BMW F31 330D 'Autobahn Eater'

[Race2day]

Hello Everyone!

First of all - sorry for my English. I may make some mistakes, since I am not a native speaker, and I also started learning German 1.5 years ago, what makes my brain boils and makes me strugle with finding right words and build senteces. Actually, the reason to start current topic is an attempt to improve my language skills a little. Othewise it will be replaced with Deutsch
Also I don't have so much people to communicate now with... only wife, our kids and cat...so yeah, hope to find some like-minded people here

So, I've been reading PH for a long time, but decided to register only when moved to Germany and bought a car here.

I wasn't used to such large diversity of cars on market, so choosing something was a huge challenge...and having a budget of 25K didn't make it easier, but did it even worse.

Seach createria were:
1. Auto transmission since my wife not used to drive manual...
2. Should have reasonable fuel consumption.
3. Estate since we have two kids.
4. Millage less than 120K km.
5. Diesel engine is preferable.
6. Reliable
7. Should be slow since there are a lot of Autobahns here
8. Must have tow hitch since I want to tow a trailer in the future.

So, after some reseach, choose was narrowed down to Golf 7 GTD, Octavia Vrs diesel and Cupra Leon 300.

Unfortunatly, Leon 300 was rejected because it's imposible to equip it with tow hitch.

The purchase of the first two was also not destined to happen, since the colleague who helped us with the moving said that his relative had a suitable BMW for sale... By the way, that guy has several BMWs in family incuding Z3 and old 850i. So he easily found the words to convince me.


And thus she ended up in our family
330D (258hp) LCI with RWD, sport seats and m-performance suspension, LED headlights and Webasto heater.



Did 25k km since then - one trip to Spain and visited few cities in Eastern Germany. No issues so far. Really like it - it's fast and has nice fuel consumption.

Before that my dd cars were: Zafira B OPC (not for long unfortunatly), Forester SJ FB25 and Smart City.

Actually not planning to do much with the car. Hope it will need only oil changes and etc, but will see.

Next stage is buying second car for a wife after she gets her driving licence. Yeah, in Germany you are allowed to drive only half of the year with non European driving license and then you must pass exams for German licence I had to go through all burocraty to have driving exams in Berlin instead of having it localy, since no driving instructors speak English here.

In my previous life I've had several track cars, so I hope to build something again but here.

Can't complain on life in Germany but miss Civic I had. My father and I have build it to participate in local historical races. Spend so much time and effort to made my dream comes true and had to sell it for cheap...





Before that as track car I had mx5, evo8 mr, Civic eg, mrs zzw30 with 1zz turbo, e30 327 and Lada 2104

Edited by Race2day on Wednesday 10th January 09:44

[Willber]

Nice write up and no need to apologise for your English!

Nice car. Its all the car you'd ever need really (you could argue) and good that you're able to use it as intended in its homeland!

Why did you move to Germany and where from? I like Germany a lot having visited Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Munich.

[-TorqueR]

I’ve a 2016 330d xDrive (F30) in Tanzanite Blue and have been impressed by its breadth of ability.
My example is currently on 105,000 miles / 169,000 km. Enjoy many miles in your 330d.

[Race2day]

Willber said:

Nice write up and no need to apologise for your English!

Nice car. Its all the car you'd ever need really (you could argue) and good that you're able to use it as intended in its homeland!

Why did you move to Germany and where from? I like Germany a lot having visited Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Munich.

Thanks! Yeah, I find f31 quite small car when it fully loaded with whole family and the cat 😁 but still very universal car and don't really want to have anything bigger.

My wife and I one of the luckiest ppl who previously worked in German company... in pootinstan 🥲

The employer kindly offered us jobs and we are very thankfull for that, since our views on some things are different from majority of the ppl from our motherland.....

[Race2day]

-TorqueR said:

I’ve a 2016 330d xDrive (F30) in Tanzanite Blue and have been impressed by its breadth of ability.
My example is currently on 105,000 miles / 169,000 km. Enjoy many miles in your 330d.

Nice one 👍 Did you have any issue at this mileage?

[-TorqueR]

Race2day said:

Nice one. Did you have any issue at this mileage?

No issues. I have it serviced at BMW twice a year (due to the mileage I do) and at 94,000 miles / 151,000 km I had the ZF 8sp auto gearbox serviced at a ZF approved specialist as a preventative measure.

