Hey everyone
My name is Mihai and I live in Romania. Till a month ago I was the very happy driver of a 2010 Mini Cooper S. Unfortunately someone wanted to make a U turn 5 meters in front of me and the impact has been inevitable. My car's front end is totaled. In my opinion my Mini Cooper S was the perfect car for me.
I am currently interested in buying a BMW. I like the new F30 3 series but due to financial reasons I will go with the F20 1 series model which I like but not a lot
(i haven't test drove one yet because the dealership here only has 3 series for test drives).
I have done some mods to the MINI and the estimate power was about 205 210 HP. It was very fun on B roads, even though the sport suspension was quite harsh. In Romania there aren't many highways/freeways so I did a lot of driving on B roads and in town where I live and work. My average fuel consumption was 8.2 l/100km which was ok.
I am interested in a 1 series also because I am soon to be a father so the MINI didn't meet our requirements anymore. We only had the MINI as a family car but we will conciser buying a Dacia MPV as a more room/work horse car
.
I have test drove a F30 320d with sports automatic gearbox and frankly I was not impressed at all(except for being roomier). The engine was way underpowered compared to my MINI and the steering had no feel whatsoever even though it was quite precise. On my MINI I could feel every little bump or slight uneven-es on the road through the steering wheel. By the time I switched the settings to Sport in the 3 series my test drive was finished so I may not fully experienced the car's steering and acceleration, but I remember test driving a MINI before I had mine and from the start I was pleased .
I am currently interested in the 5 door 125d or 125i. Which one would you recommend after owning a MINI for almost 2 years. I know it is definitely roomier than the MINI so we'll exclude this from the discussion . I know 1 series and MINI's don't have many things in common, but the F20's being slightly above MINI's as technical features and sophistication I want to be blown away by their technical/mechanical features compared to the MINI. I am not a diesel fan but I am fan of better mileage economy
and also I think the 125d has more torque.
By the way
. What do you think of the new A250 sport mercedes benz? I like how it looks but most early reviews put the 1 series ahead of it, and also the A250 sport costs about as much as a F30 328.