gavsadler
///Member
Hello all,
So a couple of weeks ago, whilst browsing the classifieds, I came across a vehicle which sparked my interest. Made arrangements with the dealer for a test drive. Following that, I had a couple of discussions with the wife, and arranged for her to drive the car the next day. Thereafter a lot more discussions / arguments took place :rollsmile:
Anyway long story short, I bit the bullet and signed up for a new ride. It's a 2011 X3 35i with 85000kms on the clock. It was a 1 owner car, and didn't seem to be used to cart families / passengers around much. Motorplan is also still in place until the end of Oct-2016.
Basic specs are as follows:
> Space Grey Metallic
> M-Sport
> Xenons
> Electric Towbar
> Sunroof
> Black leather interior
> BMW Professional Radio
Overall, there is no abundance of tech / luxury features and gadgets, but that doesn't particularly phase me at all - it just means there is less to go wrong. Essentially it's almost the same level of spec as my 130i.
The car is very neat I must say, no parking dents or scratches anywhere. The only niggles are a small nick on the underside of the front bumper, and the paint on the roof rails is peeling / flaking in places (my research indicates this was a batch issue, but unfortunately the paintwork warranty is only for 3 years from new). The interior is also in great condition. No wear on the seat bolsters or scratches on the aluminium trim, this one is probably one of the best condition interiors I have seen of all the cars I looked at.
Here's some pics the day I collected the car:
I have written many of my thoughts and driving impressions in a thread elsewhere on the forum, and I still stand by these opinions. I'll post a more detailed thread on driving impressions a little later on after having lived with the car for a while longer and also had the opportunity to drive it more.
Will post a few more updates shortly....
First day of ownership - first mods done :rollsmile:
One of the big topics of debate about the car was that the windows weren't tinted. All of our cars have always had tinted windows, and now driving the bigger car with the bigger windows means that we felt very exposed. Also not ideal with the intention of this being the new family car, so security (and sun protection) is a must.
I did some searching, and made contact with a guy by the name of Richard from Glass Armour Security. They do vehicle tinting, and he was very accommodating at short notice to do the job for me. I took the car through to Kyalami and they spent a couple of hours doing the work. I opted for a Charcoal black 35% tint all-round. During the process, they discovered that the car already had a clear smash and grab film already applied to all the windows. After careful inspection, it was deemed to still be good enough to apply their film over this, essentially creating a double layer of protection.
Here are the results:
It's been a couple of weeks since the tint was done, and overall things are looking good, nothing to complain about at this stage. Thanks guys.
Moving along... 2nd day of ownership - 2nd mod done :rollsmile:
The weekend had arrived, and with it, a couple of minutes of extra time to spend checking out the car, fiddling and so on. My wife said she didn't particularly like the titanium kidney grills on the car. No problem - I was not too much of a fan either. Having looked at plenty of cars and pictures from overseas builds, one thing that looks great is the black grilles on space grey. It gives the front end a much more menacing look, and matches up nicely with the rest of the grilles and bumper inserts on the car.
I did some scratching in the garage, and found a half used tin of black plastidip (from when I did the 130i's steering wheel). I thought I would give it a bash with this, and see how it looks, and whether the wife would approve.
A few threads and youtube videos later, I was ready to tackle the job. It was fairly straight forward, I made use of a torx screwdriver to help depress the retaining clips, and then a lot of manoeuvring with my hands and fingers to get to the rest of the clips.
Here's the first grille removed:
While I was waiting for the plastidip to dry, I took a couple of pics of the space between the bumper and the radiator / intercooler - there is a lot of space available there! (anyone want to sponsor me a Wagner intercooler for R&D purposes???)
Here is the finished product following a few coats of plastidip:
Refitted again next to the stock grille:
By the time I finished with the 2nd grille, the sun was already long gone, so I could only take some more pics the next day:
That's all planned at this stage in terms of cosmetic mods. The plastidip is a pain in the ass to keep clean, as it attracts dust like no other, but I'll see in time if I source a spare set of grilles, maybe I will get them painted black, or even look at the BMWP grilles for the car.
Subsequent to this, the car went back to BMW to have the motorplan transferred into my name. They detected a couple of things which required attention - a leaking water pump and 2 coolant hoses. These were replaced, along with rear brake pads, brake fluid, wiper blades, and some other minor bits and pieces. There are still a couple of things which I want them to look at, but will book the car in early next month for them to check out. These include:
1) Radiator expansion tank - the cap doesn't click closed, and even though the arrows do line up, the cap feels loose (can be opened or closed with 2 fingers)
2) Radio increasing volume randomly, irrespective of speed. We'll be having a normal conversation with the radio playing softly and the next thing it starts blaring away. Not sure what that issue is.
3) There is a horrible buzzing noise coming from the top of the motor somewhere. It's noticeable on startup, and if you just break the idling speed (approx. 1000rpm). I'm not sure if it's perhaps the vanos solenoids or something? But it sounds terrible. I've got a video recording of the sound too. I'll post a separate thread on this to see if anyone else has experienced this.
