Innehållsförteckning för October 2023 från TOTAL BMW

Are you evenareal car enthusiast if you don’t spend just a bit of your day casually browsing cars for sale online? I’m doing it now while just trying to write about it, because the minute someone mentions it, or it comes to mind, there’s this irresistible urge that compels you to just open up eBay, Auto Trader, or both to cross-reference your finds and see what’s out there. There’s that car that’s been on sale for ages – surely no one is going to buy it at that price? You bet you could lowball them for it… There’s that car which disappeared, and you were sad that it sold even though you were in no position to buy it whatsoever. But now it’s back up for a lower price maybe…

While the E30 might have cemented its place as the classic 3 Series, it wouldn't exist if not for its predecessor. the E21. The E30 might be considered by many enthusiasts to be a better car overall, but the E21 walked so that the E30 could run. While there is plenty of appreciation for the E21. the fact of the matter is that it's much easier to buy an E30. E21s are harder to come by, especially In good condition, and when it comes to modding, it's fair to say that the options available for the E30 are more plentiful than for the first-gen 3 Series offering. For Shane Moriarty, however, none of these things mattered. His first E21 experience came about purely by chance, and he's been hooked ever…

Whether you use your car every day or once or twice a year, components will inevitably wear out, become seized or fail. Simple stuff, such as an electric window regulator can fail if the door glass becomes harder to move up and down. A bonnet locking mechanism can corrode and seize, meaning you can’t access the engine. The same problem applies to a mechanical handbrake. These problems can arise slowly over time, but often seem to be sprung upon you if a vehicle is stored away for a few months or years. And the issues can soon pile up when a car isn’t used for a long period. Damp can get into the electrics, for instance, resulting in corrosion, poor earths and equipment ranging from the indicators to the headlights…

OUR CARS It’s business as usual for the X3 this month – nothing’s gone wrong, nothing’s fallen off, and there have been no scheduled, or unscheduled, visits to the dealer network. It’s simply gone about its business in its normal efficient manner, whisking Mrs H around town when necessary, along with the occasional longer jaunt to see clients in Wales, Nottingham and Oxfordshire, among others. Having just praised the X3 for its brilliance, it’s actually the 530i that has been getting the most use as the family wagon in the last couple of months. For some reason, the dog seemed to have taken against the X3 for a brief time where no amount of cajoling would entice him to jump into its load bay. Thus, the E61 has been pressed…

The legend of the E30 M3 walks so tall in our affections that it’s easy to get caught up in its European sporting prowess. Relentless success in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, endless scalps taken in the British Touring Car Championship, unparalleled quality across series as diverse as Italian Superturismo and European Touring Cars… but it’s key to bear in mind that the E30 also won the JTC-2 class of the Japanese Touring Car Championship no less than seven times. Every single year from 1987 to 1993, these irrepressible Beemers were taking flags and topping podiums. If you thought the JTCC was all about Skylines, think again. At the hands of domestic heroes, including Haruto Yanagida, Kenji Takahashi and Kazuo Mogi, along with western interlopers such as Will Hoy and Roland…

If size truly, really matters, then surely the X7 is the greatest BMW of them all? We mean, clearly, the lower, lighter stuff still has its place – E30 M3, M1, M2 and so on – but if we’re talking about getting the maximum possible amount of BMW for your money is what matters, then the X7 beats them all. You can leave at the door any concerns that the X7 is too big or too heavy to count itself a ‘proper’ BMW – the original X5 blew any such concerns straight out of the water more than 20 years ago. While the X7 is certainly bigger and heavier -arguably too much so for UK roads – it, too, has the qualities of a genuine Munich machine. The version we’re…

TURBO E28 We will never stop being impressed by the sheer diversity of the BMW scene. Take the E28, for example. You’ll have some people doing ground-up restorations, and others doing stanced show builds; you’ll have resto-mods, engine-swapped sleepers, and then you’ll get something like this. Where do you even begin with a build like this? It’s undoubtedly one of the wildest E28s we’ve ever featured, and we love everything that owner Mikael Wrzos (@mad_mans_ performance) has done. It will not be at all surprising to learn that Mikael hails from Sweden because the Nordic countries are infamous for building wild, boosted BMs – what else are you going to do during those long, dark winter months? Mikael is keeping that tradition alive and well and has built the whole…

COMPANY PROFILE Founded in 2010, Beverley Motor Works has just celebrated its 13th year in business, and we caught up with Service Advisor Danny Wilson to learn more about this much-loved and highly-rated North East-based independent garage. The company was established by ex-BMW Workshop Master Technician Alan Lewis and ex-BMW Parts Manager Richard Hayes. After some 20 years each working at a BMW main dealer, the pair had grown frustrated with the main dealer experience and what it offered customers, so they decided to set up shop themselves. They knew they could offer a much more personal customer experience, a better service and at lower prices than a main dealer. 13 years ago, they moved into a bare unit, and now the company is operating at maximum capacity and is…

