BMW and M Power Owners

[TW]Fox;29673565 said:
It's such a shame they only do it as a 3 series. A wonderful package spoiled as you get inside :(
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X5 40e and 740e are out aswell, 5 series next I hear. Personally I want a next gen Z4 40e, but not sure if there's the packaging flexibility for the battery packs!

My main gripe of the interior is the old school handbrake and the tiny cupholders.
 
A 740e would be amazing, i love hybrid tech...

By the time i am willing to buy one though the batteries will probably all have died :p
 
Please can someone with more logic/sense than me explain if what I'm looking at is just plain daft?

Sell current car: £1500-2000
Cash: £2000-3000
3.3% loan over X months: £14000-15000

Purchase M135i; 1 owner, BMWFSH, 12-13 plate with no more than 40k miles.

Sell car in 12-18 months, clear the loan.

The car will be used for approximately 1000 business miles a month @ 0.45p (sometimes less, sometimes more), which will easily cover the monthly payments with spare change.

I want this car, but I don't know if the plan is absurd or not.
 
If you're using a car for business mileage I'm not entirely sure why you'd buy a hot hatch. Don't forget you've got to run it too, not just pay for it.
You're also likely to have an early repayment fee on the loan.
 
So you're looking at approx £4k down and £270 per month to cover 12k per year? And your fuel expenses will pay you back at £450 per month?

Lease possible here?
 
xs2man said:
So you're looking at approx £4k down and £270 per month to cover 12k per year? And your fuel expenses will pay you back at £450 per month?

Lease possible here?
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It will be used for business + personal mileage. I'd rather avoid a lease as I want complete flexibility (basically to sell before I buy a house).
 
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Dis86 said:
If you're using a car for business mileage I'm not entirely sure why you'd buy a hot hatch. Don't forget you've got to run it too, not just pay for it.
You're also likely to have an early repayment fee on the loan.
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I've wanted an M135i for years, but I've never been able to afford it. Now I can - so it's a bit of a dream car for me.

The 135 seems like a middle ground. It's understated, very quick, cheap insurance (for me), not absurdly expensive to purchase and it can also potentially do 30-35MPG on a good economical motorway run.
 
You can only claim the 45p for the first 10,000 miles and after that anything over 25ppm is considered a taxable benefit. Something you need to be aware of.

Anyway, I bought an M135i as my "one car for everything" car, and it does it reasonably well. I get good fuel economy (average since day one over nearly 34k miles is 34.3mpg) and with the service pack my services are covered until 50k miles.

Whether the car will be worth enough to cover you loan after 12 months is debatable. They hold value reasonably well for what they are but the deals you can get on a brand new one affect the second hand values quite a bit. It will depend how quickly you're paying it off.
 
Havana_UK said:
You can only claim the 45p for the first 10,000 miles and after that anything over 25ppm is considered a taxable benefit. Something you need to be aware of.

Anyway, I bought an M135i as my "one car for everything" car, and it does it reasonably well. I get good fuel economy (average since day one over nearly 34k miles is 34.3mpg) and with the service pack my services are covered until 50k miles.

Whether the car will be worth enough to cover you loan after 12 months is debatable. They hold value reasonably well for what they are but the deals you can get on a brand new one affect the second hand values quite a bit. It will depend how quickly you're paying it off.
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Yes I'm aware of that. But the 10k @ 0.45p will at least contribute to the monthly loan repayments (which I can afford outright anyway).

With regards to the MPG, on a good lengthy motorway run (which a lot of my miles are), do you find that 30+ is easily achievable?

I'm only planning on keeping the car until I buy a house, so I'd sell the car and clear the loan prior to buying a house. This is why I don't want to lease or PCP.
 
Robi said:
Yes I'm aware of that. But the 10k @ 0.45p will at least contribute to the monthly loan repayments (which I can afford outright anyway).

With regards to the MPG, on a good lengthy motorway run (which a lot of my miles are), do you find that 30+ is easily achievable?

I'm only planning on keeping the car until I buy a house, so I'd sell the car and clear the loan prior to buying a house. This is why I don't want to lease or PCP.
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I regularly achieve 38-40mpg on my motorway journeys but how ou drive will have a massive impact. Stick at 70mph and the engine is just purring away, no strain at all and it runs very efficiently, but if you're forever putting your foot down it will drink the fuel. Last track day, for example, I got 8mpg!
 
Robi said:
I've wanted an M135i for years, but I've never been able to afford it. Now I can - so it's a bit of a dream car for me.

The 135 seems like a middle ground. It's understated, very quick, cheap insurance (for me), not absurdly expensive to purchase and it can also potentially do 30-35MPG on a good economical motorway run.
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Not to be a douche but if you're needing to take out a loan you can't afford it. That's the point of loans. They allow you to buy things you can't afford.
You're also forgetting for the last two months of the year you won't be getting the full amount as it's limited to 10k miles.
30 to 35 on a run, maybe. What about the rest of the times when you're mid to high 20s?
I'm not saying don't go for it, I'm just thinking you're being too simplistic in your approach financially.
 
Dis86 said:
Not to be a douche but if you're needing to take out a loan you can't afford it. That's the point of loans. They allow you to buy things you can't afford.
You're also forgetting for the last two months of the year you won't be getting the full amount as it's limited to 10k miles.
30 to 35 on a run, maybe. What about the rest of the times when you're mid to high 20s?
I'm not saying don't go for it, I'm just thinking you're being too simplistic in your approach financially.
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I appreciate what you're saying (and you're not being a douche), but I can afford £270 a month. I can even afford £500 or £600 a month, but I don't want to spend that. In fact, I could buy the car outright tomorrow in cash without borrowing anything, but that money is going towards a house - hence my post :p

£270 a month without any mileage contributions will still allow me to save a decent amount per month towards a deposit, which is why I'm exploring this as an option. 10k @ 0.45p will simply be a bonus, nothing more.

It's a performance car, so I'm not expecting good MPG. But it's nice to know it can achieve something similar to my current car, so I'm not going backwards in that respect.
 
FYI at my last fill up I calculated the cost per mile for the fuel and it worked out at about 13.2 ppm, and that was with V Power @ £1.189 / litre.

It's a great fun car. Get one, you'll love it!
 
Robi said:
V Power as standard or can you run it on normal 95?
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Mine's recession white with red leather, great combo IMHO! :)

You can run it on standard or premium, it's fine. I give mine a few tanks of V Power every so often just to help keep the engine clean, but I honestly can't tell the difference in performance between standard 95 & 97/98/99 RON fuel, and it also doesn't appear to impact on fuel economy one way or the other.
 
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