Let's hope the wrenches get nice and dusty: 2016 M3

[Apoc]

I think maybe the theme is less broken shit.  There's a lot of old people on here with multiple cars.

Im up to 4.

Hell Id do 6 or 7 if I had the space and even less financial sense than I already do.

Not kidding when I say the reason I haven't bought another car is garage space. #firstworldproblems

BTW, this car is the one car I consider selling the GTI for every time I see one.

[Senor_Taylor]

I don't really see a problem with selling everything and moving to the one new car. Just think about how interested you are in playing the "market" on those 2 M cards that are definitely going to appreciate a bit more.

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[Scott]

I don't really see a problem with selling everything and moving to the one new car. 

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I have this internal conversation every single day.  Turn several cars into one really nice one to simply my life.

[.RJ]

I don't really see a problem with selling everything and moving to the one new car. 

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I have this internal conversation every single day.  Turn several cars into one really nice one to simply my life.

until you end up with a TDI wagon.

[Senor_Taylor]

I had a GTI as a single car and that was a great year of my life.

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[Scott]

I don't really see a problem with selling everything and moving to the one new car. 

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

I have this internal conversation every single day.  Turn several cars into one really nice one to simply my life.

until you end up with a TDI wagon.

You spelled 911 wrong

[Apoc]

I had a GTI as a single car and that was a great year of my life.

I have a GTI and I can't imagine it being my only car. Yay!

[Senor_Taylor]

I had a GTI as a single car and that was a great year of my life.

I have a GTI and I can't imagine it being my only car. Yay!

Yeah, I mean I had to get rid of it to get the truck and that has its own merits.

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[Steve85]

Damn, that's a killer color combo. I need that interior... Hope it treats you well!

[Beej]

Thanks!

Welp it got a clean bill of health from Delta V, so it won't be going back in the 7 day return period.

I'm still really pleased with it.  A couple notes:


Techie stuff:
Blind spot warning is cool but I wish the indicators were in the mirror itself instead of the side of them.  Lane departure warning is handy and although I've triggered the "you're tailgating" light, I hope to never test out the automatic braking.  The thing reading speed limit signs and displaying them in the HUD is neat and actually useful.

As cool as they may be, I haven't yet found a use for the side view and top view cameras.  Finally having a backup camera is nice though.

I'm glad some other dude spent all the money on the CF because I never would have.  Turns out that despite it being like $1200, BMW didn't want to figure out the kick-to-open-trunk thing with the CF diffuser, so it's either coded out or simply doesn't work.

It's 2019 and I can finally send directions from my phone to my car, hallelujah. And ventilate/unlock/lock and all that jazz too.  Online searching for the nearest Chipotle works like a charm.  The handwriting detection is actually really well implemented too, good for on-the-road navigation stuff.

Thanks to my Sport Display, I now know I use a maximum of about 200hp when dropping my kid off at preschool.

The LED headlights are...nice? I've never been a lighting nerd but these seem fine. Apparently they can be coded to do this fancy little dance that was disabled for US cars (0:44).


Drivie stuff:
I'm sure I'm just not used to it yet (and hopefully that takes awhile), but it's proper quick.  Like, gotta concentrate a little harder than I'm used to since things come up sooner kind of quick.

I'm sure I'm gonna miss my manuals but this transmission is seriously impressive and makes up for it in other ways.  Keep the car in boost and it's just rapid.  It doesn't quite manipulate the clutch the way I do below 10mph so that's taking a little getting used to - rolling stops are generally a bit weird, and I miss the ability to slip the clutch a little if I have to pull into traffic quickly. I also think I'd prefer the paddles to be on the column, but there's always the shifter.

Can't report on the handling front too much yet as I haven't really pushed it.  It feels pretty nimble and responsive.  Steering is precise but as basically everybody says, doesn't quite have the feel of the pre-electric cars - and yeah the e46's is better in that department, and the e39 (V8 cars anyway) is way worse.

I wish the exhaust flaps had their own button and weren't mapped to the throttle setting - I'd prefer a long throttle with individual flap control but oh well.  I can drive around in Sport to get my burbly pops going.

I noticed on my test drives too, but there's a fair bit of road/tire noise, more than I expected.  Seems to be a common complaint.

That's it! One week down.

[JustinG]

Top view is great for parallel parking.

Side view, is that so you can see left and right from the nose of the car?

[JPolen01]

The high beam dance is pretty damn cool.

