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Old 2nd November 2018, 00:17   #31
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Great review and your joy at the fulfilment of a dream is well articulated. Happy motoring in your Bavarian barge!

The color really suits the car and I love the way the red taillights merge into the color as well. The seats are another draw for me and I really like their shape and the stitching on the leather.

Any reason why you opted for a 2017 used car instead of a 2018 model which should not have cost all that much over what you paid for the used car?

Drive on,
Shibu.
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Old 4th November 2018, 00:29   #32
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Quote:
Originally Posted by shibujp View Post

Any reason why you opted for a 2017 used car instead of a 2018 model which should not have cost all that much over what you paid for the used car?

Drive on,
Shibu.
I think the difference between brand new and 1-year old would be around 30%.
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Old 5th November 2018, 11:55   #33
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Congratulations and I am particularly happy to read this review as I have the same exact car with same color. Totally agree with all of your points.

I am going to complete 25K kms in 2 years and it is a very versatile car. I have driven it very regularly on daily commutes in very heavy traffic as well as long trips on all kinds of car.

Combinaton of driving dynamics, power at hand and the amazing seating ensures I have done hours without tiring.

And obviously I would agree that I find it to be the best looking Car in India right now

Last edited by neeravnaik : 5th November 2018 at 11:56.
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Old 5th November 2018, 16:51   #34
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Quote:
Originally Posted by carmayogi View Post
Ah - didn't see this earlier - my bad. I can understand your decision, but only asked because I wanted to know what one should be paying for something like this. Ideally, if I returned to India, this is what I'd rather buy than a Honda City sized car.

Wish you many thousands of trouble free and fun filled kilometers!
No problem at all, and thank you for your wishes. You can PM me and I will be happy to give you whatever information you need.

However, roughly speaking, in Bangalore specifically, the used 3-series rates are as follows. You will find plenty of 2012-13 models with about 50k to 60k km on the odo, and of course out of warranty. Those cars are sold at about Rs. 23L to Rs. 25L range, depending on the condition of the car.

2015 cars are sold at about Rs. 26-28L range, again depending on the condition of the car.

Then, it is extremely rate to find a 2016-17 car, that too in warranty and BSI. If you find such a car, then prices are definitely 30L+, and depending on mileage and trim (for Luxury line or Sports Line), the prices can go as high as 35-37L. I recently saw a 2018 car with about 7k km on the odo listed for about Rs. 40L.

So for anyone asking about price, hope this gives a general idea of going rates in Bangalore.

Quote:
Originally Posted by shibujp View Post
Great review and your joy at the fulfilment of a dream is well articulated. Happy motoring in your Bavarian barge!

The color really suits the car and I love the way the red taillights merge into the color as well. The seats are another draw for me and I really like their shape and the stitching on the leather.
Thank you very much. I really appreciate your thoughts, and apologies for nitpicking, but barge is not the right word. Barge is used to refer to cars which are huge, comfortable and luxurious, but not very sharp at handling. BMW 3-seris is exactly the opposite. It is a compact and sharp car, and it is one of the best handling cars around. So I would not call it is a barge. But nevertheless, I know what you meant and thanks again for your compliments and sorry for nitpicking.

Quote:
Any reason why you opted for a 2017 used car instead of a 2018 model which should not have cost all that much over what you paid for the used car?
The reason is precisely as stated by 5kmiles below.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 5kmiles View Post
I think the difference between brand new and 1-year old would be around 30%.
Correct! I paid about 30% lower price than the brand new discounted price. Compared to the brand new sticker price, this is about 40% lower! That is a huge difference, and shows how bad the depreciation can be in just 1 year of ownership. And this is precisely the reason I went for a 1 year old used car.

Quote:
Originally Posted by neeravnaik View Post
Congratulations and I am particularly happy to read this review as I have the same exact car with same color. Totally agree with all of your points.
I am going to complete 25K kms in 2 years and it is a very versatile car. I have driven it very regularly on daily commutes in very heavy traffic as well as long trips on all kinds of car.
Thank you very much, and wow, great to hear that you have the exact same car! And congratulations on your car too! As of today, I have some 22,300km on the odo, so it looks like our cars have run about the same distance too. It would be great to meet sometime and check out our cars and compare notes. :-)

Quote:
Combinaton of driving dynamics, power at hand and the amazing seating ensures I have done hours without tiring.
And obviously I would agree that I find it to be the best looking Car in India right now
Totally agree with you!

