Joining the darkside!!

Sometimes I wonder about BMW choice of colour combo! the centre armrest area should be black since the dash is black/carbon! still, looks tidy :)

[TW]Fox;12126507 said:
39 mpg around town? yea right, no chance. You would be doing well to get that from a 320d let alone a 318i.

320D gets more than that around town, My uncle in Southampton has a 2002 320D saloon and gets at 40MPG at least around town.

OBC on mine right now says 38.9 MPG, I drove around Ports Down Hill today and the lowest I saw was 38.5MPG.

In fact I've done almost 2k miles this month of having the car and have not seen below 37MPG a single time.
 
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it that an SE?

I dont think so,at least the advert does not mention it.

2 Doors, Manual, Coupe, Petrol, 66,085 miles, Blue. ABS, Adjustable seats, Air conditioning, Alloy wheels, Central locking, Cruise control, Driver airbag, Electric mirrors, Electric windows, Foglights, Head restraints, Folding rear seats, Immobiliser, Park distance control, Passenger airbag, Power assisted steering, Rear armrest, Radio/Cassette, Side airbags, Rear headrests, Traction control, CD, CD Multichanger, Leather seats, Leather upholstery, Locking wheel nuts, Metallic paintwork, Multi function steering wheel, Radio, Remote locking, Radio/CD Multichanger.
 
It is an SE, but has the black alu-cube trim. Something is a bit odd about that interior - at a guess, someone at some point has fitted the leather seats, arm rest and door cards, as well as the black cube trim.

The lower dash should be grey with the grey interior. Although nothing to worry about and better than having cloth.

Should look a bit more like this:

P9180143.jpg
 
So basically half of the car isn't original.

Not sure why but I'd be giving that car a very wide berth.
 
You could also walk in with said number and walk out with a print out from the dealer :D
 
Well i shall take a look at it tomorrow and see how well it drives. If i dont like it i will walk away and continue my hunt.
 
OBC on mine right now says 38.9 MPG, I drove around Ports Down Hill today and the lowest I saw was 38.5MPG.

In fact I've done almost 2k miles this month of having the car and have not seen below 37MPG a single time.

This is becuase your OBC shows an average since last reset - you can't do a 100 mile Motorway trip, get 43mpg, then pop into town, the average comes down to 38mpg and declare 'wow it does 38mpg'.

You need to reset the average before you set off on your town trip.

The simple fact is that a 2003 3 Series with a 2 litre 16v petrol engine will NOT return nearly 40mpg around town. Infact, it would be doing VERY well to even break 30mpg around town even with the local vicar driving it.

Town = short trips, cold starts, stop-start, traffic lights, etc etc. It's the most taxing sort of driving you can do and results in the poorest fuel economy from your car.

The official BMW 'urban' figure for a 2003 318Ci manual is 26mpg, IIRC. There is simply no way that you are acheiving 12mpg more than that.
 
I don't always drive such short journeys though, being in gosport the furthest I normally need to drive is Fareham which is 4 miles away of 40MPH road. I guess this doesn't really count as strictly town driving though?

I just checked the back of the manual and it says:
Urban: 27.2MPG
Extra Urban: 49.6MPG
Combined: 38.2MPG

So yeah, we're half / half here I guess and my particular combined MPG is well in line with the manufacturer expected combined figure :)

BTW is it advised then to reset the trip on each journey ? So far I have only reset it on every tank fillup which has been...3 and a bit since having this car so I can see the tank average MPG instead of journey average, e46 doesn't have Consump 1 and 2 like your car does :(
 
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