[v6Jules]

I've been trying to register for a few weeks now and finally got it working so here we are. Picked up my f31 340i on the 18th of November, amazingly i only had a short wait of four weeks from the date I ordered compared to the golf R estates I was looking at which was six months or more!

Its Mineral grey with black leather and blue stitching.

spec is Interior comfort pack, M sport plus pack, adaptive suspension and professional plus media pack

So far I'm loving it! I have only covered 500 miles so far, so I am still taking it pretty easy with a mix of driving between sport and comfort to help vary the revs.

my previous car was a Mk3 Octavia VRS TSI which I feel was also a pretty great car for the money and I was originally all set to stay with VAG and go for a golf r.

I have made a few observations and impressions coming from the skoda, some obvious and some possibly not so.

zipping down rough back roads the skoda was probably more fun as it was lighter and its shorter rack made it good fun to chuck about.

The infotainment system in the F31 is different and in some ways better and others not so good. The iDrive screen is gorgeous and I really like the controls for it but connectivity seems to be sketchy compared to the VAG unit which worked perfectly with my Ipod classic (any ideas? should it work?), Bluetooth album art which the BMW unit does neither. The Trip computer on the dials appears to be a lower resolution on the F31 as well

Then there is the high beam assist which is frankly doesn't even work... every time I use it I will get flashed before it bothers to dip where as the VRS one would dip the instant another light was in view.

On the subject of lights I think the adaptive xenons the VRS had were better when dipped but not as good as the F31s LED lights on main beam

but thats enough moaning about little niggles! onto the good stuff

The ENGINE! what a diverse monster it is... comfortable wafting along or letting rip. it sounds really good, something i really missed with the skoda which didn't make any noise at all. The auto box is really something else as well and I'm really impressed as I wasn't all that keen on an auto originally

The suspension is a nice balance between poise and comfort and its way more refined than the VRS

The interior is really on another level to the VRS, it looks more interesting and has better materials all round from the plastics, metals, switch gear and carpets. all in all its a very nice place to be and the heated seats and steering wheel are great additions to have!

The HUD is epic! all cars should have one of these!!!

The boot is nice and well thought out with handy storage for the parcel shelf and the dividers although they could have put remote seat releases in the boot? The pop up glass is also really handy!

The brakes are excellent! they look awesome and have plenty of stopping power even with the occasional squeak when slow moving

The car just looks great! it looks so much more interesting than the VRS did and the colour is just awesome!

Anyways i'm really loving it and cant wait to get a few more miles on it as I start to stretch its legs a bit.

lastly I've added a few piks from the weekend after a coat of Sonax hybrid NPT and fitting some black kidney grills, Hopefully I can get some interior shots at some point

[225]

Very nice and welcome! Pretty much identical to mine bar I have white stitching. Well and yours is a lot cleaner!

They get better with time, louder, faster just brilliant.

I can recommend coding some things like one touch boot close on fob and internal button, increased asd sound, unplugging left exhaust flap and getting a dtuk or equivilent tuning device!

[v6Jules]

Thanks! It really does feel special compared to the VRS. It won't always be this clean haha.

I'm looking forward to really giving it some hell at some point :-)

I've got myself an esys cable and set it up on the laptop and made a backup of the car files but was suffering from the previous night so thought better of having a first go at the weekend lol. Seems a little more in depth than VCDS coding.

[elstoof]

Same as mine pretty much. iPod classic works fine with idrive, I plug it into the armrest USB and leave it there. plug and play really, just select it from the media section.

[v6Jules]

Originally Posted by elstoof

Same as mine pretty much. iPod classic works fine with idrive, I plug it into the armrest USB and leave it there. plug and play really, just select it from the media section.

When I plug it in it says the ipod name but just hangs there saying loading if I try to use it... iPod comes up with a bmw logo so they are half way there.

It has about 120Gb of music on it so could it just be too much for it?

[james d]

Looks fantastic, just what I'm after too! If not too cheeky,how did you finance it? I've posted a thread seeking advice on spec and finance,especially PCP which is a mystery to me so any input very welcome.

[Mr Burt]

Fine looking motor, welcome to the forum. Oh and snap!

[philiper1]

What a lovely car, congratulations

[Rbrown]

Great looking car!

Welcome to the forum! Don't be buying any loved ones Christmas presents, this forum will spend all your money!

[rosstin]

Debadged.. let the exhausts do the talking

[CazuaLLUK]

Stunning man!

[UKF30]

Very nice looking wagon mate

Mineral grey is the colour to go for

[2JPW]

I was in a similar position, looking to buy a Golf R to replace my GTI.
I've always wanted a BMW, preferably an M, so I thought an M435i was a logical stepping stone.
Very pleased with mine so far:

[Chrismac13]

Hello & welcome. Stunning motor

[bwrlane]

Re adaptive lights, I have the xenon version on my 2013 model. I have never had any problems with being flashed and all round find it a great system. Would be worth seeing if others experience the same as you on the LEDs and if not, getting them checked.

[Rich9600]

Welcome to the club, and another snap... These grey wheelbarrow hearse's must be in fashion...

As already mentioned, the engine and exhaust just get better as the miles go on.

The iPod Classic isn't fully supported by iDrive. I bought one for my old MY14 330d, the 160GB version. It just kept crashing. When it did work the album artwork was very low resolution. So my dad nicked it for his Aldi. No issues with his VAG. Haven't tried it in my MY17 340i.

The Adaptive LED's work a treat for me and react quicker then the Adaptive Xenons in the previous car ever did. Dirty windscreen or camera lens can spoil the effectiveness. But, if cleaning doesn't work I'd contact your dealer. I don't think I've been flashed yet with the Adaptive LED's.

Enjoy your motor, she's a great one.

[Beancounter_74]

Very nice can't beat a MG hearse.

MG seems to be the new EBII

[v6Jules]

Thanks guys

I've got non adaptive lights on this and only get flashed when the high beam assistant doesn't automatically dip the lights until very late. My VRS had lane assist and used the same camera for the high beam assistant where as Octavia's without lane assist could have high beam assist specced but with a different lesser spec camera which was supposed to be pretty poor as well... Maybe it's the same with bmw?

Thanks for the info regarding the ipod I will give it another go, if not its a shame as I miss having my whole collection at my finger tips and accessible via the cars stereo otherwise I have to plan my listening in advance before the journey via Google play or Spotify

[elstoof]

Maybe it's a storage size issue then, my ancient 80GB classic works fine. Time to treat yourself to a new iPod Touch then.

Actually, if your 160GB is full, try deleting a load of stuff and see if that works. A quick Google brings up a few complaints like this, someone said it took half an hour to load up on theirs so maybe there's only a limited capacity on the idrive to store the file map of all that music

[v6Jules]

Thanks have rebooted the ipod today and left it on charge as it was a bit flat. Will have a play after work tonight

[Russbmw]

Originally Posted by elstoof

Same as mine pretty much. iPod classic works fine with idrive, I plug it into the armrest USB and leave it there. plug and play really, just select it from the media section.

Mine works fine too.

What cable are you using v6jules?

I had one from my previous e92 which didn't work in the F32 despite looking identical. BMW also sell 2 different types of cable, and I had to try both to determine which one would work.

[v6Jules]

It's the original apple cable that came with the ipod when it was new... A bit scruffy around the edges but worked fine the day I took it out of the Skoda hmm

Does the USB port stay powered with the ignition off?