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Story of my used Ford Endeavour 4x4 AT & BMW 320d E90 M Sport

2nd November 2021, 17:30 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

We were looking for a pre-owned automatic hatchback to replace our Volkswagen Polo but ended up buying a used Endeavour 3.0 SUV and 320d E90 M Sport sedan.

BHPian akshay4587 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Prologue

I moved to Melbourne in early 2016, and Dad retired later the same year. Before I moved, the Linea MJD Emotion Pack was my daily since 2012 and I did over 100K km in 4 years with it. Since I was relocating and we had other vehicles as well, so it was decided we get rid of the Linea. I found a buyer and the deal was sealed, just a day before I was to fly to Melbourne. We still had 5 cars in our garage.

I have been flying back often since then. On my first trip back home, Dad, who is fond of cars as much as I do, expressed his desire to own an AT, since all our cars were MT. So in January 2018, it was decided, we replace our 2014 Polo Comfortline 1.2P (Mom's car), with an AT hatch. The Polo GT TSI was ruled out primarily due to it being the same car. We had a look at the Ignis AMT and a Swift AMT and ruled them out. I went back, and the idea of getting an AT was dropped for the time being since our usage is very less when I am not around. Years went by, and it was November 2020, when I came back home for a long hiatus.

The Endeavour Saga

Due to some unforeseen circumstances back home, I had to travel, and this was supposed to be a long trip. In January 2021, Dad again expressed his desire to own an Automatic Transmission car, so the search began. We had a look at the new options and decided that let us replace the Polo with a used Polo GT TSI. So, the search began, and as expected there were hardly any good clean GT TSI cars in the market. When buying pre-owned, it is our rule to not even look at a second owner car, no matter how clean it may be. The search for a used Polo GT TSI was getting us nowhere.

One odd day, got to know of a 2011 Ford Endeavour 3.0 4X4 AT being sold by an acquaintance. The vehicle’s history was clean, single owner and 61K km with records. Dad has always been a fan of this vehicle due to its size and shape, somehow, he managed to convince mom that this is going to be her Polo’s replacement. No time was wasted in closing the deal, and the Endeavour was home.

Upon arrival, my mom’s first reaction - I am not driving this truck!

So the Endeavour was home and the Polo was retained.

BMW Fable

Exactly 2 days into the Endeavour ownership, we were back to square one. The plan was to replace my mom’s car with an automatic. And now we had an automatic car in our garage which my mom will not touch. So, we resumed the search for an automatic small car. I contacted an old friend who recently fell on tough times and, from being the owner of a manufacturing unit, has gotten into used car sales. He informed me that he does not have any small AT cars, however, what he has is a clean, single-owner E90 BMW 320D M Sport.

Upon hearing this, without consulting anyone at home, I asked him to bring the car over.

And true to his word, the car was really clean - a single-owner car with 37K km on its odometer. Upon closer inspection, I figured out that the car had a fair bit of extras from the BMW Motorsport division apart from the M Sport bits. The extras on the car were as follows (listing out M Sport bits first and then the BMW Motorsport Extra’s):

M Sport Bits

Black Grille
M Sport Rims
Side Skirts
CF Boot Lip
CF Mirrors

BMW Motorsport Extras

BMW M Performance pack that includes an ECU with 205 bhp map, bigger intercooler, a muffler with twin exhaust outlets.
Big Brake Kit - I am not sure but the calipers are 380 mm. They look a size bigger than the 330 mm Brembos I have on my Alfa Romeo in Australia.
Strut brace finished in brushed aluminium.
BMW Motorsport flat-bottom steering wheel with LCD display for oil/water temperature, shift lights, lap timer/quarter mile timer and a few other things.
Illuminated BMW Motorsport scuff plates.
Carbon fiber diffuser for rear bumper.

It was love at first sight for me and I decided I wanted this car no matter what.

But then, our typical problem, too many cars and not enough users or even usage to justify another car. Got both my parents to drive the E90, and they really liked it. Dad knew about F30, so he was like why not an F30, had a look around, and most F30s in our budget were either second-owner or with too many km (75K+). Even asked another friend of mine to bring over his F30 for my dad to test. Since he is the one who will drive it when I am back in Australia.

Being an old school guy, he absolutely hated the joystick shifter of the F30 as compared to the gated shifter of the E90. So, the path was clear, and the E90 was coming home for sure. Now, what should it replace? The Thar CRDe, since we already got another 4WD the previous week, or my beloved W124 E220? Since the W124 is the least used car in our garage and me being the only user, it was decided that we will replace the W124 with the E90. It was an extremely difficult decision for me but the E90 was too good to let go of. After a fair bit of negotiations and arguments with the middleman, the E90 was home.

Solving the F30 vs E90 dilemma

Coming home

Love the LCI lights and the rear CF diffuser with M Performance Pack exhaust

Side skirts

Love the pull-up sunshades

All-black interior

Red cushions add a nice, subtle touch. Came with the car.

Piano black finish and flat-bottom wheel, really miss the M Sport logo.

M Sport rims

Big brake kit

Strut brace

Illuminated side sills

I love the wheel as it displays the water and oil temperature

The start-up sequence

I had people already lining up for my W124, and I had a deposit for it in my account the next day.

As a family, we have this habit of getting attached to our cars. I still remember, back in 2001, when we sold our Gypsy, my younger brother was inconsolable. Thankfully, parking space is not a problem for us so one fine morning, dad acknowledged all the efforts that I had put in the W124 to bring it to its current shape and asked me to return the deposit and retain the car. So while looking for an AT replacement for our trustworthy Polo, we went overboard and added two more cars in our garage within 7 days. The Polo was still here and so was the W124.

While window shopping before closing the deals of these two cars, we came across two interesting deals apart from the usual A4s/3s and Cs.

Two Porsche Cayennes (both V6 petrol) which were being sold for a song, both were V6s and the Golden Beige one was sold for a slightly lesser amount than what we paid for the Endeavour!

Porsche being Porsche, we walked out of these two deals for some other day.