Almost said goodbye to VW yesterday.....almost

[monkeyhanger]

^ just to further galvanise your decision not to change, luxury VED is £475pa, not £465 - I'm sure that would've pushed you over the edge if the salesperson messing around hadn't. 

If you want a GTI/R calibre car in the future, I think getting hit for that enhanced VED is inevitable. The threshold isn't going up with car prices, so more cars will be sucked into that VED bracket every year.

The only way out of this for the the car manufacturers that I can see is cutting back on the standard spec, but those specs you'd really want being engineered in such a way as to make it a complete doddle for the dealership to retrofit and pay for separately to the car, or have the hardware in place already and gave retrospective activation at a separate cost.

Or they could reduce the prices to what people really pay and forget all this "deposit contribution" bollocks.

[fredgroves]

I think you have a point about the retrofit options but it's a UK only problem AFAIK and where the option thing requires swapping something, it's expensive plus dealership labour rates vs factory ones, it's going to be very expensive.. More expensive than just paying the ransom demand from the government.

I think unless it's OTA software enabling (which vw have done on the mk8) then there won't be a solution.

[Sootchucker]

I know that BMW are starting to add options in an OTA paid upgrade (such as Automatic High Beam etc.), but others like sunroofs, electric seats, HUD's, adaptive cruise control etc. obviously all need the hardware in the car and despite their best efforts (and I'd love to be proved wrong), I don't think manufacturers will install a sunroof via a software upgrade 

[DaveA]

There's a lot of good stuff in this thread and I just scanned through much of it again...

The M135i is great car in many ways but, like many in this thread, you do come to realise that it is a pretty expensive one compared the the Mk7 and 7.5 GTI's that we all seem to have presently... You can get similar monthlies, for instance, but if you look to buy at the end of your PCP, then the GFV is steep... because that's what they need to do to get similar monthlies... run a spreadsheet of whole life costs and the Golf still looks pretty good...

However, it's probably fair to say that the GTI is not a direct competitor, and that R is probably a more direct competitor... and I suspect similar costs...

I was impressed with the performance in the BMW, but not so much so that it is light years away from the GTI and I would not swap just on more performance (I was not tempted, for instance, to look at Golf R when I bought the GTI)... The GTI is plenty enough for me... I would not take it to a drag race, but along the tight and twisty roads we have here on the Moors, it's far more in its element...

To be honest, right now, I don't think I'd even be looking at the BMW if I did not have the other problems I have discussed in the other thread... and it is in those respects that the BMW looks attractive to me at the moment...

I mean, 15 months and 8900 miles into a big spec GTI, I shouldn't need to be looking, right...

[Sootchucker]

Much like me Dave. I don't need the extra performance that an M135i gives (although I have to say in the wet AWD would be useful), and for me an M135 lite with around 240-260ps and FWD would probably been more what I would have been after (I don't think that engines coming for a while).

I don't seems to have the problems that you have with the noise in the GTI. Either I'm going deaf (at 57) or it just doesn't bother me or my car is genuinely quieter than some ? I remember when I specc'd the GTI I baulked at the neat £33k list price, and it was only after some substantial discount bringing it down to the £27.5k mark that I started to feel better about it.

I've driven the M135i and it's a glorious hot hatch, brilliant equipment as standard and as options, fast, quiet and civilised with great (at least it appears so) build quality. But as good as it is, is it worth £44k or £38k after discount - I just don't know. I mean i'm at a time in my life where I can afford it, and TBH, with what's been happening in the world this year with COVID-19, part of me still thinks to hell with it, just get it, I could be dead this time next year (not wishing to be morbid) so enjoy life whilst you can, but that nagging part of me keeps comparing the costs against the current GTI and somethings just stopping me.

Sure the M135i (and BMW in general) might be the next level in quality over VW, but you do have to pay heavily for that privilege. As you said Dave, if I was coming from an R, maybe the difference wouldn't be so much and I would have already signed by now, but I'm not in an R, I'm in a GTI, and that's a whole rung down cost wise from an AWD BMW.

Knowing how much I change my mind, don't be surprised if in the next few days I announce that I've just ordered one. I really am that fickle (no kids, don't smoke, don't drink mortgage paid off year ago, so cars are my only vice) 

[Watts]

I would not take it to a drag race, but along the tight and twisty roads we have here on the Moors, it's far more in its element...

I don't know the area that well but I was in Staithes earlier this year and the A169 between Whitby and Pickering was a great drive! It's such a shame that you are having the problems you report, I'm on my second and they've both been great.

[DaveA]

I would not take it to a drag race, but along the tight and twisty roads we have here on the Moors, it's far more in its element...

I don't know the area that well but I was in Staithes earlier this year and the A169 between Whitby and Pickering was a great drive! It's such a shame that you are having the problems you report, I'm on my second and they've both been great.

Well, if you think that's good, you most certainly need to get off the main a roads up here and get onto the minor ones.... You know, I could tell you... but... 

Watch it, though, NYCC tend to have the speed van lurking around (the last time I saw it was on the 169, coincidentally)... Adaptive cruise control is your very best friend up here...

... and that's the beauty of the less well traveled routes up here... You can have a hoot of a time without being illegal... Just watch out for sheep...

[Splashalot]

Old thread but I thought I'd just tie it off.....

What a great post.  Your wife sounds like a ripper!

Something I heard the other day - the secret to happiness is to appreciate what you have.  Daily.  Sounds simplistic and trite, but I reckon there's something in that.  Especially with cars.

[Sootchucker]

Well just when I thought this was put to bed, I was contacted yesterday by a guy called Tony Lewis from Berry BMW in London. I'd contacted him a week or so ago to get a price, but hadn't heard from him (he was off on holiday apparently). The guys over on the BMW forum put me in contact with him and and said no one else could live with their prices.

Well, he sent me a quote, and much to my amazement, for the same spec, monthlies etc. his quote was nearly £800 cheaper than the best I've had, and that £10,000 deposit had somehow shrunk to just under £8k (I could and would have paid the £10k but £8k sounds much nicer). TBH, I don't know how he's done it as the GMFV's and monthlies etc. are within a few quid of the best of the other quotes. So not sure how he can knock £2k off the deposit ?

Decisions decisions 

[kmpowell]

Decisions decisions 

IMO - you're letting the "DFS pricing" nag away at you you. Your posts/reasons have rationally questioned the deal several times over, but there's one point you keep referring back to which I think is key in this. You've said a few times "it's a £44k car", but truth be told, it's not. It's a list price used to lure people into thinking they are getting a discount. Try going into a BMW dealership and buying at full RRP without being offered any discount... unlike other brands, you can't.

Tony Lewis (TRL) works on volume, by stripping out all the margin available to him (and other dealers). But don't fall for his matey matey persona, he's not doing anything special, he's a salesman and should be treated as one, he's simply trading on volume. I caught him out once on a social media post of his when he was claiming he sold a car for a certain amount etc, but I knew the reality because it was me who bough the car(!). He's a South London car dealer, nice guy, but can be slippery.