BMW 3 Series Saloon

nam

nam

Soldato
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Hiya

Need some help please i am looking to buy a 3 series Saloon either 325i, 328i or 330i Automatic and ideally under 3 years old. The budget i have is up to 16K. BMW experts do you have any suggestions ?

Cheers
 
Associate
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The 328I was replaced by the 330i after 2000 so you definatly cannot get a 328i under 3 years old.

Brilliant cars thou, I have a 328i SE saloon myself and I'm loveing every second of it. Mines 6 years old (still E46 shape) but feels as good as most new cars I've driven. For one under 3 years it will still have BMW warranty (which can be extended indefinatly for a fixed price) so theres not much to worry about. Well worth getting one with a few optional extras and maybe a sports kit as that seems to hold the resale value a bit better.
 
Man of Honour
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You have simply loads of choice for your budget.

I would look at the 320i Sport, 325i Sport and 330i Sport.

All are fast - 320i is 0-60 in 7.7 seconds and 170bhp, 325i is 0-60 in 7.1 seconds and 192bhp and 330i is properly fast with 0-60 in 5.9 seconds and 231bhp.

Very common in Automatic form.
 
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GSXRMovistar said:
Also seeing as you are in London I'd recommend popping down to http://www.bigmotoringworld.co.uk/, even if you don't want to buy from them they have LOADS of 3 series in stock to take a look at/test drive.

Have you bought from them?

I am really tempted to buy a 5 Series from them but think some of their prices appear a little too good to be true. If you've bought from them a review of your experiences woule be most useful.
 
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[TW]Fox said:
Have you bought from them?

I am really tempted to buy a 5 Series from them but think some of their prices appear a little too good to be true. If you've bought from them a review of your experiences woule be most useful.

A friend of mine bought his M3 from there and he was really pleased with how things went. I should be seeing him on Sunday so I'll ask him for a quick run down of how the deal went.
 
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[TW]Fox said:
Have you bought from them?

I am really tempted to buy a 5 Series from them but think some of their prices appear a little too good to be true. If you've bought from them a review of your experiences woule be most useful.
Yes I got mine from there; overall it was a good buy but had a couple of small issues with them.

Firstly I think I got lucky as I got it for a really good price, the price they gave me was given before they actually saw the car. I turned up as it had just been taken off the delivery lorry before it had been washed/reviewed etc so they hadn’t accounted for a few of the options such as Xenon light etc and the mileage.

Because of this they didn’t want to drop the price any further so I had to argue hard with the other things they could do, I managed to get them to give me a warranty for next to nothing and a full set of new mats (although this probably costs them nothing).

Only issues with the car were firstly a faulty key (knackered chip), which they originally said they would replace if it wouldn’t recharge, but I ended up getting the brush off and had the owner tell me they never agreed to that. Lesson to be learnt is to make sure you get EVERYTHING sorted before giving them any cash. I got key sorted by a BMW specialist garage.

And the second issue, which they weren’t really to blame for, was a steering sensor failing a week after I got it, but this was replaced under warranty so didn’t cost me anything.
 
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D4VE said:
whats a steering sensor?
There’s a couple of them in the steering column and they tell the DSC (Dynamic Stability Control) what angle the wheels are at (for traction control), if this fails the DSC turns itself off for safety as it doesn’t want to apply any braking corrections that could obviously end up causing an accident.

Only a small cheap component but a bugger to get too, so it’s a fair amount of work to replace. Once swapped it needs to be plugged into the BMW computers to reset the DSC and remove the safety override.
 

nam

nam

Soldato
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thanks for all the info guys, what would you recommend as the best value for my 16k ideally if i can i get a 330i with leather, low mileage and under 3 years old, any suggestions on where to buy and arrange a test drive. BMW dealers seem very snobbish when you ask for a test drive... :(
 
Soldato
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[TW]Fox said:
Would you buy from them again if the opportunity arose?
Yeah I think I would, the car itself has been great, and as I mentioned I just make sure I got everything sorted upfront, which I probably should have done in the first place but was too keen to take the car there and then. :p
 
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