Katanator
Active member
Having wanted to drive a petrol M car for quite some time I have been watching the for sale section on the forum for a good part of 8 months. Needless to say me and my brother booked a one way ticket to EL this weekend and had a nice little roadtrip back to Gauteng. Must say the N6 from EL to Bloem is an absolutely beautiful road, good condition, little traffic and scenic views.
Having owned 5 previous diesel BMW's in different 3 series models some 20d and some 30d the one thing that I was looking for in a petrol BMW is the high rev grunt from the rear. And I must say S85 does a good job with that. Some initial impresions between this and my daily G20 330d is nothing beats the lowdown torque you get from the B57 and the ZF8HP in combination makes the gearchanges seem super quick.
However where the M6 does shine is once you get the rev counter above the 6000rpm mark, then it realy comes alive. The SMG box is certainly something to get used to when coming from the ZF8HP and I believe should only be driven in the manual mode. It gives you the ability to minize the amount of shifts as you drive faster or slower and only shift when you need to. For long parts of the road I was happy to just stick it in 5th and leave it there, the engin is strong enough to do the rest. 6th and 7th gear it seems is only there to lower fuel consumption as you will hardly ever drive fast enought to really utilize them. All in all its a great drive but I would not rate the SMG box as the ideal daily driver but luckily thats not the purpose of this car. Its something which will be used on occasional home to work and more over weekends.
The vehicle is extremely well taken care of and not much needed. Bearings and TA have already been sorted. Current mileage just below 100k mark.
Some things I consider to change/do:
Front bumper and one or 2 small panel resprays due to stone chips
Having sorted the major preventative maintenance I would still consider to check out below and need some advice regarding who, how and when:
Vanos, do you attend to this preventatively or leave till it bothers?
SMG gearbox and hydraulic cylinder oil change, when is this recommended if at all and do you do both or only gearbox oil?
The car has a little rough idle on startup for about 10-30 seconds and then calms down and idles smoothly, I have read some describe this as normal, or not?
Any other recomendations.
Some pictures we took:
Having owned 5 previous diesel BMW's in different 3 series models some 20d and some 30d the one thing that I was looking for in a petrol BMW is the high rev grunt from the rear. And I must say S85 does a good job with that. Some initial impresions between this and my daily G20 330d is nothing beats the lowdown torque you get from the B57 and the ZF8HP in combination makes the gearchanges seem super quick.
However where the M6 does shine is once you get the rev counter above the 6000rpm mark, then it realy comes alive. The SMG box is certainly something to get used to when coming from the ZF8HP and I believe should only be driven in the manual mode. It gives you the ability to minize the amount of shifts as you drive faster or slower and only shift when you need to. For long parts of the road I was happy to just stick it in 5th and leave it there, the engin is strong enough to do the rest. 6th and 7th gear it seems is only there to lower fuel consumption as you will hardly ever drive fast enought to really utilize them. All in all its a great drive but I would not rate the SMG box as the ideal daily driver but luckily thats not the purpose of this car. Its something which will be used on occasional home to work and more over weekends.
The vehicle is extremely well taken care of and not much needed. Bearings and TA have already been sorted. Current mileage just below 100k mark.
Some things I consider to change/do:
Front bumper and one or 2 small panel resprays due to stone chips
Having sorted the major preventative maintenance I would still consider to check out below and need some advice regarding who, how and when:
Vanos, do you attend to this preventatively or leave till it bothers?
SMG gearbox and hydraulic cylinder oil change, when is this recommended if at all and do you do both or only gearbox oil?
The car has a little rough idle on startup for about 10-30 seconds and then calms down and idles smoothly, I have read some describe this as normal, or not?
Any other recomendations.
Some pictures we took:
Although I see them both as cars that will only appreciate in value over time. Its got 488km on the clock but the 4.2d 1HZ has been overhauled so should be good for a few 100k km's more. Body work and interior is still immaculate and original and no rust so for me its a keeper.
