E90 BMW 325i

matt99man

matt99man

matt99man

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Well the time has come to chop in the x5 for something smaller, I'm thinking of going back to the 3 series and hopefully gaining a few extra mpg's too! My preference would be the 330i but getting one in manual in the right spec and price is being unfruitfull. Does anyone have experience with the 06 2.5 version? Any problems? Mpg etc. It's manual I'm looking at, I'm hoping that I can average around 30 mpg from the 21 I currently get in my 3.0i x5. The one I'm looking at has loudspeaker system BMW business audio, is this much better than the stock system? It also has bodyshell protection whatever this is!! Cheers fellas
 
It depends what kind of driving you do. These early engines aren't the notably economical ones (relative to their successors), so anything other than a reasonable amount of steady motoring will see probably you struggling to get 30 :)
 
Well I'm used to driving fairly frugally these days, nailing the x5 would get around 14 mpg!! BMW quote 33/34 for the 325i combined, they quote 22 for my x5 and I get the best part of that. Does the iPhone 4 intregrate well with these?
 
Ah, if you get around the combined for the X5 then I suspect you'll get around the combined for the 325/330i.

What do you consider good integration?
 
Having full phone book use and caller display. For some reason my x5 would not show who was calling me! Have you heard of that upgraded stereo system?
 
I'm doing around 12 - 15 k a year, I get around 25 mpg on the motorway in the x5, I'm hoping to see late 30's in a 325. It's getting that balance really as I'm not fond of diesel cars. I uses to have a 320 150 4 pot e90 that was woefully slow sometimes. I understand it's a down grade, ideally I would prefer a 7 series but they have sky high miles within my budget and could be problematic going forward with all the electrics
 
The 2.5 325i is the older N52 engine, so whilst you can do late 30's you need to stick to the speed limit to manage it. If you only get 25mpg on the Motorway in a 3.0i X5 I cant see you doing late 30's in a 325i.
 
27/28 is possible (according to the onboard computer) in the x5 but you have to be fixed at 70. The x5 is auto which won't help things. What was the best you had from the old 530 fox?
 
Best I had verified at the pump (ie not the trip computer) was 39.2mpg from Plymouth to Bristol at the speed limit the whole way.

If you are going to do 80ish, speed up, slow down, etc etc, it's early 30's
 
How much did you find your trip computer varied from what you worked out at the pump Fox? Was it usually optimistic or pessimistic?
 
Sound, lots of my miles are from Stoke to Manchester on the motorway or a34, some cross country trips to Manchester too. I would say mid to late 30's should me achievable then.
 
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I have one of these on a 55 plate, auto.

Long term average is 27.7. 5 days a week I commute in slow moving traffic - 6 miles each way. It suffers on this journey. Then every fortnight I drive 240 miles on decent A and M roads where it will return around 36 to 38 normally.

Drinks oil like it is going out of fashion. It is also underpowered and you need to get the engine revving up beyond 4,000 rpm to get any go out of it. When it gets there it sounds ok though.

The ride is bumpy on SE, undoubtedly worse on M sport. If mine didn't have the Pro Nav I'd have ditched it a while ago. Not quite sure what for though, as much as I just cannot like it, there isn't anything else out there for £10 - £12k that does the same things.
 
I'm happy with that mpg, should be more with a manual. Are those figures from the car computer? Also how do you find the pro nav? Are you able to play music through the DVD (for the nav)? I found that very handy with mp's in my old e90 with business nav although this only had the DVD and you could not play CDs whilst using it!! Have you driven a 4 pot 3 series petrol to compare it to?
 
Yep - those figures are from the car.

Pro nav is fine, although I turn off the annoying voice. She tells you what to do far too frequently. Only criticism of the nav is that the interface is starting to look a little dated, and it is also quite slow as it runs off the DVD (no hdd). Works fine once it has tracked the route, but can take a few seconds to work it out first.

Nav goes in the DVD slot and CDs work fine at the same time (different slot above). The whole unit gets warm though.

The last 4 cyclinder 3 series I drove was the one before the E90, and that was horrible too - 318 SE.
 
Have your tried playing music through the DVD drive? I know this sounds a odd question but you can get so much music on a DVD than cd! Do you have bluetooth?
 
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