320i 5dr Estate

Small but nice.....until the major engine trouble

This was my first, and will probably be last (at least for a long while now), premium car. I bought it when we had only one child. At that point it worked fairly well, though I'd agree with other comments that these are small inside. It worked ok when we had two children, but the boot was pretty tight even for fairly modest pushchairs and we needed a roof box for holidays. The problems really set in when we had our third child. At that point there was zero chance of all five of us fitting in it which seemed daft for an estate car. The back seat, although massively comfy for 2 adults (it's like a sofa), is hopeless for two car seats and a booster. It was reduced to being our runabout car for trips to the station etc, and an MPV became our main family car.

I had had a regular stream of niggles. Through three different visits to my garage, I had to replace all four ignition coils at a cost of about £240. I also had to replace a nitrous oxide sensor at around £500 and an oil sensor at about £150. Disappointing, but these were costs that I was happy enough to regard as routine running costs. It was the engine trouble below that finished me off.

Earlier this year it started making a funny noise which I first noticed as the car fell back to low revs but which could be heard very clearly at about 2500 revs, which the garage explained through brass filings they found in the sump. Following a full strip down it was found that the number three cylinder big end shells had prematurely worn. That left me with an eye watering repair bill and given that the car was no longer practical anyway, we parted company. It felt really poor that a 6 year old BMW that had averaged no more than about 12K miles per year would fail in this way. It had had all of its required servicing and appeared to be down to shockingly bad luck.

More generally, I did find it a bit gutless, and having had a 2.2 Vectra before, I found the BMW much more economical but nowhere near as fast. Having never had a premium car before I liked little features the way the external door handle lights would come on when you unlocked it at night. It had automatic wipers which I never really got on with. The stereo was ok, but the only way to get MP3 in was to go via a mini jack lead. There is also no dip stick which means you're wholly reliant on the CBS system for oil info and I didn't like that. I couldn't rule out that the shell wear was down to insufficient oil given that I had to change an oil sensor as already mentioned, but impossible to know.

Overall I liked and enjoyed it before the engine trouble. But I don't think I'll be buying a BMW any time soon.

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