So a couple of weeks ago, whilst browsing the classifieds, I came across a vehicle which sparked my interest. Made arrangements with the dealer for a test drive. Following that, I had a couple of discussions with the wife, and arranged for her to drive the car the next day. Thereafter a lot more discussions / arguments took place :rollsmile:
Anyway long story short, I bit the bullet and signed up for a new ride. It's a 2011 X3 35i with 85000kms on the clock. It was a 1 owner car, and didn't seem to be used to cart families / passengers around much. Motorplan is also still in place until the end of Oct-2016.
Basic specs are as follows:
> Space Grey Metallic
> M-Sport
> Xenons
> Electric Towbar
> Sunroof
> Black leather interior
> BMW Professional Radio
Overall, there is no abundance of tech / luxury features and gadgets, but that doesn't particularly phase me at all - it just means there is less to go wrong. Essentially it's almost the same level of spec as my 130i.
The car is very neat I must say, no parking dents or scratches anywhere. The only niggles are a small nick on the underside of the front bumper, and the paint on the roof rails is peeling / flaking in places (my research indicates this was a batch issue, but unfortunately the paintwork warranty is only for 3 years from new). The interior is also in great condition. No wear on the seat bolsters or scratches on the aluminium trim, this one is probably one of the best condition interiors I have seen of all the cars I looked at.
Here's some pics the day I collected the car:
I have written many of my thoughts and driving impressions in a thread elsewhere on the forum, and I still stand by these opinions. I'll post a more detailed thread on driving impressions a little later on after having lived with the car for a while longer and also had the opportunity to drive it more.
Will post a few more updates shortly....
First day of ownership - first mods done :rollsmile:
One of the big topics of debate about the car was that the windows weren't tinted. All of our cars have always had tinted windows, and now driving the bigger car with the bigger windows means that we felt very exposed. Also not ideal with the intention of this being the new family car, so security (and sun protection) is a must.
I did some searching, and made contact with a guy by the name of Richard from Glass Armour Security. They do vehicle tinting, and he was very accommodating at short notice to do the job for me. I took the car through to Kyalami and they spent a couple of hours doing the work. I opted for a Charcoal black 35% tint all-round. During the process, they discovered that the car already had a clear smash and grab film already applied to all the windows. After careful inspection, it was deemed to still be good enough to apply their film over this, essentially creating a double layer of protection.
Here are the results:
It's been a couple of weeks since the tint was done, and overall things are looking good, nothing to complain about at this stage. Thanks guys.
Moving along... 2nd day of ownership - 2nd mod done :rollsmile:
The weekend had arrived, and with it, a couple of minutes of extra time to spend checking out the car, fiddling and so on. My wife said she didn't particularly like the titanium kidney grills on the car. No problem - I was not too much of a fan either. Having looked at plenty of cars and pictures from overseas builds, one thing that looks great is the black grilles on space grey. It gives the front end a much more menacing look, and matches up nicely with the rest of the grilles and bumper inserts on the car.
I did some scratching in the garage, and found a half used tin of black plastidip (from when I did the 130i's steering wheel). I thought I would give it a bash with this, and see how it looks, and whether the wife would approve.
A few threads and youtube videos later, I was ready to tackle the job. It was fairly straight forward, I made use of a torx screwdriver to help depress the retaining clips, and then a lot of manoeuvring with my hands and fingers to get to the rest of the clips.
Here's the first grille removed:
While I was waiting for the plastidip to dry, I took a couple of pics of the space between the bumper and the radiator / intercooler - there is a lot of space available there! (anyone want to sponsor me a Wagner intercooler for R&D purposes???)
Here is the finished product following a few coats of plastidip:
Refitted again next to the stock grille:
By the time I finished with the 2nd grille, the sun was already long gone, so I could only take some more pics the next day:
That's all planned at this stage in terms of cosmetic mods. The plastidip is a pain in the ass to keep clean, as it attracts dust like no other, but I'll see in time if I source a spare set of grilles, maybe I will get them painted black, or even look at the BMWP grilles for the car.
Subsequent to this, the car went back to BMW to have the motorplan transferred into my name. They detected a couple of things which required attention - a leaking water pump and 2 coolant hoses. These were replaced, along with rear brake pads, brake fluid, wiper blades, and some other minor bits and pieces. There are still a couple of things which I want them to look at, but will book the car in early next month for them to check out. These include:
1) Radiator expansion tank - the cap doesn't click closed, and even though the arrows do line up, the cap feels loose (can be opened or closed with 2 fingers)
2) Radio increasing volume randomly, irrespective of speed. We'll be having a normal conversation with the radio playing softly and the next thing it starts blaring away. Not sure what that issue is.
3) There is a horrible buzzing noise coming from the top of the motor somewhere. It's noticeable on startup, and if you just break the idling speed (approx. 1000rpm). I'm not sure if it's perhaps the vanos solenoids or something? But it sounds terrible. I've got a video recording of the sound too. I'll post a separate thread on this to see if anyone else has experienced this.
raise: congrats.. lovely car!
