BigTartanJudge

Hmmmn, done a bit of digging, and it seems it's actually only a big difference if you are going from pre-2001 330i petrol to post-2001 330i petrol..... VED is £185 per year for 2009/2010 for both the pre-March 2001 330D and 330i petrol (goes on engine size alone). VED for post March 2001 330D is Band I @ £175 per year (puts out 177g CO2/KM) [actually LESS than older models !] VED for post-March 2001 330i petrol is Band L @ £404 per year (Band K £215 if car reg 01/03/01-26/03/06) [puts out 244g CO2/KM] And for those interested in fuel consumption overall from Autocar etc: 330D sport = 42.8 mpg (combined) Metric: 6.6 litre/100km 13.2p/mile (fuel cost per mile) 330i = 27.7 mpg (combined) Metric: 10.2 litre/100km 18.5p/mile (fuel cost per mile) So say for an average of 10000 miles a year the car will cost you an extra £530-ish to run purely on fuel costs alone (and that was a while back when diesel cost more than petrol) if you are doing average / combined driving, then factor in the added £229/year extra cost of VED for the petrol 330i (if you go for a post-March 2001 330i) as opposed to 330D. and adds up to about £760 extra total. If you have your 330D remapped it will have even better mpg, more power than the 330i petrol version and SHED-LOADS more torque. Added to the fact that recently diesel is now same price if not cheaper than cost of petrol, no wonder lots of people are going for the diesel versions, and have been hard to find a decent one with low miles etc. Not true about the 320d e46 though, mpg is only 2-3 mpg better combined and VED is the same £175 for post-March 2001 and £185 for pre-March 2001. The 330d engine is far smoother, progressive, unstressed unit with less lag compared to the rather clattery (esp with higher miles) and laggy nature of the 320d unit, esp with higher miles.

Have also been thinking about one of these, although like fla the 4dr saloon (330d sport) for my next car. They seem like a lot of car for the money and have seen 2001-2003 examples around 50-70k miles for £6k-£7.5k - now this was a £35k car new and has done all it's major depreciation...... I would rather get one that avoids the tax increase bracket, but however the earlier models only got 185BHP as opposed to 204BHP in the later ones. Also, was seriously thining about the auto version just for smoothness, but I hear they can be prone to failure (£1500 for replacement inc fitting)? Also heard mutterings about overheating and turbo's going. The manuals are quite hard to come by and command more money too. This said they come pretty well-specced, with most getting lots of options e.g. xenon HID's, decent hi-fi with Harmon-Kardon optional, poss, sat-nav and tv, most have elec leather and heated seats etc and can be remapped to 240-260BHP easily with 450+ft-lbs torque for £300 by the likes of DMS as Karl mentioned. Still looking at 35-40MPG too which can't be bad.

Can't really say how thye fit mate, as haven't got round to that yet. But other people I know have bought them and they have fitted fine. Have you thought about using the duostyling AFR gauges which use the extra dash blank to house the AFR gauge ?

defo the bottom ones.

I got mine from here mate: http://www.body-kit.co.uk/product.php/6 ... 5362f4c2f0 RGM, good quality and reasonably priced I thought. Her's a single RHD one in matt black: http://www.body-kit.co.uk/product.php/6 ... ack-single

99.9 mpg :)

So far about £14k........ :pale:

That's pis* poor, really sorry to hear that mate, make sure you get it all through insurance though. Get the settlement sorted, then buy your car back very cheaply, take all good bits off her, buy another cheap G60 with mint body, flog on bits, swap bits over, job done. I know it's hard to take, I got very disheartened when mine was crashed into (albeit not at much damage caused, they still wanted to write her off though !), try and stay focused and you'll come out on top, even if it does take time.

It's just Ford wanting a slice of the action, look how similar it looks in basic design to the Scirocco and Honda Civic, which have both done really well.

Yep, woo-hoo :D

Looks nice and different, jut hope none of it needs resprayed as the cost of that paint is horrendous mate :shock:

Motorbike plates standard size are 228mm wide x 178mm high in size. Taxi's sometimes run them so they can have this and their taxi licence both displayed in the numberplate mount / recess. Import plates are 330mm wide x 152mm high in size (only for use on JDM or similar imports though). Neither will fit the US-spec number plate mount properly though at all. Although the import plate is the correct height, is is too wide, but could be trimmed, however, our corrado's are not imported so you can't legally run these either. The standard size for US-spec rear plate is 6" (153 mm) x 12" (305 mm), and the only way you can legally run these is to own a US-imported vehicle. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I looked into all these years ago. You can run them but is is illegal and depends if you want to ru nthe risk or not. As I own three cherished plates, I decided that I would rather hold onto the plates rather than rosk losing them. HTH Top pic is motorcycle plate and bottom pic is import plates.

No, the only plates that fit are US-spec plates which you can buy, but they are usually held onto the rear plate mount with bolts and a plate-frame like this one. The motorbike plates are different size and are for use on bikes only anyways. This is assuming it is a US-spec rear number plate mount you have and not just a Mattig or similar smoothed one ?

Had it fitted for few weeks, then had misfortune to pull off a mini-roundabout next to my house right when there was an oncoming police T5 coming up the hill, saw my no front plate, pulled me, found the US-spec rear plate. Argued the toss with him about it seeing as correct reflective material, correct diameter and height of digits, correct spacing of said digits and corrrect font. He was having none of it, gave me £30 fine and said if we catch you again we will report you to DVLA and they will take cherished plate off you :brickwall: So bang went my idea of fitting a US-spec plate on a daily, shame as I think I was the first to have this. :(

Yes, but it wasn't in a Lotus :norty:

Use trim-tape or Velcro adhesive tape all round the edge. This is what I used when I had my US-spec surround like yours. You had any trouble with the illegal plate ?

17's for show, 16's for go :wink:

TBH, that's a very good price mate, I would snap it up.

Very nice, where did the front fog-light replacement air intakes come from ? M3 looks good too, although don't know about the websites claim about it being the first supercharged e46 M3 in Europe, have heard of several to be honest, neverless it's a nice car.

All red crystals (prof. done) with reverse lights left for obvious reasons: Standard rears, half-tinted using CC of Canada guide: The red lights flash orange no problems using green tinted bulbs (or you can use orange LED bulbs, but you will need to run resistors as well to get them to flash at correct speed)

Good job so far, just take your time. I did mine half (top)-tinted using the same guide, came out really well - the key is all in the preparation work. I have a set of all red FK-crystals done leaving the reverse lights clear, look great. But am having another set of FK's done soon completely all red to see which I prefer.

Very nice wheels, I would defo go with the sizes Zak has mentioned above. I will be running 7.5 and 8.5x16" on my rado and that's the sizes I will be fitting.

I would expect to pay about £400 assuming they are complete, not seized and not majorly corroded etc. They will be same fitment I think, but the VR6 ones will have heavier-rated poundage springs (at least at front) to compensate for the heavier weight of the VR6 engine.

Really ? I have spoken to at least 5 different bodyshops, including large insurance-approved businesses, who all said the same thing, "no solvent-based paints anymore" - unless this has changed in the last 2 weeks.... :?