Hooray – I’ve not kerbed my alloys this month! I’ve been quite lazy though, not only failing to refurbish the damaged one (I have acquired the paint though – thanks Tom!), but even failing to clean the car in any way. I have however used it a lot, spending nearly every weekend away with the car, which is why I’ve not had the time to give it much TLC. Most notably, I took four of us down to Cornwall for a long weekend, with the boot absolutely crammed full. As usual, the car took everything in its stride, even when the rural level crossing that I failed to notice one night produced a jump that would’ve made the General Lee envious.

While I’m on the subject of the Dukes of Hazzard, I’ve had the Fulda Carat Exceleros fitted! I’ve only done around 100 miles since, so I’m unable to really make a good comparison against the outgoing Bridgestone Potenzas just yet, but I’m now certain of two things. Firstly, any new tyres fitted to an E46 sport produce very little grip at first while they bed in to shape. Under gentle driving there’s no difference, but press on a bit and nanny’s yellow light flashes on the dashboard far too frequently, and this is accompanied by the car just not feeling as planted as it did on the old set of tyres.

The second thing I’ve learnt is that there are two ways to fix this problem. My old method was to simply drive 1,000 miles or so fairly carefully, thus letting the tyres bed in. The new method, proved in the last couple of hours is to switch DSC off and pretend you’re in the General Lee. The rapid transformation from lairy oversteer machine back to the grip-tastic E46 sport that I was used to was incredible – about 50 miles. Job done!

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself when I loaded the four new tyres in to take them to be fitted. Open boot. Put in four 18″ tyres. Close boot. Brilliant!

Paranoia is setting in though. Harper noted in last month’s 320d report that Knapman reckons the turbo unit is making more noise, and guess what? The 330d makes rather more of a whistle than other examples seem to. I look forward to having a “biggest bill” competition as and when this seemingly inevitable failure occurs, but in the meantime I’ll stick to the age old solution of turning the stereo up a bit.

To completely remove all evidence of engine concerns, I’d also need to remove the rear view mirror though, because I’m starting to really notice the smoke behind me when I accelerate hard. I worded that carefully, as I’ve been assured by friends following me that it’s no worse than when I first got it, but again, it plays on the mind a touch. Logically though, the straight exit exhausts would make it seem more smoky than any other 330d, and I notice it mainly in following car’s headlight beams, which is more common now that the days are shorter.

I’m also once again becoming sceptical about my (completely standard) brakes – they still judder when they’re hot. Is this pad material transfer creating a virtually warped disc, or is this a genuinely warped disc? Would fitting the harder compound red stuff pads I’ve got on a shelf in the garage cure the problem, or as rumoured in some circles, might they make matters worse? There are so many questions, so much contradictory advice available, and nothing like the time or money required to reach a rapid and satisfactory solution.

I note BMW offer a set of drilled discs (at almost three times the price of the standard items). These would certainly look nice behind the alloys, but would there be any other benefit? I was going to fit the red stuff pads this weekend, but when the tyres were changed I noticed that there’s still a fair bit of life left in the current pads, so I’ll back-burner that until the judder frustrates me into action. I also noted that the rear pads have worn as quickly as the front, which is something that’s never happened on any previous car. I wonder if that’s normal – or indeed related. Who knows!

Still, having spent just a few quid on paint for the damaged alloy and given the tyre centre a few quid to swap the boots, it’s been an extremely cheap month. Just to needlessly gloat, I managed a laden weekend trip from Woking to Staffordshire, onto a Rally in near Kettering, then home via Cambridge and Lakeside, some 520 miles, on one tank with a remaining range of 44 miles. Mildly more interesting(!) was that after that weekend the car seemed lacklustre, so much so that I wondered if there was something wrong with it. However, ten minutes of thrashing on some twisties completely revived it, so I can only imagine the ECU was being adaptive to the recent driving style.

Over the coming month there’s likely to be very little action as I’m off to India to observe their infamous driving habits, and just perhaps see how many curries can be eaten in two weeks. I hope the car enjoys its well earned rest.

Total Mileage: 93,125
Mileage since last report: 1,733
Cost this month: £30 (wheel paint and tyre swap)
MPG this month: 41