Thank you Boards.ie Motors Forum

Burning Eclipse

I started my car buying journey back in October. My wife was about to have our second child, and we needed a 2nd car (3 Door Golf isn't ideal for a family of 4 as our sole vehicle). At the time, my wife really liked the C-Max, and I didn't find it to be a bad car. Did plenty of research, but closer to the birth, my wife changed her mind, and said we'd wait until 2013 to buy.

Fast forward to January, and I'm thinking of what I can buy for myself that was sensible(?) but still something I loved. Had settled on a 1.6l petrol engine, as I don't drive a huge amount for my commute, and that was something I deemed affordable. Research on here and elsewhere pointed to A4 (very basic), Passat (strong contender) or Volvo S40/V50 (lovely spec). Based on what I was seeing, if I wanted a half-way decent selection of cars, I'd need to be looking at 1.8l, as it was tough to find a nice spec in a 1.6 (with the exception of the Passat).

So, I start reading more threads here about people justifying 2k tax bills and crazy amounts of fuel, because when you love the car, and it's something you're passionate about, it's not that big a deal. Thinking like that, and how little it was costing me in comparison to those guys, I found it easy to justify the jump to a 1.8.

I came close to buying a Volvo V50 but the very helpful members here pointed out that technically the seller should have VRT'd the car himself, and the more I thought about it, it wasn't worth all the hassle, so I gave up on that.

Anyway, now that a 1.8 was on the table, one of my favourite cars was an option: the E46 3-series. Found a lovely one nearby, but it was a little over budget. Took it out for a spin, and fell in love.

As ba_barabus said, it was first date kinda stuff on when I should call the seller back for price negotiation, but again, the members here came up trumps with solid advice!

TL;DR... As of yesterday, I now own this car (which I love), and I owe a big thanks to many of the members here for getting me this far, so thanks everyone

ba_barabus

Congratulations and may I wish you a long and happy relationship.

I bought my E46 two months ago and love it

Mr Benevolent

Nice car, love the interior. Well wear!

The Sparrow

Looks lovely. Can I ask how much you paid?

MugMugs

Well wear OP

CianRyan

Lovely interior, well wear man.

Matthewjohn

Congrats on baby and car (love the wheels)

smcgiff

Well wear - judging by the pics you're from my neck of the woods.

bazz26

Well wear with it OP, a nice and rare spec on a 316i.

You should sign up to the Irish BMW owner's forum too - www.bmw-driver.net

mathepac

Congratulations on your nice purchase and on the new arrival, but I fear you will quickly learn that they are incompatible.

For infants / small children you need something like the XC90, this is based on my daughters' experiences and my own going back a generation. Whoever has primary responsibility for lifting the infant / child and related accoutrements in and out of the car will most likely develop back problems if a small saloon is the principal mode of transport. The constant bending and lifting from the passenger compartment and boot is very wearing on the lower back, arms and shoulders. The taller you are the greater the strain.

I hope I'm wrong, but family experiences indicate I;m not.

delly

mathepac wrote: »

Congratulations on your nice purchase and on the new arrival, but I fear you will quickly learn that they are incompatible.

For infants / small children you need something like the XC90, this is based on my daughters' experiences and my own going back a generation. Whoever has primary responsibility for lifting the infant / child and related accoutrements in and out of the car will most likely develop back problems if a small saloon is the principal mode of transport. The constant bending and lifting from the passenger compartment and boot is very wearing on the lower back, arms and shoulders. The taller you are the greater the strain.

I hope I'm wrong, but family experiences indicate I;m not.

Seriously??

I've seen some bad generalizations in my time, but the experiences of two people is by far the best of an expert down the pub type scenario I have seen.....

mathepac

delly wrote: »

Seriously?? ....

I suppose the appropriate response to this Justin Bieber fan type post might to get involved in an infantile mono-syllabilc discourse that ends in a "Whatever", but I'm more mature than that.

delly wrote: »

...
I've seen some bad generalizations in my time, .....

I'm sure you have but if you'd taken time to read my post you'd surely have noticed that I posted about personal family experiences and not bar-stool discussions. I'm surprised you don't appreciate the difference even though it's written in plain English for you.

delly wrote: »

... but the experiences of two people .....

Your numeracy as well as your grasp of basic English seem wanting.

The placement of the apostrophe (this ---> ' ) after the "s" in "daughters' " means more than one daughter plus me, which makes more that two people.

Maybe less time building you life experiences "down the pub" would have served you better in your ability to comment maturely on a decent straight forward post.

