Faults:

The cooling fan failed on the first long journey (300 miles approx.), resulting in the car overheating on the M25, and blowing the radiator expansion bottle. This added about 3 hours onto my journey time, and resulted in me having to drive a Nissan Almera for 3 days.

All door seals had a very annoying squeak, more noticeable when pulling off, or accelerating.

Instrument cluster became noisy (when needles moved) with 2 weeks.

Front passenger electric window failed.

Airbag system fault caused airbag warning light to come on - requiring a faulty wire to be replaced. During the cars stay at the dealership, the technician sheered the bolts off while removing the front drivers seat.

Front brake disc's warped.

Steering seemed almost uncontrollable when traveling over uneven road surfaces.

Car had roughly 8 annoying trips back to the dealer in the 5 weeks that I owned it - before they exchanged it for another car of the same model.

General Comments:

Nice looking car - on the outside anyway. I think the interior looks somewhat dated.

Can't give any praise as to the reliability.

Wouldn't recommend the dealer to a friend.

Faults:

I had the car a few days when the car started to pull to left under braking and steering wheel vibrating - This was caused by a faulty new tire that was put on before collection. This was fixed by BMW straight away.

A pump or belt or alternator now squealing on very cold start. Will get fixed at dealer next week.

Small rattle from passenger side rear door.

General Comments:

The car is quite quick (will beat a lot of cars off the traffic lights) but not as fast as I expected (this maybe due to faulty pump issue outlined above).

Handling is not bad around corners, however my old 3 series (1997 318) went around corners much better and seemed to have more grip. I believe this grip issue has been sorted on newer 2002 models.

The cabin is much more spacious than old 3 series and much more comfortable. The ride is also smoother (which is probably why handling is not as good as before).

Very impressed with BMW dealer. Slipped up at first by taking another customers deposit on another car I was test driving, but bent over backward to find me a great car at an even better price after that.

Faults:

The air conditioning failed within the first year of use.

The suspension was rebuilt at approximately 1 year as one side was found to be out of line with the other. I was accused by the dealer of having damaged the car myself, but this was later retracted. BMW apparently authorised a rebuild as it was ultimately accepted that it could have been built this way.

The thermostat mounting broke up at one year causing overheating and the heating system to fail to operate. (This was dangerous as the weather was icy and there was no way of stopping the screen from icing up), the dealer was not over interested and I was inconvenienced for several weeks. I know of numerous other other cars to have suffered this fault including those owned by the hire company the dealer referred me to!

The driver's door trim plastic blistered within weeks of delivery and was replaced under warranty. Similar dis-figuration later affected the other door trims, but by then I had lost interest in the car and could not be bothered to get the problem sorted as the car was due to be returned to the lease company.

The accelerator pedal began to stick open toward the end of my period of use and this fault was still there when I parted with the car.

General Comments:

I am now convinced that what is great about BMW is the marketing department and their ability to supress information relating to problems from reaching the public. (My previous model 318iSE was also far from perfect).

This car was dull to drive in comparison with all previously owned vehicles and especially the Honda Accord 2.0 SE I now own.

The pedals are offset so far to the right that severe back pain set in after just over an hour at the wheel.

Whilst the boot is a reasonable size, the aperture is not.