Mines a 318 Ti compact with the M-sports bits too. To answer Loz' date=' I think this means a leather steering wheel and gear stick, some sill covers, nice alloys and lowered suspension. Certainly holds the road well !

Insurance for me is less than I was paying on the Octavia [/quote']

I thought it was just cosmetic but obviously not if they lower them too.

Interesting on the insurance front.I too pay more for my Octavia vRS than I did for my Audi 1.8T quattro sport.Pretty high insurance on the vRS

Looking in autotrader,second hand 5 series look sooooo tempting.Not the latest Bangle b*ggered beemer and not the very square one.Ones on around a V plate.

Seem to shed money quicker than a 3 series and I have to say they look very nice indeed. 523's even 540's..dirt cheap.

I think these are what BMW is cracked up to be

IIRC, didn't BMW compromise the usual 3-series rear Z axle set-up in order to create the Compact?

Go for the drive, you maybe very surprised how good a RWD car feels. I know I was.

Since I sort of own one and while it was running on the road before being gutted and caged it was a better drive than my Octy some 14 years it's younger and supposedly 30BHP more...now it's fettled, caged, dropped, braced, ceramic pads and stripped of all tar...I'm really struggling to think of a reason to keep the octy...I mean 190+ bhp, straight 6 and just less than or about a tonne ...bye bye Octy.

Not even got the cam or throttle bodies done yet.

IIRC, didn't BMW compromise the usual 3-series rear Z axle set-up in order to create the Compact?

No, the bmw e46 compact has exactly the same wheelbase as the equivalent saloon and the same z axle with a couple of refinements to the suspension mountings. It has a quicker steering rack that was introduced later on the saloon and touring. Also has direct drive on its sixth gear. I only know this because I'm about to buy a 320td sport compact, quite a rare model(looks lovely particularly from the side, different bumpers to the standard car - funny the difference a set of different bumpers make on a car!). I cant quite believe I'm about to buy a beemer when I think of the pleasure I had frustrating bmw drivers in my old Fabia VRS! Apologies for my move to the dark side.........

Very nice, I did look at the 320td myself this time round, but out of budget. Relatively rare as well.

Steve

I've just ditched my 06 Octy L&K 2.0TDi yesterday for an E46 330i Touring Was it worth it? Absolutely! It feels like I'm home again. And guess what - the Xenons don't flippin shake all over the place. I also run an E39 M5 which is their best ever car IMO. I know the big engine Beemers are on a different level to Skodas but the DNA does filter down to the smaller engined versions. They are not as expensive to run as you think, and just because other BMW drivers choose to drive badly doesn't mean you have to. I wanted the Skoda thing to work for me - I specced it to eyeballs, but no, it's a 15 grand car really. (My 330 feels the 40 grand car it was, only I paid half that.) Flame suit on..............You can't polish a turd.

I regularly use the 'Rent -A- Race Car' service at the Nurburgring, basically you rent a 318ti compact that has been stripped and caged etc.

It's a fairly quick little thing, handles superbly and has very good manners, I.e. it doesn't catch you out, you always know what the chassis brakes and steering are doing, the only downside is the serious lack of torque, it really feels gutless when you hit an kind of incline, obviously this wont be as much of a problem on the road as it is on the Nurburgring, you get the rev limiter so you change up then it just goes flat, you change down again straight onto the limiter again!! perhaps better gearing would help on the ring?