I'm glad to see you are a "Radiator" rather than a "Moderator". You're probably a great example of the former in your own eyes, but an exceptionally poor example of the latter IMHO

ninty9er

Nice car OP!! Wipable seats will come in very handy with 2 kids in the car!

renofan

Well wear with the E46. Have to say I love the interior!

mathepac wrote: »

Congratulations on your nice purchase and on the new arrival, but I fear you will quickly learn that they are incompatible.

For infants / small children you need something like the XC90, this is based on my daughters' experiences and my own going back a generation. Whoever has primary responsibility for lifting the infant / child and related accoutrements in and out of the car will most likely develop back problems if a small saloon is the principal mode of transport. The constant bending and lifting from the passenger compartment and boot is very wearing on the lower back, arms and shoulders. The taller you are the greater the strain.

I hope I'm wrong, but family experiences indicate I;m not.

I'm one of five that were born between 1980 and 1985 and Dad had 2 Ford Sierras a Renault 21 and a Renault 19 and both my parents backs are fine. Bit of a daft comment to make imo.

MadMardegan

mathepac wrote: »

I suppose the appropriate response to this Justin Bieber fan type post might to get involved in an infantile mono-syllabilc discourse that ends in a "Whatever", but I'm more mature than that.
I'm sure you have but if you'd taken time to read my post you'd surely have noticed that I posted about personal family experiences and not bar-stool discussions. I'm surprised you don't appreciate the difference even though it's written in plain English for you.
Your numeracy as well as your grasp of basic English seem wanting.

The placement of the apostrophe (this ---> ' ) after the "s" in "daughters' " means more than one daughter plus me, which makes more that two people.

Maybe less time building you life experiences "down the pub" would have served you better in your ability to comment maturely on a decent straight forward post.

I'm glad to see you are a "Radiator" rather than a "Moderator". You're probably a great example of the former in your own eyes, but an exceptionally poor example of the latter IMHO

Maybe if you spent more time exercising, and less time sitting at your computer arguing with people online, your back/arms/shoulders wouldn't hurt so much from having to put a child seat in the car.

pajo1981

mathepac wrote: »

I suppose the appropriate response to this Justin Bieber fan type post might to get involved in an infantile mono-syllabilc discourse that ends in a "Whatever", but I'm more mature than that.
I'm sure you have but if you'd taken time to read my post you'd surely have noticed that I posted about personal family experiences and not bar-stool discussions. I'm surprised you don't appreciate the difference even though it's written in plain English for you.
Your numeracy as well as your grasp of basic English seem wanting.

The placement of the apostrophe (this ---> ' ) after the "s" in "daughters' " means more than one daughter plus me, which makes more that two people.

Maybe less time building you life experiences "down the pub" would have served you better in your ability to comment maturely on a decent straight forward post.

I'm glad to see you are a "Radiator" rather than a "Moderator". You're probably a great example of the former in your own eyes, but an exceptionally poor example of the latter IMHO

You wouldn't happen to be Dufrais from Facejacker, by any chance?

The Pontiac

renofan wrote: »

Well wear with the E46. Have to say I love the interior!



I'm one of five that were born between 1980 and 1985 and Dad had 2 Ford Sierras a Renault 21 and a Renault 19 and both my parents backs are fine. Bit of a daft comment to make imo.

Same here, we used to go camping in an Austin Montego (when it started). We once went to Wales, all seven of us.

No one heard of a MPV back then.

The BMW E46 is plenty big enough for two kids.

Alanstrainor

Well wear OP. Looks like a great one.

mfceiling

mathepac wrote: »

Congratulations on your nice purchase and on the new arrival, but I fear you will quickly learn that they are incompatible.

For infants / small children you need something like the XC90, this is based on my daughters' experiences and my own going back a generation. Whoever has primary responsibility for lifting the infant / child and related accoutrements in and out of the car will most likely develop back problems if a small saloon is the principal mode of transport. The constant bending and lifting from the passenger compartment and boot is very wearing on the lower back, arms and shoulders. The taller you are the greater the strain.

I hope I'm wrong, but family experiences indicate I;m not.

Really?

Really? I've 3 kids....first car was a 320, then a 520 and now it's the 2nd A4.
No back problems for me or herself in the last 7 years.

I had a Kuga on holidays in italy - was handy enough for getting the kids in and out. Last year i had a Picasso - again handy enough but was it enough to warrant buying a people carrier - not a fcuking chance.

Burning Eclipse

The Sparrow wrote: »

Looks lovely. Can I ask how much you paid?

Paid €5,700 in the end. Like I said, more than I wanted to pay tbh, but it had a few things that convinced me: 8 months of tax, 4 brand new tyres, timing chain done in December and 2 full years of NCT.

smcgiff wrote: »

Well wear - judging by the pics you're from my neck of the woods.

