My 320d Story

[Gokugt86]

Hey there all fanatics.

I am a new member and thought Id start a thread for my car.

My car hunt started in the beginning of 2018 as I was looking to buy a Toyota 86 because I loved the look and stance of it and the emotions it stirred up in me while driving it. It was also my attainable "dream car".
Due to financial reasons and bit of common sense i realized i was slightly out of my budget.

I've always been a BMW fan and when my test drove an e90 320i wagon which my cousin had I was turned over and started my hunt for an e90 3 series. Everyone raves about 320d's being amazing all round cars so I then test drove an E90 msport 320d for the first time and realized its the perfect combo of speed, comfort, style, handling and value for money.

1 and a 1/2 months of hunting after I test drove the 320i wagon I purchased my first BMW in July 2018 from SMG Cape Town. What a car it is raise:

I feel extremely lucky as the car I got was immaculate and in the perfect spec I was looking for.
Specs included:
e90 2012 320d LCI M sport (111000km)
Alpine white
Sunroof
Xenon headlights
18inch staggered wheels
FSH from BMW

I'm still blown away by the torque whenever I floor it. Don't think I'll mod it anytime soon but I have done some cosmetic mods to the car.

Ive posted pics of the car when I bought it.
First on my list of mods is to anthracite coat the rims and respray the front bumper as there's quite a few stone chips.

 

[MR_Y]

Great choice.
Add the Martini racing stripes and it will be as good as gold :bravo:

 

[yush1]

Great choice.
Add the Martini racing stripes and it will be as good as gold :bravo:

Welcome. Great car. @MR_Y, I wonder if all 320d drivers want to add stripes? :smilebounce:

 

[MR_Y]

Great choice.
Add the Martini racing stripes and it will be as good as gold :bravo:

Welcome. Great car. @MR_Y, I wonder if all 320d drivers want to add stripes? :smilebounce:

If I can get enough white 320ds to add stripes...:thumbs:

 

[Gokugt86]

Thread Update:
So I've owned the car for 3 months now and the car hasn't missed a beat. Ive done quite a bit of cosmetic mods to the car and will post everything in due course including the running and cost of servicing.

The bumper respray was really effective and the anthracite coating on the rims are superbly done. Shoutout to Dent Expert for for their work.

Pics will follow soon. Also, once the bumper was done with the respray and the rims had their coating I had a full detail inside and out done to the car, Wash, clay bar treatment, polish, wax.... the works. The results were unbelievable. the car looked brand spanking new. I spent the next entire day at work just staring at it.

Once this was done i then wanted to add some sporting touches with a blacked out grille, a rear spoiler and some front corner splitters.

The issue I bumped into was that they've been quite hard to source, so I had the front splitters wrapped in 5d carbon in the mean time. the results were quite good to my surprise as the car looks extremely aggressive.

 

[S1NGH 911]

Welcome, stunning car, no need for those ugly stripes

 

[NtandoN]

Welcome. Congrats on a great looking car :bravo:

 

[RAArmstrong]

Welcome, stunning car, no need for those ugly stripes

+100 no need for stripes. Car is incredible as is!

 

[Dirtydeedsman]

welcome and congrats, that is one good looking car that... love the subtle mods as well.

Wishing you many happy miles.

 

[Gokugt86]

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback . I never planned to put the stripes on :fencelook: The car already looks the way i imagined it when I first bought it.

What do you guys think of the wrapped corner splitters instead of the real Carbon add on ones? should i still bother getting the real thing or leave it as is?

Im tempted to leave it as is for the near future as the car turns heads like crazy and I love walking out to it in the mornings and seeing it when I'm done with work in the afternoons :smilebounce:

Will post some more pics tomorrow and detail my servicing experience with it since I just had it serviced.

 

[Dirtydeedsman]

Thread Update:

The results were unbelievable. the car looked brand spanking new. I spent the next entire day at work just staring at it.

You sir are in love,

I bet you everyone on this forum has done this at least 5 times today.

 

[yush1]

Welcome, stunning car, no need for those ugly stripes

+100 no need for stripes. Car is incredible as is!

Losing out on at least 1kw there. :biglol:

Car looks stunning. Black and white combination suits perfect.

 

[tman]

Car looks aggressive with cosmetic mods, well done!

PS: you missed PDC in your opening post as an option.

 

[Claudio]

Awesome car ..... looks very good :bravo:

Hope you have many happy miles :thumbs:

 

[Nobz330i]

Welcome

Great shots by the way.

 

[ZaynM]

Welcome to the Form!

Car looks great with all you have done so far!

 

[Diesel]

Welcome and congrats on your new ride. Software and downpipe really changes the car. You won't want to stop driving it. Any chance I get to take it for a drive I go. The only problem is that someone always wants to smash into me either the taxis or some idiot driver.

 

[Gokugt86]

You sir are in love,

I bet you everyone on this forum has done this at least 5 times today.

@Dirtydeedsman Right you are sir I definitely am :smilebounce:

Car looks stunning. Black and white combination suits perfect.

Thanks @yush1 to me, Black and white was the only way to for subtle yet striking mods :thumbs:

Welcome and congrats on your new ride. Software and downpipe really changes the car. You won't want to stop driving it. Any chance I get to take it for a drive I go. The only problem is that someone always wants to smash into me either the taxis or some idiot driver.

@Diesel I will keep the car stock atm since I'm happy with it as is. Would love to drive one with those mods though to really feel the difference. Then I'll decide if I want to go that route

---

Update:

With regards to servicing I've done so much research on whether to keep going to BMW so I have a full service history or whether to go privately to a well know workshop to look after my car.

When I purchased the car BMW offered me a warranty which was R15k for 2 years. It didn't seem too bad but upon looking at the history of the car I found it unnecessary as the car was solid with no comments made. In the end I didn't take the warranty.

In the end I decided to go to Garage 808 in Bellville to have my first service done since many of the guys on the forum only had good things to say about them.

Man was i surprised, their workshop is so clean and organised its like you could eat off the floors. I was really impressed with their level of professionalism. Adele was awesome as well with regards to speedy resposes to emails and providing feedback and quotes. I also asked them to do a quality check on the car to make sure everything was sound.

For my first service they did quite a bit of work:

• Oil + oil filter change
• Brake fluid flush
• Power steering fluid flush
• Micro filter change
• Diesel filter change
• Air filter
• Rear disks, pads & sensors (Supplied by me)
• Quality check

All in the service was around R8K. After the quality check they told me the car was in good nick and that i should just have the lower control arm bushings seen to as they've gone soft and that the front brake pads were almost finished. They also recommended I have the aircon degassed as it was running low.

They recommended using polyurethane bushes for the control arms but i was a bit hesitant as Ive read that those bushings could cause wear on the arms themselves so I played it safe and requested OEM bushes for around R500 more.

2 weeks later I booked the car in and had the bushings and the front brakes pads and sensors seen to. It costed me almost R5k but I can really feel the difference. I thought the car stopped well with new rear brake but DAMN the new front pads have got some bite!!! Huge stopping power now and I can really feel the difference. The car also seems a little quieter to me with the new bushings installed.

I should point out that had I taken the BMW warranty, NONE of the work I had done to the car would have been covered so boy am I glad I rather saved the money and spent it on having the maintenance done :thumbs:

The car is driving awesome as usual and I'm loving every minute I get to spend in it. What a car raise:

 

[SubLoaded]

Welcome :thumbs:

Nice tractor :cartel:

 

[momo1]

Car looks awesome man, may I ask where did you get the boot lip?