The car is fantastic, lets get that clear right away. It goes like
off a shovel, and corners very, very well. The cars SMG paddle-shift gearbox is also so darn responsive...
It probaly is (almost) the perfect handling small sports car, and according to EVO mag, when they raced it against a full fat V8 M3, the 335i with SMG was faster to 100 MPH (thats a 0-62 time of <5.5 secs). No Cupra could possibly beat it in speed or handling...
For me, thats part of the
problem. The car is so good it's almost completly boring to drive. the negine tone (inside the car) is muted, and there is no sense of speed like there was in the Cupra. and, try as hard as I can, the back end NEVER steps out.
Thats not the main reason for selling tho. It's a bit more basic than that - The running costs are beyond a joke. You need VERY deep pockets to keep this thing going from A to B. A routine service is £800+ (Needs 2 a year), it has frequent oil top-up's at £18 per litre (Common on Bimmer forums with this engine), rear tyres are £350 a piece and last about 4000 miles only (On my 5th complete set of rears already), insurance is expensive (almost 3 X that of the MODIFIED Cupra), it drinks fule like it's going out of fashion (Average 14-16 MPG) and BMW dealers are rude and arrogant.
I can just about afford to drive it each month, and the extra costs I had not counted for at the time of buying soon stack up after nearly owing it for a year. I have very little cash left for socialising etc, and want to sell it to purely save some money. given just how much cheaper the SEAT is to buy, run and service, the savings over a year would be somewhere in the region of £5-6000!!!
Thats why basically, even tho it is a better car than a Cupra overall...