Picked up my 123D last Monday.

[aliti]

Hi all,

I finally picked up my 123D Hatchback last Monday. It had a total of 7 km's on delivery. I waited a week to tell people as I wanted to be able to make a comment on the vehicle in this post. I have clocked up 550km's so far.

Firstly, the dealership I purchased the vehicle from was fantastic. As this is the 4th BMW that we have purchased, 2 from this particular dealership, their service and eagerness to go out of their way for customer satisfaction is undescripeable. 11 out of 10 and cannot highly recommended this dealership in both sales, servicing and spare parts.

Now to the 123D. It is space grey in colour with the M sports pack and the 208M 18" wheels.
Initial opinion is that the ride is not as harsh as I expected by reading some of the posts on this forum. I have set the tyres at 37 psi front and back and I find the ride to be firm but acceptable to me.
The tyres fitted are the Bridgestones. They seem to have sufficient grip and the car feels very responsive through corners and so forth, but I haven't pushed it too hard yet. I want to run at least 2000 km's before I see how it goes. My only criticism about the tyres at the moment would be that they seem to be a little noisy to what my previous car was running. The noise is not overbearing but on certain road conditions they do seem to exhibit some noise.
The engine is amazing. I have been loading the engine up but at the same time only really taken it to 3000 rpm so far with part throttle until I pass 2000 km's. Gave it a quick squirt of the line today, (I couldn't resist). It basically just takes off. To drive it easy around the streets, you wouldn't know the potential of this motor. I can't wait to pass 2000 km's. The best part of this motor is that the trip computer is telling me that I am averaging 5.7 l/100km so far. I have just done approximately 550km's and I am still on the same tank that the car was delivered with. The computer is telling me another 310 km's to go.

My only disappointed are with the headlights. I didn't request the xenon lights which I regret now. The low beams are average but the high beams are not very good (not what I am used to). I will be replacing the globes very soon with Philips Extreme which are +80. Used these globes before and they do make a difference. Autobarn had them on sale last week for $69.99 a pair. I hope that they are still on sale.

The only modification that I have done was to tint the windows. I had this done at Tint-A-Car in Mornington which is down the road from the dealership. Apparently, a lot of the dealerships use them to tint their windows.
I am very disappointed in their work with me picking up faults in both the rear door windows and the rear tail gate window. Did I say I was VERY DISAPPOINTED in their quality of work. I took the car back the next day and showed them. They were good about it but asked me to leave the tint for a week and to see what I think of it then. Well, the faults are still there so I am really thinking about taking it back. The question is though, do I really want them to remove my door trims again?

Sorry about the long post but I hope that you found it interesting.

[Blacky]

Congrates on the new purchases.

You say you are dissappointed with the window tinting job, is this the application of the tint film or the whole job i.e. damaged trim.

If there is no sign of damaged trim etc, why would you not have them replace the work they stuffed in the first place?

I have not watched them do the window tinting, but are you sure they actual remove any trim for the rear windows?

Anyhow good luck and keep enjoying your car.

[BMW86]

Congratulations on the new purchase.

I'd definitely take the car back for the tint problems. If you are not 100% happy with it now it will bug you forever. Also, ditch the RFT's as soon as you can. Tirerack are a sponsor on this forum and are relatively cheap compared to purchasing locally. It will drastically improve ride comfort, noise, performance and handling.

[Jeef Beef]

Congrats on the pickup Good to know everything went smoothly at the dealership.

BMW86's right, if you don't get the problem rectified, it will bug you FOREVER. Potentially ruin an otherwise perfect car.

Is your car 6MT or 6AT? I had an auto 123d coupe loaner once and I was able to thrash it. All I can say is, the midrange punch is very similar to my 135i. Build up some revs for a proper launch and it feels just as brutal. Runs out of puff a bit early though but hey, like you said you're getting 5.7L/100km. I'll be lucky to see double that figure

Also,

[eatevo]

Congrats on the new 123d aliti.

I will be taking delivery of an Alpine White 123d Convertible tomorrow also.

Maybe we all can catch up for a little drive once we have done 2000km of running the car in.

[MrBlonde]

The tint takes 2-3 weeks to settle down totally .. only judge after that time but take it back and show them straight away

[aliti]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the comments. The car is 6AT. I have always owned and driven manual's but decided on the auto as it was already made and on the ship to Australia with the specs and colour that that I wanted. Just didn't want to wait months for a manual. I also read on the reviews that this auto is very good and with only 0.1 sec difference in 0-100km's I thought I'll get it.

The tint is 1 week old. They must remove the trim as I had to re-do the trim on the passenger door as the window button and the upper speaker wasn't quite sitting right.
I took the vehicle back and they agreed that one of the windows will definitely need re-doing. They want me to leave the rest for a month (they claim due to cold weather) before I decide if I am happy with it or not.

Otherwise, I am very impressed with the 123D. Even the electric steering has surprised me as to how good it is. Jumping into my wife's E90 makes her steering feel very heavy.
I won't be doing brutal launches or anything like that though. Just wanted a car with good fuel economy (travel 100km's round trip for work) but with enough acceleration for overtaking on the freeway where I spend most of my time.

[AussieAlf]

Congrats aliti and eatevo. I still have just over a month to wait before mine hits the docks in Melbourne. My LMB convertible is currently sailing past Portugal. How long did it take yours between arrival on the docks and delivery?

Let us know how much difference the new bulbs make, as I did not go the extra for the xenons either.

[aliti]

Mine took nearly on 2 weeks before I picked up the vehicle.

[eatevo]

Mine was already landed at Melbourne docks when I ordered the car. I wanted xenons but this one didn't but I didn't want to wait 3-4 months for them to order from the factory. Picked the car up yesterday and can't stop driving it. Mines auto and the in gear acceleration is great. So addictive. Manual says to stay under 3.5k for first 2000km. Can't wait for the break in period to over to boot it. Coming from wrx and evos, my feet is very itchy.
I was very suprise that MY10 models have the newer paddle shifters like the DCT not like the older versions