Last time out, we looked at the issue of range.Along motorway run driving pretty much as slowly as it was practical to do – bumbling along in lane one with the trucks – saw a theoretical 290 miles. Since then, a slightly shorter ‘decent run’ totalling 190 miles or so was done in the real world. Cruising at 70mph on all the motorways and dual carriageway sections, 60 on the A-roads, and even overtaking the occasional dawdler gave a more realistic 230 miles. That’s with 100% battery charge to begin, ambient temperature above 19°C, and the elapsed miles and remaining range added together to give the absolute range to zero battery. Quite a drop from the 290 previously achieved and nothing like the claimed 316 miles. However, unless you need…

The BMW Group celebrated the launch of its new test site in Sokolov (Czechia), the Future Mobility Development Centre (FMDC). As the first development location of its kind in central Europe, the FMDC, in which €300 million have been invested, will play a key role in the company’s future mobility development. The surrounding terrain offers the best real-world conditions for testing highly and fully automated driving and parking to supplement the virtual simulation of driving situations. Through this combination of virtual simulation and real-world testing, the BMW Group meets the highest safety requirements of its customers. The FMDC rounds out BMW’s existing group of test sites in Aschheim near Munich, Miramas in France, and Arjeplog in Sweden. “With our new Future Mobility Development Centre, we have created a one-of-a-kind test…

F87 M2 COMP The F87 M2C is undoubtedly one of BMW’s best M cars in recent times. As a pulsepounding performance package, it does everything brilliantly. It’s an irresistible offering, and it’s easy to see why lifelong BMW fan Josh (@joshicc) ended up with one. Though, as you can see, his is a little spicier than a regular M2 Comp… “Being half German and regularly visiting family over the years as well as spending some years living there, meant I saw lots of BMWs growing up; Merc/ Audi/BMW were the common cars out there,” Josh tells us as we chat. It was BMW he gravitated to and kicked off his ownership experience with an E82 120d. “I was fairly unaware of the modification scene/community initially. But in 2016, I joined…

It’s the exhausts that first catch the eye. The polarising grille may be the standout feature of the G82 M4 to some, but we’ve never been ones to chase clichés. Besides, there’s an element of this M4 that’s even more noteworthy, something that gives it a real hard-edged character: the exhaust. And we’re not talking about the other-worldly noises it makes (imagine a banshee gargling with gravel), but the look. Modders and enthusiasts of a certain age will fondly recall how the exhaust was the defining feature of a build, back in the Max Power era. Bigger was better, and the classic 3” outlet was an absolute minimum – ideally, you wanted at least 4”, arranged in a bank of pipes like a machine gun battery, or splayed out at…

SOUL SIBLINGS The classic or the contemporary? A car-buying decision that many of us have wrestled with. And if the two contenders in question share similar attributes, then it becomes an even harder choice to make. Witness this month’s two Soul Siblings – the E46 M3 Coupé and the F22 M235i Coupé. Born in different eras, they offer slightly different takes on the small, M-derived coupé theme but claim almost identical performance, an ardent following from their respective devotees and – perhaps most importantly – can be bought for the same sum. So if you’re in the fortunate position of having a budget of between £17,000 and £23,000 to spend on your next BMW, then choosing between an E46 M3 and an F22 M235i is a Coupé dilemma you may…

@buffycarjourno It seems like all I’ve been doing recently has been spending money on the M235i, and that’s not about to stop anytime soon. But at least this month I’ve been spending money on something fun, so that makes it far easier to swallow. The M235i is, in my eyes, a very good-looking car from the factory, with that compact coupé shape nicely enhanced by the addition of the Ferric grey elements that are exclusive to the M-lite models. But there’s always room for improvement, and before I’d even bought the M235i, I already had a shopping list of styling upgrades that I wanted to add. I am not a fan of chrome grilles, so I knew I wanted to swap these out for gloss black items. I also knew…

I don’t generally join things. I’m not apologising for my anti-social stance, merely pointing out that in this world of online groups, forums, and communities, it’s easy to sign up for something and consequently receive a barrage of subject-specific material. I, therefore, tend to make a conscious effort to avoid an excessive online presence. I’ve joined and left Twitter on so many occasions that folks just don’t bother following me anymore. Can’t say I blame them. So, also considering that I play golf but haven’t joined the local golf club (how anybody succeeds in playing golf when it costs an arm and a leg to join the local club is beyond me), it may come as a surprise to learn that shortly after taking delivery of the M340i, I joined…