[Apoc]

I only ever use top view to make sure I'm straight or all the way in a parking spot. I find the bendy lines on rear view so much better for parallel parking. I can parallel the F31 so much better than the GTI, for some reason.

[Beej]

Top view is great for parallel parking.

Side view, is that so you can see left and right from the nose of the car?

Yep now I use top view all the time. Here's side view - that yellow line is about where the front of the car is, which hopefully will reduce how many front splitters I go through.


Verbal diarrhea incoming.

No ragrets, not even the transmission. 1-2 shifts aren't always as imperceptible as the rest of the gears, but it's outstanding otherwise. It's like a video game and the seamless power delivery is addicting.

I've said that the e46 and e39 have the perfect amount for the street - enough to have fun but not get into too much trouble. Man I don't think I was too far off with that, and I still haven't calibrated myself to how this builds speed. Where as DSC was sorta intrusive and annoying on the old cars, it's actually helped me a few times in the f80.

That's when you can get the power down, anyway. I'm having real trouble with that, particularly in this weather. At around the 40 degree mark, it'll spin them up in 3rd gear in the dry and 4th in the wet - and that's from a roll, no shift needed. They're old Pilot Sports, but still. There aren't winters (or even all seasons) made in the factory 20" sizes, so maybe I'll pick up a set of the OE 19's and grab rubber for those. I haven't seen any aftermarket wheels that I love at stock ride height.

I don't know if the headlights are coded to do the witchcraft for oncoming traffic yet, but they definitely will light up the side of the road with high beams without blinding the car in front of you, which is some cool shit. They also do the 90's Buick-style "cornering light while turning" too.

It gets more attention than I'm used to, both good and bad. From the dude that said "god damn" as I came around a corner to the dude that road raged after a not-at-all-aggressive pass.

I think it says a lot that even during my last days with the e39 and e46, I still grab the f80's keys on the way out the door.

Broken shit: steering wheel heater doesn't seem to work, so I'll head to the dealer one of these days for that. Somebody must've rammed one of the plastic jack points off at some point, as I found it wedged under an underbody panel, too. No sheet metal damage so I've just ordered a new one to shove in there.

[JustinG]

Grab some of the jack pads off Amazon..

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711HW2HS/ref...1DbB0ZS3A9

[SlimKlim]

Good moves. I'm torn between getting a newer, affordable, manual second car or just going all in on a really nice daily in the next year or two. Whatever I do I'm pretty sure I'm never buying anything where I have deal with crumbling rubber and brittle plastic. Ever.

[Beej]

Had my first service appointment to fix my heated steering wheel ($1k in parts, yikes), and it went well.

I also had them look at a bubble in the leather on the dash and the head honcho dude said "yep, that's delamination" and OK'd the replacement. The bubble itself isn't all that noticeable, but I just don't want it to get worse and look awful in 5 years. I'd been waffling on whether I wanted this done - I've done dashboards before and it sucks and I don't want more rattles...but he convinced me they do it all the time and not to worry. So we'll see, should be here in a few weeks.

I didn't have any intentions of coding anything...until the dealer apparently reset a bunch of minor convenience type stuff I didn't know had been done. No splash screen/safety message that needs confirmation, a warning message that blocks part of the rearview camera, long press on comfort access folds mirrors, auto-unlock when turning off...all of that got undone. Those all appear to be simple coding with a phone app, but there's no point in re-coding until the dashboard is done, so I'll deal with it then.  I'm hoping I didn't lose the fancy Euro "anti-dazzle/no-glare" headlight coding, but I haven't driven at night yet to test it out. That would involve more complicated windows-laptop-manually-edit-german/hex-type coding, which has a bit of a learning curve.

After learning more about the car, it appears the PO was at least some sort of enthusiast. All the CF bits, the coding was done, there's this 3M anti-squeak tape on door trim, and I have a (7-series?) sunglass holder in place of the driver's oh shit handle.

[JustinG]

Pics of the sunglasses holder por favor. I could use that.

[Apoc]

Bimmercode app and an OBDII bluetooth dongle. It's kinda german hex-codey, but is still super easy to use. Justin convinced me and now I smile to myself every time I get the M Performance splash screen.

[Beej]

Pics of the sunglasses holder por favor. I could use that.

Bimmercode app and an OBDII bluetooth dongle. It's kinda german hex-codey, but is still super easy to use. Justin convinced me and now I smile to myself every time I get the M Performance splash screen.

Yeah I plan on using that (or Justin's) for the simpler stuff, but it seems like the Euro headlight coding has to be done with a program called eSys. That is, unless Bimmercode can do this.