader for low 60's GBP. I'd also wondered whether Alpina Australia would let you order a B3 there and then import to NZ (may be some compliance issues I guess)

That particular car has been for sale for a while now. I missed out on the ex-demo Sytner had by hours. It dropped from £67,500 to £62,500 and so I went to buy, and someone else had just signed the paperwork. It was also Alpina Green, and also had the traditional Alpina wheels, and ivory interior.

I'm not sure if the one currently for sale is VATQ. I should probably find out. 

I've been in touch with Alpina in Germany, and they put me on to Australia, who can do a B3 for me, but aren't interested in bringing in a D3 (although I know of someone they did it for with an F31). 

33 minutes ago, qube said:

That is quite the fleet!

Love the look of the G21, I know the M340i’s are amazing, can only imagine what the Diesel variant would be like with all that torque.

”Mr Shouty-Pants” 🤣 love it haha

Thanks 🙂

 The M340D is the replacement for the 330D, but I haven't exactly raced to put the 330D up on TradeMe. I'll likely do it in the next week or so. It's just had paint restoration (Rupes DA-Course + blue wool pad, Rupes DA-Fine with yellow wool, then two coats of Uno Pure and 2 coats of Chemical Guys Blacklight), and full groom, so now's the time to do it. 

I've been in to a couple of dealers with the M340D, and they've gone for a blast, and loved it. It's deceptive in how fast it puts on speed - it feels like it's loping along, when in reality it's flying. 

9 minutes ago, GorGasm said:

Not usually a fan of the full blacked out look but in this case I think it works.  Possibly because everything is new and matches, where most other blacked out cars are mish mash or tones and tacked on bits.

I was not a fan of the blacked out look - and especially wheels - at all either, and had even arranged with Coombes to swap the 791s for 792s (Cerium Gray) they had on a demonstrator, but once I saw the wheels on the car, and 'Chelle made the comment 'it looks menacing', I decided to keep them. 

BMW Car Key is also really useful; great when going to the gym, sailing, or mountain biking/motor biking etc, and can use an iPhone - or my Apple Watch - to lock/unlock the car, and run. 

The Macan was supposed to be being traded on a demo GTS in Miami Blue this month, but it looks like the dealer's replacement demo was on the carrier that sunk. It'll likely go anyway, as looking after 4 cars is time consuming. 

There will likely be an M3 Touring in the future as well. Just need to do something about that face. If I can't, it may be a B3 instead!

As qube said; I wouldn't pay for that. That's ten times worse than the PPF I'm about to remove and replace on my Macan. I've seen 3 drunk guys do better on a Saturday night. 

I've seen their work previously, and it's definitely been better that that. Give them a call and ask them to put it right. 

I'm another new member, finally. I found this place while trawling the 'net during lockdown. 

Current garage:

G21 M340D Touring 

Porsche Macan Turbo with Performance Package. Yes, that is the official model name - why they didn't call it a Turbo S, only Porsche knows.

F31 330D Touring

The 330D was a bit of DIY 335D, since they weren't available here, with a remap to ~240kW and 660Nm. It's 

The Macan was an impulse buy, as it was the last of the true Porsche engines, being the the 3.6, rather than the VAG 2.9V6 group engine. Compared to the diesels, it's a bit more noticeable, so the children nick-named it 'Mr Shouty-Pants'. 

The 340D I had to have. It's as brilliant as everything I'd read, purchased from Sytner in the U.K., as BMW stopped doing out of region special orders just before the first lockdown. The in-gear acceleration is sublime, and the steering and handling are a big step above the F30/F31s. 

It was a squeeze to get it before Xmas; it missed the ship from Southhampton it was booked on, the next ship missed its slot through the Panama Canal, so sat there for 3 days, then it had to drop 1 vehicle to Papeete, so instead of cruising down at 17 knots, idled at 7 to push the 3 day journey out to 7 days to meet COVID restrictions for crew. 

One of the benefits of a small country (and having clients in all the right places) is when it got here I got it off the wharf same day, and to AA Compliance, who received it the 23rd and had it done by the next morning.

The next hurdle was that there was no fuel compliance certificate for M340Ds, as they're not sold here, and one of the persons responsible for them at LTNZ had left several months earlier, and not been replaced, and the remaining person left with 1 day's notice to go back to Japan for family reasons, so no one was doing them. Another call to the right person, and we had that by 11am so AA could then complete an MR2A for it and actually get it registered.

Next on the list is to purchase a new Alpina D3S Touring, as this to me, is the ultimate sleeper. Alpina are waiting on build slots from BMW at present, which isn't surprising given U.K. orders for M340Ds - and 3 Series in general - are slipping back from 3-4 months to 8-10 months (worst case I've seen reported). The recent news around Alpina's sale to BMW is also a hurry up, as is iDrive 8 on the LCI models (I like buttons to press!). 

The M340D's breadth of ability is amazing; there's not many cars that'll scoot to 100kph in 4.5 seconds, and still do 5.1 litres per 100km on a trip (55MPG for the older folk).