Fox's revived thread on his 530i made me think that it might be worth summarising thoughts and costs on the 330i sport that I've just sold.
Here's what it looked like on the day we collected it and motored into the lakes:
It needed a bit of clean, but otherwise was in fine fettle. It was a 2002, post facelift model.
To my knowledge, it was a fairly standard 330i sport automatic, meaning full leather, manually adjusted seats, CD changer in the boot and plenty of electric toys.
Living with it was both good and bad. The seats were brilliant offering both comfort and support. Unfortunately the comfort was offset by the ride, which was a little hard for my liking. Being fair, it did improve when we replaced the tyres with Falken 452s.
Space was OK. Certainly not as good as a Mondeo mk3, and the boot was a good deal smaller and less practical.
Performance was also a bit mixed. It certainly had plenty of go, handled in a very composed manner (seemed to get better as it went faster) and had tons of grip in anything but snow. The real downside was that it was so good that it didn't actually feel that exciting. Certainly my old 1.8 MX5 was a lot more fun to drive. For me, I found the 330i rather frustrating as it didn't excite me as I wanted, yet caught up new rolling traffic jam very quickly. I'm guessing that someone living in the countryside would get a lot more enjoyment out of owning one.
We did roughly 30k miles in it during three years of ownership, starting at 84k, selling at 114k miles.
Costs were as follows:
- Depreciation, £5500.
- Fuel at roughly 25mpg. We did see a best of 31mpg on long motorway runs, but also were down to 20mpg in town.
- x2 sets of front tyres at £180/pair and 1 set of rear tyres at £250/pair. All were Falken 452s, which really do live upto their reputation. Never had any problems with them in the wet or dry.
- Servicing. Required an oil change and inspection 1 and an inspection 2, priced at £130, £220 and £320 directly from a BMW dealer, which I didn't think was that bad. Certainly is a LOT less than Volvo want for the S60.
- Refurbishment of all 4 18" MV alloys at £65/wheel. They seemed to be made of swiss cheese and were prone to both kerbing (I'm as guilty as the missus) and corrosion. Looked lovely once refurbed.
The faults we dealt with were:
- Replacement wishbone front bushes (common issue) - £240
- Failed powersteering pump - £480 directly from BMW (very close to the price at an independant)
The only toys were bought for it was a DICE Ipod adaptor, which was so easy that I fitted it myself. Cost was £100.
Total (excluding fuel) - £7760
Total (including fuel) - £13760 (assuming an average of 25mpg and a cost of around £5/gallon)
Cost per mile (excluding depreciation) - 26p
Cost per mile (including depreciation) - 46p
Do I miss it since changing to a diesel Volvo? Nope, not really. The Volvo is a lot slower, clatters at standstill and doesn't make lovely noises, has 2 inches less legroom (front to back) and a 1m worse turning circle.
It makes up for it by having even more toys, it's more comfortable, has a boot that's 1/3rd bigger, it's wider across the rear seats, is nearly half the cost in road tax and far more importantly is averaging around 47mpg at the moment, which is close on double the BMW.
Here's what it looked like on the day we collected it and motored into the lakes:
It needed a bit of clean, but otherwise was in fine fettle. It was a 2002, post facelift model.
To my knowledge, it was a fairly standard 330i sport automatic, meaning full leather, manually adjusted seats, CD changer in the boot and plenty of electric toys.
Living with it was both good and bad. The seats were brilliant offering both comfort and support. Unfortunately the comfort was offset by the ride, which was a little hard for my liking. Being fair, it did improve when we replaced the tyres with Falken 452s.
Space was OK. Certainly not as good as a Mondeo mk3, and the boot was a good deal smaller and less practical.
Performance was also a bit mixed. It certainly had plenty of go, handled in a very composed manner (seemed to get better as it went faster) and had tons of grip in anything but snow. The real downside was that it was so good that it didn't actually feel that exciting. Certainly my old 1.8 MX5 was a lot more fun to drive. For me, I found the 330i rather frustrating as it didn't excite me as I wanted, yet caught up new rolling traffic jam very quickly. I'm guessing that someone living in the countryside would get a lot more enjoyment out of owning one.
We did roughly 30k miles in it during three years of ownership, starting at 84k, selling at 114k miles.
Costs were as follows:
- Depreciation, £5500.
- Fuel at roughly 25mpg. We did see a best of 31mpg on long motorway runs, but also were down to 20mpg in town.
- x2 sets of front tyres at £180/pair and 1 set of rear tyres at £250/pair. All were Falken 452s, which really do live upto their reputation. Never had any problems with them in the wet or dry.
- Servicing. Required an oil change and inspection 1 and an inspection 2, priced at £130, £220 and £320 directly from a BMW dealer, which I didn't think was that bad. Certainly is a LOT less than Volvo want for the S60.
- Refurbishment of all 4 18" MV alloys at £65/wheel. They seemed to be made of swiss cheese and were prone to both kerbing (I'm as guilty as the missus) and corrosion. Looked lovely once refurbed.
The faults we dealt with were:
- Replacement wishbone front bushes (common issue) - £240
- Failed powersteering pump - £480 directly from BMW (very close to the price at an independant)
The only toys were bought for it was a DICE Ipod adaptor, which was so easy that I fitted it myself. Cost was £100.
Total (excluding fuel) - £7760
Total (including fuel) - £13760 (assuming an average of 25mpg and a cost of around £5/gallon)
Cost per mile (excluding depreciation) - 26p
Cost per mile (including depreciation) - 46p
Do I miss it since changing to a diesel Volvo? Nope, not really. The Volvo is a lot slower, clatters at standstill and doesn't make lovely noises, has 2 inches less legroom (front to back) and a 1m worse turning circle.
It makes up for it by having even more toys, it's more comfortable, has a boot that's 1/3rd bigger, it's wider across the rear seats, is nearly half the cost in road tax and far more importantly is averaging around 47mpg at the moment, which is close on double the BMW.
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