[GregL]

Hello all, I've only posted once before on this forum but I've been lurking and reading alot of the posts for the better part of a year now. Anyway, I've been procrastinating changing one of my cars for a while as I wanted to see how the new 2007 Infiniti G35 would come out, but from an overall style point of view, it's just not my thing based on all the photos and preview articles I've come across. So this morning I finally went to BMW and ordered a 2006 330xi I brought a print-out with all the specs I wanted as well as certain posts that I printed from here to show what kind of discounts people are getting. To my dismay though I was told that the factory stopped production last week so I'd have to find an existing car or wait for the '07 model. To keep a long story short, after 45 minutes of searching, one of the sales managers came across the EXACT car I wanted but with the status as "Sold", so he double-checked and found out that somebody ordered it and bailed out on the lease. I immediately had them put a hold on it while I finalized my trade-in, etc... and now I'm expecting to take delivery next Wednesday or Thursday! The specs are as follows:

2006 330xi
Alpine White on Lemon Dakota Leather with Burl Walnut Wood Trim
Sport Package (Sport steering wheel, 17" style 158 wheels, sport seats)
Premium Package (Logic7, auto dimming & folding mirrors, lumbar support, etc...)
Navigation Package
6-speed Auto
Comfort Access
Park Distance Control
Bluetooth Telephone & BMW Assist
6-disc CD Changer
Electric Rear & Manual Side Sunshades

I'm still in total shock that somebody would order such a specific configuration and colours, then walk away from it. The car is presently sitting at BMW's facility in Halifax so they said I should be able to take delivery by Thursday the latest, at which point I will promptly take lots of pics if it's not too dark out yet and post some of them here

[RGRAY]

Welcome and congradulations.

You are one lucky guy.

The 335xi won't be out until March of 2007 and will probably be $5,000 more.

I feel very lucky too; I would not have bought a 328xi and the 335xi would have been out of my price range.

I'm VERY glad BMW came out with the 330xi first and it's only going to be made one year so that makes it extra special.

That is a very nicely loaded car.

I'm surprise it didn't have the cold weather package or heated seats.

Are you planning on getting snow tires or seeing how it does in snow with all weather tires?

Please post pictures.

[Gary]

you are definitely lucky to find your car. I had to wait two months for mine to be built and delivered. I also hear the 335 won't come out in all wheel drive til later next year so your xi could have been a really long wait...

Enjoy!

[GregL]

RGRAY:

Here in Canada we get the "cold weather package" standard on 330i/xi models. I guess BMW figured out that Canadians are too cheap to option it so they bundled it together with the base car. So really the only factory option missing on this car is satellite radio...apparently even having the factory pre-wire done is quite a special request. I've also arranged for the alarm to by installed by the dealer before I take delivery.

As for snow tires I'm most definitely going to mount those on the rims that are coming on the car and leave them on there. The QX4 that I'm trading in has a Nissan ATTESA automatic 4wd system but I found it to be suicide to drive it with all-seasons and promptly started using winter tires every year since then. This also gives me an excuse to get 18 or 19" rims with summer tires in April or so

Regarding the '07 xi models you're absolutely right, maybe a 328xi would have cost a little less than an '06 330xi but I didn't want to sacrifice some power just to get 1 missing option nor did I want to wait however long for a 335xi (with a price premium) to debut. So overall (even though I don't have the car yet) I'm very pleased with the way things went.

[RGRAY]

Originally Posted by GregL

RGRAY:

Here in Canada we get the "cold weather package" standard on 330i/xi models...As for snow tires I'm most definitely going to mount those on the rims that are coming on the car and leave them on there...This also gives me an excuse to get 18 or 19" rims with summer tires in April or so

Regarding the '07 xi models you're absolutely right, maybe a 328xi would have cost a little less than an '06 330xi but I didn't want to sacrifice some power just to get 1 missing option nor did I want to wait however long for a 335xi (with a price premium) to debut. So overall (even though I don't have the car yet)[b] I'm very pleased with the way things went[/.

You are going to be soooooooooo happy with your car.

I LOVE mine (I have 3,200 miles on it).

I'm glad you have the cold weather package.

I was worried there.

I'm going to try all season tires THIS year and if I'm not happy with them I will go to snow tires on my 158s (which I like) and get 189s or 199s next spring.

Do you like the 158s?

Have you seen them in person?

I'm a little turned off on performance tires because they are bad in low temperatures too (40 degrees and lower).

I don't want to drive on mostly dry roads with snow tires for 5 months.

This is all I think an E90 needs.

Tint, blacklines and wheels (199s).

Your car would look great with these 3 items too.

IMO, this is how an E90 should look and mine will look just like this if I have any problems with my all weather tires.

[GregL]

Those are type 199 19" wheels right? They truly are gorgeous, I'm not sure if I like those over the type 179 wheels though, the problem is that I haven't seen either in person. I think people here tend to buy the basic car (whether it's off the lot of a fairly basic order) so finding something with non-stock but genuine original wheels is pretty rare on the E90's so far. I might go with 18" though since my QX4 has/had 20's and I'm somewhat through with the big rim phase in favour of comfort, so the type 195 wheels caught my eye, still have to ask the dealer how much they sell them for though. You see I paid the CDN$599 for $5000 in wheel/tire damage coverage from the dealer but it only covers what I purchase from them. So this winter I'll either buy a set of Dunlop M3's or Pirelli 210 runflat winter tires from them to mount on the 158s and leave them there. I'll just run on the stock all-seasons between now and then. You might want to look into winter tires already for this season too, we have to remember that although we have AWD and can accelerate as well as power out of a corner faster in snow, we can't stop any faster than a FWD/RWD with the same amount of traction from the same all-season tires.

I'll try without tint at first, I have tint on my QX4 right now and I'm getting tired of the darker peripheral vision so this might be a nice change.

I'm not too certain how blacklines would look on a white car...but I think they're almost a necessity on a car in SG like yours.

[RGRAY]

Originally Posted by GregL

Those are type 199 19" wheels right?...
I'm not too certain how blacklines would look on a white car...but I think they're almost a necessity on a car in SG like yours.

They're 19 inch 199s.

I think blacklines look REAL good on white.