The spectacle of all-new BMW 3 Series saloons leaving your local BMW showroom can mean only one thing: a mountain of trade-ins, many of them the model’s predecessor, the F30-generation model of 2012 to 2018.
What a cracking car it is. True, by the end, rivals – notably the Jaguar XE, Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi A4 – had the measure of it but none was such an all-rounder as the F30.
Handling, composure, performance, efficiency, quality, image – the F30 has it all in abundance. Even the interior, on earlier models a weak spot for its bulky transmission tunnel, is roomy in the back. The boot’s a handy 480 litres, or larger if you find a car with optional folding back seats.
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You want more grip? There’s four-wheel drive in the shape of xDrive. You want to join the hybrid revolution? Early on, there was the ActiveHybrid 3, followed later by the BMW 330e iPerformance, a plug-in hybrid capable of up to 25 miles of pure-electric motoring.
During its first year on sale, the F30 accumulated an impressive selection of engines, standouts being the smooth and lusty 320d, the snarly 330d, the creamy but potent 328i and its more frugal 1.6 turbo relation, the 320i EfficientDynamics. The 320d and 330d were EU6-compliant from launch. Buyers could choose between a six-speed manual gearbox or an eight-speed automatic, both superb.
In 2015, the then three-year-old F30 received a shot in the arm courtesy of restyled front and rear ends, LED headlights and a refreshed interior. At the same time, new engines – such as the three-cylinder 318i, the 99g/km CO2 320d ED and the seriously quick 340i – joined the range. The chassis and gearboxes were improved and more advanced infotainment features arrived.
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If you are going to buy any of these BMW cars make certain you buy it with some warranty from a car front and you either are or know a good mechanic. Just had a good friend of mine avoid a very nasty bill £2000 ish bill for a S/H N20 engined car that let go of it's timing belt after just a month of ownership and then the garage had associated issues with the oiling system that they had to replace the oil pump assembly as well as remove the engine twice after the oil pump had to be changed as it was damaged when the original timing belt let go. Underdeveloped cars and engines these days from BMW chasing silly specific outputs from turbos, engineering fwd cars, suv blandness in the drive and diesel engines (which tbh they have been doing before they became popular) and taken their eyes of petrol development and reliability. I beleive the timing belt issue was mostly resolved after 2015 or thereabouts.
All the negative posts as per, then, how come one of the most common cars on the road is a Three series , either new or old, there they are, the owners can't all be wrong buying one, touch Wood, nothing really major has broken or fallen of them, serving was fine, Garage could not do enough during the past 15 yrs, I think some of us are just plain unlucky.
Unrealiable or Unrealiable and costly to repair
To be honest cars don't tend to break down that often these days and I've found the less premium cars not only have less faults they tend to cost alot less to repair. Case in point Suzuki