[d_a_n1979]

Great car; I am biased (own an F31 also) and as you've said, they're a superb car

Initially I wanted an F11 530d M Sport but when we test drove a few F31s; came to realise how good a car they are, so settled with that instead

[Escort3500]

No need to apologise for your English, it’s fine

Enjoyed your review; they’re good cars. We’ve got a 340i Touring and it covers all bases for us - reasonably quick, decent handling, adequate space for our two dogs and extremely comfortable. Not the most economical (a diesel would have been better!) but we don’t do a high mileage so it’s not really an issue

Keep enjoying yours

[Court_S]

Looks grand; I’m a big fan of BMW tourings despite only owning my first one for six months.

I’m not the biggest diesel fan, but the 330d certainly gets a shift in (I had an F30 330d as a courtesy car for a week yonks ago when our 330i was in the bodyshop).

[Mr Tidy]

No need to apologise - your English is fine.

And your F31 looks lovely.

I've always had BMWs since 2005, but only my first two were diesel because after that I was doing far fewer miles so petrol 6s made more sense.

[Race2day]

It seems that there are many happy owners of f3x Sounds good and promising, although I still have prejudices about BMW reliability

[Race2day]

Mr Tidy said:

No need to apologise - your English is fine.

And your F31 looks lovely.

I've always had BMWs since 2005, but only my first two were diesel because after that I was doing far fewer miles so petrol 6s made more sense.

What is 6s?

[Race2day]

Escort3500 said:

No need to apologise for your English, it’s fine

Enjoyed your review; they’re good cars. We’ve got a 340i Touring and it covers all bases for us - reasonably quick, decent handling, adequate space for our two dogs and extremely comfortable. Not the most economical (a diesel would have been better!) but we don’t do a high mileage so it’s not really an issue

Keep enjoying yours

I've read somewhere on PH that fuel comsumption isn't that different on 40i and 30d, so if one day I will decide to change 330d to something I will defenetly take a look on 340i (latest years of production or g21) and maybe test drive it. Should be better in all senses exept on fuel.

[helix402]

Race2day said:

What is 6s?

6 cylinder.

[stevemcs]

Race2day said:

What is 6s?

6 Cylinder engine.

Nice touring, I like the idea of the additional heater.

[is200]

Race2day said:

What is 6s?

6 cylinder engines. The petrol 3.0litre.

I have a 430d F36, and done 80k miles since buying it in 2015 with 9k, a fantastic car!

Edited by is200 on Wednesday 10th January 21:55

[Escort3500]

Race2day said:

Escort3500 said:

No need to apologise for your English, it’s fine

Enjoyed your review; they’re good cars. We’ve got a 340i Touring and it covers all bases for us - reasonably quick, decent handling, adequate space for our two dogs and extremely comfortable. Not the most economical (a diesel would have been better!) but we don’t do a high mileage so it’s not really an issue

Keep enjoying yours

I've read somewhere on PH that fuel comsumption isn't that different on 40i and 30d, so if one day I will decide to change 330d to something I will defenetly take a look on 340i (latest years of production or g21) and maybe test drive it. Should be better in all senses exept on fuel.

I’m averaging about 28-30 mpg. What do you get with your 330d?

[Race2day]

stevemcs said:

6 Cylinder engine.

Nice touring, I like the idea of the additional heater.

Yeah, it was already installed on car by previous owner. I don't use it that much otherwise battery will die pretty quick. You must drive something like one km for each minute of the heater operation time or battery won't able to charge enough. Lukely it's not that cold here except a few days a year.

But I had the same heaters in all my previous daily cars - was nice to gets into warm car when it's -20C outside. Also good for engine.

[Race2day]

Escort3500 said:

I’m averaging about 28-30 mpg. What do you get with your 330d?

7.2 l/100km which is 39 UK mpg for all time of usage.

[Race2day]

As all of bmws here, mine is also under recall campaign. After waiting for half of the year all the parts are finally arrived.

I've prepared a bicycle to go to work, but the new 5er was offered as a replacement, so I left my bicycle there
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Can't say much because it's only 5 km to go. But the size of that thing isn't for me. Also seating position is too high.
And from the rear it looks like old toyota camry.