Ya, those houses in the background are fairly distinctive for anyone who knows them

bazz26 wrote: »

Well wear with it OP, a nice and rare spec on a 316i.

You should sign up to the Irish BMW owner's forum too - www.bmw-driver.net

Ya, not a huge amount of 316i Sports about, and I've never seen one with leather (although I almost prefer the alcantara seats). As for signing up to that site, done!

@mathepac, I appreciate your input, but I reckon decent exercise and using proper lifting techniques should see me through!

Thanks for all the kind comments on thread. Car is in very good nick for an 8 y.o. in my opinion, but I'd like to clean it a bit inside, and tidy up some of the paint work. Still definitely in the honeymoon phase though - and will be for a while!

mathepac

MadMardegan wrote: »

Maybe if you spent more time exercising, and less time sitting at your computer arguing with people online, your back/arms/shoulders wouldn't hurt so much from having to put a child seat in the car.

and I thought ad hominem comments were against the charter; silly me, I must have mis-read it. It also appears that expressing an opinion based on experiences that run contrary to that of other posters is against the charter, although naturally their experiences are only expressed after I post my experiences. My apologies for not contributing like a good little motors clone and duplicating others' opinions and experiences.

I haven't argued with anyone here, quite the opposite; because I expressed a different opinion, I become a target for infantile disrespect - not my posts or their content mind you - me personally. This is common practice on boards.ie, particularly when highlighting the childish posting practices of one radiator/poster/clone to other radiators/posters/clones. All the words in all the charters in the world won't change that because they are simply ignored (or not properly understood).

Highlighting the idiocy and stupidity of a post isn't arguing, it's simply highlighting the idiocy and stupidity of a post or a group of them. Nor is it an ad hominem attack on the radiator/poster/clone as it is fair commentary on the diocy and stupidity of a post, or its content.

dgt

Sweet looking car OP, best of luck with it :cool:

ba_barabus

I can see what Mats point is. My sister hurt her back lifting a child seat in and out of a 3dr Polo. I too have a bad back and will need a high car when the time comes.

I'm currently getting a lot of physio as I put it out again two weeks ago while checking the oil level. While I'm loving my e46 it hasn't been the most comfortable to get in and out of.

While I agree there is no point going overkill on getting high cars I can certainly appreciate what the point he is making is.

Green Hornet

Yep. So can I.

A saloon car is not as easy with youngsters as a hatchback or larger carrier. I've an Accord while my wife has the outgoing Civic. The Civic beats my Accord in every single department for kids stuff. Far easier access to baby seats with the back doors which open to almost 90 degrees, more access to the boot, no height restrictions in the boot due to rear window taking up half the height etc.

To be fair, people bringing up stories from 30 years ago is over the top as well. Cars were smaller so our parents just had to make do. Very little in terms of safety regulations too........kids just squeezed in......

Still though, I'm not changing the Accord for a hatch or MPV....

delly

Sorry OP, whilst my earlier post was an unrestrained, vicious and unprovoked attack on another member of the community, I actually forgot to say congratulations. So, congrats!

The E46 is a great car, and this is speaking as a fellow owner. There are some common issues that they have, but with yours being an '05, a lot of them had been ironed out by that stage in production. You might want to check to see if there are isofix points hidden in the back though. Mines an '01 and has them, but I am unsure if that was standard across the range. And if you think a saloon is bad for the back, spare a thought for me having a coupe. All those buckling ups for my little one was......surprisingly fine. My genetic makeup might have a part to play in that area however, as I'm sure everyone is different.

anoda_username

Congrats on the new car OP love the interior

Burning Eclipse

delly wrote: »

Sorry OP, whilst my earlier post was an unrestrained, vicious and unprovoked attack on another member of the community, I actually forgot to say congratulations. So, congrats!

The E46 is a great car, and this is speaking as a fellow owner. There are some common issues that they have, but with yours being an '05, a lot of them had been ironed out by that stage in production. You might want to check to see if there are isofix points hidden in the back though. Mines an '01 and has them, but I am unsure if that was standard across the range. And if you think a saloon is bad for the back, spare a thought for me having a coupe. All those buckling ups for my little one was......surprisingly fine. My genetic makeup might have a part to play in that area however, as I'm sure everyone is different.

Been told to watch the gasket on it alright. It was manufactured in April 04, but still quite late in the lifecycle. Also, I checked it when I test drove it, and it has Isofix on both sides.

If I had less (no) sensibility, I'd own a coupé... Such a beautiful car.