Last edited by Dr.AD : 5th November 2018 at 17:12.
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Old 6th November 2018, 15:44   #35
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

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Originally Posted by Dr.AD View Post


Thank you very much, and wow, great to hear that you have the exact same car! And congratulations on your car too! As of today, I have some 22,300km on the odo, so it looks like our cars have run about the same distance too. It would be great to meet sometime and check out our cars and compare notes. :-)

Totally agree with you!
Definitely would love to catch up. I was planning to buy an SUV (possibly X1) but fell in love with this car. I have used it as a family car and apart from more boot space I don't miss much and something we are willing to sacrifice for the driving pleasure and the wow factor.
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Old 6th November 2018, 17:50   #36
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.AD View Post

Thank you very much. I really appreciate your thoughts, and apologies for nitpicking, but barge is not the right word. Barge is used to refer to cars which are huge, comfortable and luxurious, but not very sharp at handling. BMW 3-seris is exactly the opposite.
I understand the sentiment and respect it too! I simply intended it to mean a big luxury car rather than attribute the handling of a river barge to a 3 series. How could I!! It would be sacrilegious.

Your review simply reinforces my belief that if I am I the market for a car costing 25-30L it might be a much more fulfilling experience for a car nut to pick up a depreciated car from one of the German marques than to get a brand new car for the price.

Drive on,
Shibu
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Old 7th November 2018, 12:26   #37
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Quote:
Originally Posted by shibujp View Post
Your review simply reinforces my belief that if I am I the market for a car costing 25-30L it might be a much more fulfilling experience for a car nut to pick up a depreciated car from one of the German marques than to get a brand new car for the price.
I totally agree. However, in 25-30L you will only get a used German marque that will be out of warranty. That is a bit risky. If you want a German luxury car which is within warranty, then you will have to extend this budget to 30-35L bracket. However, even in 30-35L range I don't see many options which are as much joy to drive as the 3-series. So yes, even if you extend the budget to 35L, what you said still holds true.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.AD View Post
What I like:
  • Fuel economy, and more importantly, range: On a typical highway drive, I get a range of more than 800km on a full tank.
To add to this point, here are real examples from last two drives:

Last Friday, I made a quick day-trip to Chennai for some work. From Bangalore to Chennai and return, and including some local drives either end, the trip was 707km. I did that (707km) on a single tank of fuel and yet the range was ~200km on the remaining fuel. In my busy schedule, I did not have to search for a fuel station or worry about fuel quality etc. I filled up at a trusted pump near my home and came back and happily filled up at the same point at the end of the trip.

Then on the weekend, I did a drive to Hampi and back. The total distance traveled was 750km, and this included a lot of idling of the car at a few photo-spots near Hampi. I still did that entire trip just in one tank, and when I returned home, the remaining range was still 130km.

Thus, even in real-world driving conditions I get a range of more than 800km, and this is a boon on those long highway drives.

Quote:
What I don't like:
Forgot to include one more point in the original list. The audio buttons on the steering wheel do not have a "mute" button. This is very annoying. I am so used to the mute button on the steering, and I miss this simple feature every day. Further, the buttons on the steering also lack a direct button for "prev/next track". This can be achieved by pressing the scroll wheel, which opens the list of tracks (or radio stations) on the instrument cluster, and then you can scroll up and down easily. So I use this "two-click" option for next track. A direct button on the steering for prev/next track (as is common in most cars now-a-days) would have been great. So in summary, there are inadequate number of buttons for audio system on the steering, and this is one thing I definitely do not like.
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Old 7th November 2018, 21:46   #38
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.AD View Post

