"I didn't anticipate buying another car" was the exact words I told my wife, just before I let her know that a new daily was purchased.. For context, when I bought the X5 for her, she was not traveling into the office and I was using that as my daily to travel to the office twice a week. In Jan this year that changed as she moved to a new role and she needs to be at the office 3 times a week. My son also just started school this year and we had to alternate pick up's and drop off's which meant that the I would need to use either the M3 or 30i daily to do office/school runs, sitting in traffic and dealing with the perils of rush hour. I had one incident one morning in the M3, where a taxi missed to take me out on the way to the office - at that point I figured I would look for a daily to use, whilst I kept the garage queens away for metered use.
I had my sights set on a E82 120d coupe as something small that the wife or I could use and had 2 promising leads, a friend that was considering selling his and a lead from the forum. Both of these bombed out, my friend's because his wife said no and the lead because it was a ludicrous price for a car that had no verifiable history and more owners than I was comfortable with. I opened the criteria to include E90 20d's and had my eye on a few before I got an offer I COULDN'T refuse..
I had started out looking for a motorsport 20d automatic, but ended up in something quite different.. My older brother was consolidating his garage and was interested in a F25, he came across one and called me one morning, asking if I would take his 30d off his hands. If I said yes, he was going to view the X3 but if I said no, he was going to pass - NO PRESSURE.. This started off as his daily 4 years ago but halfway through that became his garage queen, I weighed up the pro's and con's while on that call and told him I would take the car if the X3 panned out - well, it did.. This is quite possibly the cleanest pre-LCi 330d I have seen and the condition easily belies the mileage, it is predominantly long distance mileage.
Introducing the unexpected daily, my 2006 BMW 330d Exclusive Manual (I genuinely didn't want another manual, really). It has been exceptionally well maintained by both the previous owners, the car came with a thick file of receipts for everything that has been done, which is quite extensive. Mod-wise there is a DP, back box and a set of 193's.
Flew down 3 weeks ago to collect and some pics from the drive up - really impressed with the consumption considering the speeds being done to make up time.
Managed to test my first mod, swapping over the E46 ZHP knob to the car to test before I got a 6 speed one - I've subsequently ordered one from ABM, what a difference!
After daily'ing this car for a few weeks, I couldn't be happier. It suits my needs perfectly and combined consumption of 6.5l vs the 10.5l to the X5 is a welcomed change considering the sportier, care free drive I get to enjoy. Having had the 20d LCi, the additional power is certainly noticeable and I hardly find myself having to exceed 2.5k rpm to really get going. The diesel clutch does take a bit of getting used to though!
Having been through 4 E9x platforms in various guises, this is my second exclusive E90 and I know exactly what I would like to do.. I have a few small mods and some preventative maintenance on the cards, to be done over the course of this year.
I had my sights set on a E82 120d coupe as something small that the wife or I could use and had 2 promising leads, a friend that was considering selling his and a lead from the forum. Both of these bombed out, my friend's because his wife said no and the lead because it was a ludicrous price for a car that had no verifiable history and more owners than I was comfortable with. I opened the criteria to include E90 20d's and had my eye on a few before I got an offer I COULDN'T refuse..
I had started out looking for a motorsport 20d automatic, but ended up in something quite different.. My older brother was consolidating his garage and was interested in a F25, he came across one and called me one morning, asking if I would take his 30d off his hands. If I said yes, he was going to view the X3 but if I said no, he was going to pass - NO PRESSURE.. This started off as his daily 4 years ago but halfway through that became his garage queen, I weighed up the pro's and con's while on that call and told him I would take the car if the X3 panned out - well, it did.. This is quite possibly the cleanest pre-LCi 330d I have seen and the condition easily belies the mileage, it is predominantly long distance mileage.
Introducing the unexpected daily, my 2006 BMW 330d Exclusive Manual (I genuinely didn't want another manual, really). It has been exceptionally well maintained by both the previous owners, the car came with a thick file of receipts for everything that has been done, which is quite extensive. Mod-wise there is a DP, back box and a set of 193's.
Flew down 3 weeks ago to collect and some pics from the drive up - really impressed with the consumption considering the speeds being done to make up time.
Managed to test my first mod, swapping over the E46 ZHP knob to the car to test before I got a 6 speed one - I've subsequently ordered one from ABM, what a difference!
After daily'ing this car for a few weeks, I couldn't be happier. It suits my needs perfectly and combined consumption of 6.5l vs the 10.5l to the X5 is a welcomed change considering the sportier, care free drive I get to enjoy. Having had the 20d LCi, the additional power is certainly noticeable and I hardly find myself having to exceed 2.5k rpm to really get going. The diesel clutch does take a bit of getting used to though!
Having been through 4 E9x platforms in various guises, this is my second exclusive E90 and I know exactly what I would like to do.. I have a few small mods and some preventative maintenance on the cards, to be done over the course of this year.
