330Ci Sport/M-Sport

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Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
4,145
Location
Southampton
Hi guys,

I've got very bored of my C30 very quickly, so am looking to purchase an E46 330ci instead.

What I'd like to know is how to distinguish a Sport model from an M-Sport? I see a lot of cars advertised as Sport models, but in the pictures they have ///M badges on the sills, steering wheel and alloys. How do I tell what is what, and what's the difference between the two?

Cheers!
 
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Thanks for the replies guys..that makes sense.

Bored of the C30 because it's too damn slow; I want to get back into a quick petrol car. Its a nice drive and very comfy for doing lots of miles but I'm doing a lot less miles commuting nowadays so I don't need to be driving a diesel.

Went to look at an 05 plate 330Ci M-Sport this afternoon which was up at £6995 at a dealer with 71k on the clock. It was well-specced and looked good on paper but unfortunately it was very tired for the price.

On the outside the bodywork was tidy but it had Wanli tyres on the rear, mismatched tyres on the front and the front discs would need replacing soon. On the interior the drivers seat was looking tired, the centre console had scratches on it, half the buttons on the steering wheel didn't work and the heated seats only worked in patches. I'd have said it was more a £5k car rather than £7k!

Time to start hunting for another one with the spec I'm after..one has come up 100miles away which looks nice again on paper but we'll see!
 
[TW]Fox;23867995 said:
You are going to find this almost every time with E46's now unfortunately. Very few are still to be found in pristine condition with Pilot Sports on the rear etc.
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Don't get me wrong I'm not expecting a perfect car. I appreciate that even the youngest 330s are now 7 years old so there are bound to be things which need attention, but this one had so many bits up with it that it was clear the car hasn't had the easiest of lives. If somebody is tight enough to fit Wanlis then it's a good indication that they've skimped with their maintenance elsewhere.

I'm going to look at this one sometime this week..it's got all the kit I want apart from Xenons:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201302175375759
 
rodenal said:
I've been looking at a few recently too and have found the same issue tbh - at first I thought it was the price range I was looking in but even upping it significantly hasn't really brought up any cars that are of what I would call acceptable condition. Infact if anything the newer / more expensive examples have tended to be worse.

I'm half thinking about just spending significantly less and getting another e36 as my old one was quite honestly in better condition than any 330ci I've seen despite being older and liking to break in some way every month. They really need looking after now though - If you're set on a 330 and a coupe then I guess it's just a case of being patient, good ones are definitely out there I've seen them before when I wasn't actually looking to pick one up!
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Annoyingly the dealer I visited today had a beautiful 03 plate which was a minter and ticked every box but had no heated seats which is a must-have for me. I understand that they're not easy to retrofit which is a pain otherwise I'd have gone for that one
 
[TW]Fox;23868344 said:
It has fake 19 inch wheels and an enormous ///MPOWER badge on the ashtray. Don't get your hopes up.
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Wasn't too worried about the dodgy MPower badge but interesting to know that the alloys aren't genuine, thanks.
 
Fox..how tricky was your Dynavin nav installation? Did you have any kind of nav in your car to start with or did you have to fit all the associated gubbins such as GPS aerial etc?

At the moment I'm only looking at cars with factory nav, but if I can start looking at cars without then that should widen the options.
 
Glad you all like it..I honestly can't wait to get back into a powerful petrol car :) The steering wheel and top bolster on the seat are the only two weak points I could find, but I've already got a Furniture Clinic repair kit on the way which should sort that out.

Howard - Why don't you like autos?! The auto box is perfectly matched to the M54 and just makes it so easy to drive. It's a steptronic box so you can knock it into manual mode and shift up and down whenever you fancy.

Fox - Let me guess..60k miles is the limit on the warranty? Got a quote last night which came back at just over £500 for the year with the standard £100 excess..does that sound about right? Is it really worth considering? What are they like when it comes to claims..nothing like other 3rd party warranties I hope that like to blame any problem on wear and tear?
 
Howard said:
I love driving, I love interacting with the car and feeling in control and the practice of smooth gear changes. Sad I know, but hey. I totally get why you'd want an auto and if I had a different usage profile I'd have one, but for now I don't need one. :)
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I know exactly where you're coming from and that's how I felt 15 years ago. Guess I've just got lazy as I've got older :D
 
Well I wasn't expecting to pick the car up until next week sometime but I had a call at 4pm this afternoon to tell me it had flown through the MOT and it's available for me to collect tomorrow!!

Cue me madly rushing to get the Volvo cleaned up inside an out and insurance sorted ready for tomorrow. Slightly annoyed as quotes earlier in the week were coming up at ~£325, but couldn't find anything for less than £375 today.

Will be making the 2 hour drive to go get her as early as possible tomorrow morning...CANT WAIT!!!! :)
 
Well I picked her up today!! Had a lovely drive back from Essex...got home and managed to get my phone paired up to the Bluetooth, she was running like a dream.

It's my birthday tomorrow so was due to go out for dinner this evening with the gf and her family. Climb into the car to head on over to the gfs and it won't start! It had all the symptoms of a dead battery..lights came on on the dash but when turning the key it just clicked.

Called Green Flag out who came out and initially diagnosed a flat battery, so he hooked it up to his van and we tried to start it again..this time she turned over but wouldn't fire. He plugged his diag machine in which reports codes of no signal from the crankshaft position sensor. He tried unplugging the battery for 5 minutes but that didn't help :(

She's now sat on the drive unable to be driven and has to be recovered to a local BMW specialist on Monday :( It was all going so well!
 
Well I still don't have the car back :( Got it recovered to the local BMW specialist first thing this morning who said it was probably just flooded after all the failed attempts at starting it. I left it with them to sort out while I went to work.

In the meantime I called the dealer and had a rant, and they admitted they had a feeling the battery may be dodgy..yeah thanks for that!. They'd trickle-charged it the night before I collected the car and hoped for the best. They were perfectly happy to purchase a new battery and I left the dealer to organise it all with the garage, who agreed with the diagnosis of a dodgy battery as they'd managed to get the car running but only with a jump; the battery wasn't holding a charge.

The new battery finally arrived at 5pm so I shot off with the gf to pick the car up while the garage fitted it. Got a call half way there to tell me that the battery was the wrong one! Now have to wait until tomorrow until they get the correct battery in.

Have owned the car for 3 days now and driven it for a total of 2.5 hours..really can't wait to get behind the wheel of it again..I'd just found sport mode on the gearbox and was looking forward to testing it out further :)
 
She's back :) New battery and the plugs whipped out to remove the excess fuel was all she needed.

Had such a lovely drive home. I've just ordered an aux in cable but not sure I'm going to need it as its much more fun just opening the window and listening to the engine noise :)

Will get her cleaned up at the weekend and get some proper photos taken.
 
Talking of warranties..tomorrow is the last day I can get the cheaper rate BMW warranty (will tick over 60k) so I've taken the plunge and gone for the Comprehensive warranty without Emergency Service.

Feels good to know she's covered for a year should anything to wrong.
 
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