Forgot to include one more point in the original list. The audio buttons on the steering wheel do not have a "mute" button. This is very annoying. I am so used to the mute button on the steering, and I miss this simple feature every day. Further, the buttons on the steering also lack a direct button for "prev/next track". This can be achieved by pressing the scroll wheel, which opens the list of tracks (or radio stations) on the instrument cluster, and then you can scroll up and down easily. So I use this "two-click" option for next track. A direct button on the steering for prev/next track (as is common in most cars now-a-days) would have been great. So in summary, there are inadequate number of buttons for audio system on the steering, and this is one thing I definitely do not like.
Instead of pressing in the steering wheel scroller, just roll it up or down once depending on whether you want the next or previous track. And it scrolls up or down in the list. At least I remember it happening like this. So no need for 2 clicks. To be honest its so much nicer to have the full list available than buttons to scroll one at a time.

Congrats on the car BTW, I have the exact same combination!!
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Old 7th November 2018, 22:33   #39
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Akshay1234 View Post
Instead of pressing in the steering wheel scroller, just roll it up or down once depending on whether you want the next or previous track. And it scrolls up or down in the list. At least I remember it happening like this. So no need for 2 clicks. To be honest its so much nicer to have the full list available than buttons to scroll one at a time.
Thanks, and you are correct about rolling the wheel without pressing it. But rolling that wheel first, and then clicking on the specific track is what I called two clicks. Rolling the wheel is what I counted as a click, although technically it is not a click :-)

Quote:
To be honest its so much nicer to have the full list available than buttons to scroll one at a time.
I totally agree. Maybe I just need to get used to this and I will appreciate it more. Yes, having the full list available and ability to select any track from that is a great thing.

Quote:
Congrats on the car BTW, I have the exact same combination!!
Thank you very much! Great to know that you have the same combination, and great that this car finds a place in your really awesome collection of cars! :-)

Last edited by Dr.AD : 7th November 2018 at 22:36.
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Old 9th November 2018, 10:08   #40
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Last weekend, we drove to Vijayanagar, near Hampi, for a photoshoot of the car on the backdrop of the famous Hampi boulders. Our bhpian friend and photographer Deepfreak15 was the main photographer, and accompanying us was RSUDARSANAN with his F30 320d.

Deepfreak15's report which includes some amazing photos he shot is published under 'Travelogues' section: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...ayanagara.html (I shot two Bimmers with stones! With two BMWs to Vijayanagara)

The car was as always a joy to drive. The last 50km section as we approached Vijayanagar was full of massive speed-breakers every now and then. Those speed-breakers are probably designed for those mining trucks which ply in large numbers in that area. Those speed-breakers were really massive, and definitely the biggest I have ever faced while driving this car. The speed-breakers were so big that even in my SX4 I would have had to be careful.

Thankfully, the 320d crossed those without any issues, but of course, I had to be very careful and practically come to a complete stop and then crawl over each speed-breaker at an angle. But eventually I got used to this routine and managed to cross all of them without any issue.

Apart from speed-breakers, the road was completely broken at many sections, and at some points we had to take diversions onto some stretches which were just some stone and loose soil.

I was very happy about the car's performance (i.e. ride quality and suspension behavior) on these bad roads. Of course, I was going terribly slow here, but once you slow down, the slow speed ride quality on such bad roads is really good. At no point we were thrown around in the car, and at no point the ride was bone jarring. This was with RFTs. So once again, this experience proved that the suspensions of LCI F30 are indeed really very well tuned and the ride quality was excellent all along.

Apart from this above-mention bad stretch of about 50km (either way), the rest of the road was a bliss to drive, with smooth tarmac and nice curves to enjoy the car. The car just behaved beautifully on those roads, and the curves were fun without even a slightest hint of body roll.

Overall, had a really fun trip.

Although this trip is covered separately in a detailed travelogue, I could not resist sharing some pictures here anyways. These pictures are all taken by me using my basic photography equipment. For much better photos taken by Deepfreak15, you could refer to that travelogue mentioned earlier. The blue 320d in some of the photos is RSUDARANAN's F30 320d Luxury Line.


