On to the wheels.. When I knew I would be purchasing this particular car, I had always wanted a wheel that would suit the exclusive pack and it had to be OEM/Period Correct.. I had ruled out motorsport wheels as I personally don’t like mixing the wheel styles between trim packages.. I had 2 wheels in mind that I really liked, Style 189 and Style 287, both wheels are narrow/wide and have a similar design style. I preferred the set of 287, given the design lends the idea of the wheel being slightly larger than the 18” size would suggest. The only problem here was these wheels are pretty scarce and most of the cars that have these wheels on, belong to people that aren’t interested in changing wheels. Good guesses
@Silverbird_96kw,
@Yulz9081 :bravo:
So the search started back in January, way before I even took delivery of the car. Thanks to
@Riaad keeping active on the classifieds, I managed to find a set for sale in February and concluded the deal a few hours after the advert was placed. I had sent the wheels in to be refurbished at Spectrum and then they went into storage, along with the spare wheel kit I had purchased, until I was ready to fit new tyres.
Fast forward to a few weekends ago, I noticed that the current tyres were wearing a lot faster than I anticipated, coupled with the fact that I was tired of being patient waiting to put these wheels on.. I just woke up one morning and decided the time was now.. I figured it would make more sense to sell them now with decent life and then use that to supplement the cost of new tyres, plus I couldn’t wait to be rid of the RFT’s and the horrible ride quality. I had wanted to put on expensive tyres but with the torque eating up the back tyres, I was a bit apprehensive to see my money go up in smoke, pardon the pun. After reviewing the options I had, I decided to go for Nexen Nfera SU4’s after reading rave reviews and speaking to a few experienced forumites. These tyres are brilliantly priced and offer a hell of a lot of value, they simply can’t be compared to Achilles and other similar tyres at the price point.. Having had these tyres on the car for a few weeks and covering decent mileage, despite my earlier trepidation, I would highly recommend them. On to the pics :smilebounce:
One of the bits on the interior that I had an issue with was the stop/start button.. In common BMW fashion, the button started peeling and allowing light through the damaged portions. This for me was more of a niggle, rather than an issue but I opted to get this sorted anyway. I toyed with the idea of a blue/red button but figured it would be best in black. Placed an order online for a replacement button + surround, which came in at a princely sum of R100. Finally got around to fitting this on some weeks ago, pretty easy process to follow and took less than 30 mins to complete. Definitely a ‘mod’ that was worth doing as that button really let down the interior, even the wife was impressed.. :biglol:
I traveled to the South Coast this weekend and was pretty excited as this would be my first ‘long’ trip with the car.. I was keen to see what consumption I could achieve in real world conditions on the highway as my short commutes have the car sitting at 7.5l/100km. The one thing about the South Coast that is certain, is mobile speed traps, so with my cruise control on, I set off. If I’m being honest, there were a few occasions when the driving got rather spirited and pulling away from low speeds meant foot flat until the limit, which was especially entertaining at the toll booth.. Very impressed with the consumption of the little ‘d’ on the trip, for the first time in my ownership, I’ve seen a range of >1000km for a tank.. :chef: