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      10-05-2012, 11:59 AM   #1
Diesel130
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United Kingdom
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Drives: F20 120d Sport Deep Sea Blue
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Suffolk

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Bought used 120d Sport - first impressions...

Hi all - new owner here...

Finally took delivery of an 11 month old 120d Sport F20 last week, after a hiccup with the FEMBody module that needed replacement from Germany before we got it (the folding mirrors weren't working).

What a lot of car for the money! We got it from a main dealer at £10K under its list price, which seems particularly good value for an 11 month old car with 11,000 miles on the clock and a pretty good spec Not good news regarding depreciation for those who bought new though... 36% depreciation over 11 months - yikes!

What a lovely colour Deep Sea Blue is, shiny in the sun and almost black at dusk.

Coming from a 10 year old Golf MKIV, which we had from new, it's perhaps not surprising to see how much cars have developed over the years. It's so much quieter, more powerful and smoother to drive, despite our rubbish roads in rural Suffolk.

Initial impressions are overall very positive, with just a few things I need to work out / fix / fiddle with....

1) First, the steering seems very light (especially as my weekend toy is a 10 year old 911) - so much so, that initially, when I take a hand off to change gear it's easy to push the wheel to the left a bit with my right hand (UK here, so RHD). I found that putting the mode to Sport seems to stiffen up the steering feel just right. Haven't yet worked out what else sports mode does, though - is it less economical than Comfort?

2) The clutch seems to bite quite low down and is very sudden. i.e. it doesn't have much travel between fully disengaged to fully engaged. Is that normal? It seems an effort to get smooth changes, especially if you want to change quickly.

3) I haven't yet found a seating / steering wheel position where I can see both the top of the speedometer and the computer screen at the bottom. I'm not particularly tall (which would make it worse). Have BMW messed up here with the cabin ergonomics, or is there a trick to getting the correct position?

4) The central armrest sometimes gets in the way of my elbow when changing gear - is it possible to move it out of the way? It doesn't seem to do anything apart from slide forward and backwards a few inches - doesn't even seem to lift up.

5) Can the central rear headrest be removed to give better rear visibility - pushing the button in at the collar around the seat back only seemed to let it raise up a small amount - maybe I'm just not pulling it hard enough?

6) Took a while to work out why the mirrors and heating settings kept changing between uses - now figured out the "his and hers" keys!

7) Still puzzled by the start/stop/ignition button. I thought pressing the button twice having come to a stop should turn everything off. But the other night, the dash lights stayed on after the stop button was pressed a second time. Does it behave differently at night than in the day? They went off after I locked the car.

8) Can't seem to find out how to configure the car so that it:-
a) Always starts with the auto start-stop disabled.
b) Always starts in Sport mode
Maybe these items are not configurable, and I have to press buttons after each start up?

Think that's it for now. Hoping to get some time over the weekend to play with the bluetooth / usb / phone integration.
Appreciate 0