320d M Sport 5dr Estate

Great car, but so expensive to maintain!

The car itself was super reliable throughout our four years with it, and was great to drive as you might expect. Overall, always looked forward to driving it at first.

Pros:
- A great car to drive. Very responsive and flexible engine.
- A lot of space for front passengers.
- Very reliable, we ran the car through circa 80k miles without any trouble (only maintenance items).
- Super comfortable long distance cruiser.
- Sports suspension and grippy tyres put a smile on your face on the b roads every time.

Cons:
- Other people going out of their way to bash it with their doors in car parks and not letting you out at junctions. Didn't believe it until we experienced it!
- Not particularly well equipped, and dealer fitted Bluetooth was, in a nutshell, r****** and mis-sold.
- Genuinely extortionate servicing and maintenance costs. Almost £2k for a DMF and clutch with fitting. Ouch!
- You tend to be 'nipping in' for some new servicing light reason or other every three to six months, and they all cost a fortune. You're nickel and dime'd to death.
- Tyres are ridiculously expensive and last barely 30k miles (plus the smallest puncture and you need a new one as they're run flats). At cost through a friend full set was £720, and you can't rotate as the rears are wider than the fronts.
- New rear alloy as cracked one due to a pothole. Cost £519 including fitting, and they didn't even replace the cap!
- Manual gear change notchy.
- Boot space is very poor for any estate, particularly so for a car this large.
- Heavy steering and clutch, plus notchy manual, made for hard work on a commute. Regular leg and back pain on medium, stop start journeys.
- Sports suspension, plus the low profile run flats, made for a terrible ride when you just wanted a comfortable commute.

The car was a good drive, they are easy to fall in love with on a test drive, especially as even the 2.0d is a powerful and pokey engine. However, if considering one give thought to how you'd live with it in stop start commuting day to day. That, or buy the auto.

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