Gratis finis

Well that is it. Today is the final time that maintenance on my BMW M2 will be paid for by BMW. Every new BMW vehicle comes with three years’ worth of free maintenance. That is the perk you receive in paying so handsomely for Bavarian engineering. It’s wild to realize it’s been three years since I bought the M2 back in October of 2020 - during the heart of the pandemic. Taking it for its third annual service also signals the longest period I’ve kept a car bought with my own money.

And honestly I do intend to keep this M2 Competition for as long as possible. I know I said the same thing about the Porsche 911 GT3 (letting that car go still hurts), but hey, the intention is there, okay? Sometimes life throw you unexpected curveballs - especially the financial ones - and you just have to adjust. There’s plenty of residual value tied to M2; if I ever need to sell it in order to facilitate some big life decisions, I totally would in a heartbeat.

What I won’t do is sell the BMW in order to buy another car. The days of swapping out vehicles every few years is over. The M2 is just about the perfect car for me: powerful and sporting enough to easily get into trouble, yet practical enough to do a major Costco run. To move on from that for the newest flavor in automotive town would be silly. Besides, with interest rates at historic highs (for my lifetime), I want to avoid taking out a loan, or withdrawing money from the savings account.

Cheers to many more years with the M2. Time to start saving up for not-free maintenance service that begins a year from now.

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This is just hideous.

Test drive: BMW M340i

In buying a car from a luxury brand such as BMW, you pay for the privilege of excellent service at their dealerships. One such perk is the availability of service loaners, something mainstream brands aren’t wont to provide (at least the local Toyota dealership offers a shuttle). The convenience of dropping your car off and then leaving in a replacement car cannot be overstated. UBER is nice and all, but driving yourself is better, especially during this pandemic of ours.

Service loaners also provide a great opportunity to sample other cars from the same manufacturer. Sadly, often times dealerships stick you with the most poverty-spec model. Even a premium automaker like Porsche provides owners with the base-model Macan, the least expensive car they produce. Why not use the latest 911 as a loaner? Perhaps the extended “test drive” can entice a few to actually buy it. Missed opportunity, I would say.

Whether by luck or on purpose, I was provided with a brand-new BMW M340i as a courtesy car when I took the M2 Competition for its first service last week. The loaner barely has 50 miles on it, with protective wrap still present on the media displays. Maybe M-car owners get better treatment? I was expecting the lowest spec X1, so it’s a pleasant surprise to get the top-trim 3 Series - an over $60,0000 car. Obviously, I took full advantage of the situation and drove the M340i as extensively as I can during a working Friday.

With 382-horsepower on tap, the BMW is effortlessly quick and comfortable. The latest 3 Series have grown in size, but somehow the interior still feels intimate and cramped. The ZF 8-speed automatic is expectedly superb, though not as rapid to shift as the dual-clutch gearbox in my M2. The M340i is a competent cruiser that’s perfect for commuting, with enough power to get you into trouble very easily.

However, the steering is dead numb. The M2’s rack isn’t exactly super feel-some, but the M340i is ever worst. If the forthcoming M3 keeps this steering, I’m not sure it can be considered a proper driver’s car.

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German engineering in the house.

This is a special car

I wonder: how much this would have cost me if the car didn’t have its certified preowned warranty?

Yesterday I took the GT3 in for an unscheduled visit to the dealership because the HVAC system was not doing anything at all: no air would come out of the vents, no matter the setting. This issue was confirmed on Tuesday, and I was surprised I was able to get an appointment only two days later - provided that I select the option for waiting while the work is being done (Appointments where a loaner car would be provided are many weeks out). This would prove to be an error on my part.

Because apparently you cannot treat Porsche GT cars as normal; only a special group of mechanics are allowed to work on them, and depending on their schedule, your car might not be looked at right away. In essence, every time a GT car comes in for service, expect to leave it there for a at least a few days. Being new to the Porsche GT car world, I didn’t not know about this until yesterday when my service advisor informed me to the fact: diagnostics will take more than a few hours, and that I should find transportation home instead of waiting potentially the whole day at the dealership and still might not get to take the GT3 home at the end.

The proper way to do it - should I desire a loaner car - would be to either call the service advisor directly to schedule, or to select the appointment times with that option on the online scheduler. A 911 GT3 is definitely not the typical Toyota Corolla, though the Corolla probably wouldn’t need any unscheduled service visits because being a Toyota product, nothing will break ever. Honestly though, I rather get this fixed quickly than to wait a few weeks just so my service experience would be a bit more comfortable. Driving a car without any ventilation during Summer is far from ideal.

So what is actually wrong with my GT3’s HVAC system? Apparently the main blower has failed, and the entire unit is being replaced. Thanks to the car still having its CPO warranty, this will cost me exactly zero dollars out of pocket. This episode is a good reminder to purchase an aftermarket extended warranty once the CPO one expires; I simply cannot trust a German-made car to not have extraneous problems throughout its life. Insurance for the peace of mind is well worth it.

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A fellow visitor.