BMWLand

As per the title..

Having just sold the Westfalia camper, it just dawned on us that we need a second car. We set ourselves a £15k budget, well I did, my better half thought we’d be more sensible at £10k, but I wanted to buy AUC for peace of mind. In terms of vehicle, we initially thought F20 118d. We enquired on a couple but found a lot were very basic spec and the ones with big specs were quickly sold. This then turned out to be a consistent theme. It seems that there is a huge amount of pent up demand and the world and his wife is out there buying cars. It’s very much a sellers market.

This weekend I have had conversations on 6 different cars. In all cases we were pipped to the post by others; sometimes by just an hour. Yesterday afternoon I was about to buy an F10 530d and was minutes from putting down the deposit when my girlfriend saw an X1 and her face lit up. That pointed the search in a new direction. This morning we thought we’d secured the unicorn of of all F48’s -...

The wife mentioned 2 weeks ago that the Gran Tourer felt a bit too big , she fancied a newer model smaller car after doing some research we settled on a F20 1 series , the new model just looks a bit uglier she said .
So here it is 2019 118d M sport Shadow Edition .
These things have a lot of nice touches : Led Head lights
Smoked front & rear lights
Privacy glass
Black dakota leather sports seats
Heated front seats
Cruise control
Rear parking sensors
719M 18" alloys...

So finally took the plunge and bought the 330e I’d been deciding on this morning.




A few pics tomorrow but I’m really happy with it. Although I love my tech and toys when it comes to cars, I think I’ve got my work cutout here... I drive 6 is a joy to use with an improved rotary controller from my last f30, touchscreen as well (though that doesn’t interest me).

Onto the performance and efficiency. It definitely shifts, quickly when you need it, as I’d experienced in the test drives, but it’s also slightly more efficient than I’d read about when it comes to driving on petrol only. Gear shifts are swift and smooth but the petrol motor can sometimes over-rev on kick down...

With 10 miles left in the electric motor leaving the dealership, I’d driven at normal speeds from Huddersfield back to York at 58.8 combined mpg, and about 12 miles on electric (having read up on how best to switch modes...