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-dsc04647.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-dsc04648.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-dsc04686.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-dsc04694-2.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-img_20181103_130240-2.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-img_20181103_130353-2.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-img_20181103_131433.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-img_20181103_132334.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-img_20181103_17492101.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-img_20181103_180345.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-img_20181104_095358.jpg


Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-img_20181104_10364801.jpg
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Old 20th November 2018, 14:49   #41
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

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Originally Posted by Dr.AD View Post
A typical scene from my recurring dream. But this time, it is real!
Congratulations AD.



Wishing you tons of happy motoring! I remember you being rather tensed that the owner of the car wasn't willing to wait, over the weekend, till you returned to Bangalore to finish the deal, while were were at Mumbai / Nashik for the Mahindra event.
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Old 22nd November 2018, 19:16   #42
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

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Originally Posted by swissknife View Post
Congratulations AD.
Wishing you tons of happy motoring!
Thank you very much swissknife.

Quote:
I remember you being rather tensed that the owner of the car wasn't willing to wait, over the weekend, till you returned to Bangalore to finish the deal, while were were at Mumbai / Nashik for the Mahindra event.
Yes, that was a nervous time for me, and now sounds like a funny story :-) Actually it was the dealer and not the owner.

We were about to go to Nashik one weekend in July for an offroading course at Mahindra Offroad Academy, and that Friday evening (just before our Saturday departure) I saw this ad. There was no time for me to even go and meet the dealer or see the car. Thankfully the dealer turned out to be friends by our friend KarthikK, and KarthikK put a word to the dealer to hold the car for me till Monday morning. I talked to the dealer too and virtually begged him to hold the car till Monday morning. From my search, I knew how rare such good cars were, and one such car which I had liked previously had got sold literally in one day, while I was still making my mind. I was keen on not repeating that episode, and did not want to lose this deal. The dealer trusted us (and trusted KarthikK to be more precise) that I am a serious buyer and thankfully kept his promise and held the car for me over the weekend. He told others that the car is sold out.

We returned to Bangalore on late Sunday night, and I rushed to the dealer first thing in the morning. I saw the car, took a quick test drive, and we straight drove the car to Navnit Motors for a thorough check-up. They did that and gave me a green signal to buy the car. We completed all formalities the same day and by end of the day the car was mine. From the first sight of the car in the morning to completing all checks and formalities through the day, the dealer and I were together. The whole decision-cum-purchase process happened in one single session without me even going to home or office. What an amazing day that was!

So in the end, it turned out to be a happy story and kudos to the dealer for keeping his promise and holding the car for me. However, I was still nervous all weekend fearing that someone else would buy the car on the weekend. While we were all driving Thar through the mud and slush in the offroad academy, in my mind I was just thinking about the red BMW which I had not even seen yet. :-)
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Old 24th November 2018, 22:45   #43
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.AD View Post
Last weekend, we drove to Vijayanagar, near Hampi, for a photoshoot of the car on the backdrop of the famous Hampi boulders. Our bhpian friend and photographer Deepfreak15 was the main photographer, and accompanying us was RSUDARSANAN with his F30 320d.

Lovely pictures, Dr AD. Lived here in Vidyanagar for 12 years till 2015. Fond memories of this place.

Last edited by Akshay1234 : 25th November 2018 at 00:25. Reason: Trimming quoted post
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Old 30th November 2018, 12:33   #44
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Congrats on the new buy. Car is a stunner. Got it at only 14k odometer, wow. How did that happen? Previous user took a depreciation hit after only these many KM's.

I am also looking to buy either a BMW or Audi 3 series but the thing that keeps me from it is the maintenance costs along with parts replacement etc.

Can someone please shed some light on this - if I were to get used BMW then how much additional yearly expense I am looking at.
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Old 28th December 2018, 23:05   #45
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re: Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!

Nice thread AD and lovely pics.

Glad to see you are enjoying your 3. Let me know if you are coming to Kerala any time.

Here's mine.

2013 BMW 320d Sportline. Black with Black interiors. Like you said, I changed the wheels to 18 inch Style 397 alloys.
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Red-Hot BMW: Story of my pre-owned BMW 320d Sport Line (F30 LCI). EDIT: 90,000 kms up!-20180907_072912.jpg  

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