G21 D3 S #191

[Frosty]

I guess the frustrating thing is that you can tell there is something wrong and especially so when you drove the M340, so did you get the dealer to perform a back to back test with the cars? If you can feel the difference you would expect the dealers to be able to do so too.

So sorry to hear that you have been let down by Alpina.

[churchie386]

The M340d was at another BMW dealer, the not the supplying Alpina/BMW dealer. I explained that the M340d felt better, but was told "they are different cars and should not be compared". The Alpina has different steering knuckles to give the extra camber (these are still BMW parts - not Alpina); different toe, but same caster. The EPAS steering tune is Alpina's. However, none of this expalined the difference in weighting between left and right turns,

I've owned a good number of performance cars and have had geos changes applied to these cars. Such changes have affected turn-in, balance, traction, steering weight and feel, but I've never had a car which exhibited a noticable (to me) difference steerign effort right compared to left.

I even got hold of BMW ISTA software to run on my laptop, and did extensive test drives with my daughter monitoring the parameters from the EPAS module. We drove the same straight roads on the correct and "wrong" sides at the same speed, and the same bends both direction at the same speed. We measured the steering angle position and crucially the steering wheel input torque. Above ~40mph, right always measured >1Nm more than left and the weight came in at lower angles (e.g. 1 degree for right versus 10-15 degree for left). 1Nm may not sould like much, but it is approximately teh equivalent acoss as 30cm diameter steering wheel of a tins and a half on beans hanging on the left spoke. BTW to check the EPAS torque was measures correctly on both sides, a fixed mass was applied to each side of the wheel in turn and the readings were the same.

I shared this analysis with the dealer and Alpina, but neither were not interested.

Going forward I will never buy a car I have not driven first - and I mean the specific car, not just an identical car.

[ScooBeeFive]

I shared this analysis with the dealer and Alpina, but neither were not interested.

I find this so disrespectful. You've gone to so much effort to help their investigation. Surely they could see, if you were willing to go to these lengths, that there was a real issue.

It will be interesting to see where the car next appears.....

[Wellsy]

Real shame to hear your experience was not good at all. I do hope this is not a sign of Alpina turning into a Sales led organization and forgetting the brand was created out of passion for perfection and exclusivity.
So many passionate owners out there it would be great to see the brand engage with owners and be as passionate as we are about owning an Alpina.

[hap]

Now live ad
62995 1500 miles
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-detail ... =relevance

[Frosty]

But rather strange it suggests no previous owners in the add!

Are they able to state that if a car is returned I would not think so?

[Bob]

It’s a dealer ‘trick’ which basically means 1 owner. But the box on the V5 will say 0 previous keepers

[Frosty]

But can the be right Bob, as the car was sold but just returned, surely it should show I previous owner?

[Bob]

It’s just semantics Frosty, the car has 1 registered keeper but the V5 will say 0 ‘Former’ Keepers

Dealers do it a lot to make it sound like lower owners than it’s really had.

[bss325i]

I would say the whole 0 previous owner thing is a bit of moot point really.

I bought my M4 new and it has 0 prev owners on the V5 so if I was selling my car privately and wrote an ad for then I would be telling the truth by saying zero previous owners as no one has owned it previous to me.

If the car is being sold on sale or return by a dealer (which maybe the case with this D3S) then it would be no different.

If the dealer has bought the car into stock then technically it would be 1 previous owner as this original owner has sold it to a dealer but as the V5 would be signed into the trade, the owner count doesn't go up so would stay at 0 previous owners so the sellers description should read 1 previous owner.

[bss325i]

But can the be right Bob, as the car was sold but just returned, surely it should show I previous owner?

The current V5 will state 0 previous owners until the car is registered with a new keeper and even if you backed a car after a day it would still have a registered keeper added to the V5.