My time with the 3 series is over...

I do, had very specific instructions with mine and stuck to them. Some say babying them a little doesn't help the rings bed in but I wanted to do what the manufacturer says is best.

 

With both cars and motorcycles I have just used moderate performance and avoid peak revs for the first 500 miles and then increase performance to maximum at 1000 miles, but never driving too gently. It's good to use frequent, moderate acceleration and engine breaking in the gears to bed in the cylinders.

The worst thing you can do is drive too gently as it can cause the bores to become glazed, preventing the rings from bedding in properly.

 

I wasn't allowed to exceed 5500rpm and 100mph for the first 1200 miles. I think i took it to 5400 a fair bit after the first 200 miles and might have hit 90odd(kph) a few times.

 

Don't think mine has done any more than 2000rpm or 2500rpm max so far.

Kev

 

Nothing wrong with a good Fordy , I used to be a Ford man myself till I bought a BMW .

 

The last Ford I had was a sky blue Cortina Mk 1 - some decades ago.

 

My first few cars were Fords, a 1987 1.1 Fiesta Pop, 1989 Fiesta LX (had an RDS radio don’t you know…) and my favourite was a 1992 Escort 1.4 in dark metallic green. Had that for ages, loved it.

Hopefully your new Focus will be as uber reliable and as trouble free as those three were.

 

I never actually owned a Ford but have plenty of experience of them through fleet and hire cars .......always enjoyed driving a Mondeo, done plenty of miles in one during my Caterham group days....great handling and ride, always seemed reliable (one of the fleet had done 170k and still drove well)

 

Hi all,

Just seen my 3 series show up online for sale - have to say slightly gutted at the price it's up for - way more than i got part-ex and more than what auto trader said it was worth when i sold it so looks like they have priced it high and hoping someone will buy it...

No pictures on it yet but looking at the info, it looked very familiar to mine and when i managed to get the brochure online, still no pics but it did show the reg as mine...

They say its a stunning example.... let's hope they fixed the wheel corrosion

Kev

 

Wheel corrosion…..? Didn’t realise you had a problem with wheel corrosion…..

How is the Focus working out?

 

Hi,

Yeah, here was thread I posted on the fiasco
https://bmwland.org.uk/index.php?threads/wheel-corrosion.1991/
In brief summary, they replaced 1 wheel but said others needed to get worse before they could replace, warranty was then due to end and was told no problem, they had discretion upto 2k to fix issues but would not give me that in writing, then when they were corroded enough, they then wanted me to pay towards repairs which I said I wont be doing so the wheels have slowly corroded ever since more and more and then gave up chasing BMW etc to repair them.

Focus is not doing too badly thanks, its got a bit more go on motorway for example, picking up speed is better than i thought and its not too bad around town when driving to work. overall it's not bad do miss the bigger engine with more go etc but overall it's not too bad. Auto box is better than i thought so have definitely been some improvements, fords from way back i recall you always felt the gear changes but not so in this and it's pretty quiet inside the car so plenty of sound deadening. Cr has done approx 1.8k miles now and been ok so far.

Smaller tank (approx. 47litres?) means more trips to fuel station but at least i'm not having to pay over 1.70 for diesel now.. although petrol is 1.60 something... Got to fill up tomorrow...

Kev

 

www.bmwland.org.uk/index.php?threads/wheel-corrosion

@Kev2005 got right royally stitched up by his local dealer over the diamond cut alloy white worm and that is one of the reasons he went elsewhere for the new car

if your dealer of choice shafted you once why would you go back and drop a lot of money on a new car with them

 

I had read all of Kev’s threads, was being a little cheeky in my message. Can only imagine how frustrating that must have been.
Good to hear the Focus is doing the job for you.

 

not sure what sort of dealer is selling your old car but the norm for a BMW dealer seems to be three to five grand margin on a trade in. when my 6GT was put up for sale they were just shy of three grand but they did pay strong money for it and as they weren't to greedy they moved it on very quickly

 

I was told by Ford's it was going to a auction. The company that has it sells BMW, merc, mini and says they are a prestige, sports and German specialist. The price advertised is more than 5k over what I got for it. Some of the details is a little sceptical i.e.

• 360 degree parking sensors - it only has front and rear sensors, no sensors down the side of the car...
• they claim 38,000 miles, it was a little over 38,700 when I sold
• Cruise control with braking function - it has cruise control but it doesn't brake, you have to do that manually i.e if you get close to a car in front, if not you will simply drive straight into it

So the details are not 100% accurate it seems.

Still no pics of it yet...

Kev

 

it's been just over 2 months since i sold it so possibly they have had some things sorted out on it, namely the corrosion on wheels and according to the last service in Oct 2021, there was:-

2 slightly weeping but not leaking trackrod
1 rear tyre was down to 3mm so recommended replacing and the other at 4mm.
Fronts were at 6mm.

Assuming the tyre depths were actually those as I found in the past it sometimes gains tyre depth I never replaced these tyres as I knew I knew the car was effectively sold, was waiting the Focus and I only did approx 2k miles since the Oct. service so wasn't worth it to me.

Kev

 

My old M5 is up for £5750 more than I traded it for. It still hasn’t sold!!!! Around 35000 miles and mint in a very desirable spec and colour combo. Crazy as it has been 5 months now lol.

Oh and they took off the lovely OEM twin slat grills with the M5 emblem and put in a cheap black eBay grill and seems to have used copious amounts of cockpit shine. When I traded it in the interior was mint and they throw that crap over it

 

I’ve got a Focus for the next three days, Enterprise have sent me a 20 plate one, dark grey with some sort of slightly off-road look about it. Not sure what the trim level is, but has plenty of equipment.
Oddly the dash show 34k kilometres as the “mileage”.

 

“Active” is the specification apparently.

 

Nice, Active basically sits a bit higher off the road - like a crossover maybe? i.e higher than a regular Focus but not as high as a puma/kuga?

Mine is magnetic in colour so possibly the same, its not bad looking, can hide the dirt not too badly

Be interesting to see what mpg you get, is it a mild hybrid or just petrol? Manual or auto?

Kev