Hi
Thought I would type on here as I read a few reviews before choosing my company car and found them invaluable, also nice to contribute to somewhere that I read more than type.
So i've had the E90 for a few weeks now and have covered near on 2k miles, I specced the car with the follwoing:
M Sport 318 D - Alpine White
+ Heated Seats
+ Bluetooth with USB
+ Rear Arm Rest
+ Sun protection Glass
+ Storage Compartment Pack
The car was delivered in covered transprot which was lovely, arrived with 7.9 miles on the clock and looked great, this has been my first company car for a few years as the last time mine came for renewal redundencies forced me into a 12 month old Vectra SRI Which i came to grow to enjoy massivly.
The choice to have the BMW came mainly from the wife and my main concerns for me were that I couldnt afford with my budget to spec satnv, which was standard on every other car I could pick, or atleast I could spec it within budget.
First impressions were that it felt quite small compared to my Vectra and the Insignia I had had for a few weeks whilst this was on order, but i got used to this an instantly you could tell the car was rear drive and a real pleasure to drive, the only niggles I found were the dashboard seemed to creak all the time, its a little pet hate of mine and somethnig I had not expected from the BMW, but other than this the build quality is fantastic, the seats are amazingly comfortable and the M Sport steering wheel it perfect in size, it all looks a bit basic in the cockpit but all is very functional, the radio looks like its out he 80's but again once you get used to it the features are spot on and the tone is quite deep, I had read on the BM forums that you shoudl really upgrade the speaker package, I find it adequite for my needs.
To plug and use your Ipod you need a Y cable from BMW, this was £42 every other car i looked at came with the various connections but it works well and i'm sure you can get it cheaper on the net.
One of the reason I wanted to write this was because during the orderstage I asked a few questions about specs and every dealer basically dismissed me as it was a fleet car and its only since having the car you find out some useful things you should have ordered, mainly the Folding rear seats, I wrongly assumed every car had folding rear seats, apparently not so beware!
There are no DRL which BMW told me there were and also states on there website, DRL are only available with Zenons if you want real DRL as in the Corona Rings, for the halogen brigade youve just got dipped beam on all the time, or if your like me and didn't spec the Auto Lights feature you get nothing!
Some nice litle things i've found, at night the door handles all send down a little LED lighting so you can see all round the car, as mine is in white it looks really quite nice, you can start the heaters of a timer on the radio and the Start Stop works really well with the car.
I'm currently getting around 46MPG and can honestly say its the best "drivers" car i've driven in that family size vehicle section anyway.
I hope to have many more enjoyable miles in it and will post any more relevant updates.
Jon
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The performance/economy figures for the latest BMW diesels are so good as to be almost unbelievable.
Mid-40s mpg for a decent sized car that pulls like a train is great, and both performance and economy should improve as you put the miles on.
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Re the iPod input, is this the Aux input in the centre armrest / cubby hole? Mine just uses a four quid male to male headphone jack cable. Are the new ones a bit more sophisticated?
Just picked my car up after a software update and new oxygen sensor. Its actually running properly now. :-)
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If you've got a USB input don't bother with the Y piece thingy - dump all your iPOD songs onto a dongle - plug it in wait for it to load and bingo you have playback ! The MINI version is cheaper and does the same job otherwise.
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I brought the cable in a rush just to get my ipod to work, it was fine with just the "aux in" but you can't control it from the head unit then and it doesnt give you the song title.
The memory stick is a better option to be fair, but couldnt work out how to get my music from the Ipod to a memory stick, maybe a quick read would have saved me £40!!
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>> The performance/economy figures for the latest BMW diesels are so good as to be almost
>> unbelievable.
Yes, the BMW diesels appear to be something of a benchmark. I reckon driving my 530d at British motorway speeds would result in a fuel consumption of around 45mpg. Most of our employees drive 318d/ 320ds. They consistently get over 50mpg and fulfill Euro 5 emission regulations. The 320d particularly has excellent acceleration and performance and is a very impressive, driver oriented car. Quite an achievement from the BMW engineers.
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BMW 3-Series E90 - 2k mile review on E90 318d M Sport - Iffy
