Had a dog last year, so the continued Sti ownership was looking shaky, so I was looking at a Legacy Estate (290bhp from Japan) so not to lose the performance.......

Read a few articles on the D3 so I went to have a look and take a test drive yesterday - OMG what a car, 300lb of torque and 48mpg combined !, quiet and the ride comfort is simply unbelievable on those unreal 19's - (is there a better looking standard wheel/tyre combo out there?)

Sales guy said nothing as I raved on about it.....

The final clincher was getting back into my car - I thought it was foooked ! Clutch and the ride quality was shocking in comparison....

I think being 40 has finally caught up with me.........

 

imagine what the 335d is like then nice twin turbo

 

Fair point, can't help but think that most performance cars will be diesel within a few years.......

 

The 335i is nice as well though - very quick - plus you can have a manual box if you want - needs the Quaife LSD IMO though

 

335D Touring is £37K Alpina for £29K and probably good residuals looks decent value...

 

Good, arn't they

Best diesel engines in the business

 

 

D3 has a lot of lag though. It's very easy to be caught off boost. Ok, they may be refined but they're expensive and heavy. My astra has the same figures and weighs in about 160kgs lighter. My workmate bought one brand new and I've been it a couple of times, very quiet (compared to the astra) but I doubt there will be much in it performance wise once rolling.

see report here..Alpina D3 - Road Test First Drive - Autocar.co.uk
Dave

 

Dave - your Astra won't have warranty though, nor will it handle or look as good as the D3.

Autocar's Steve Sutcliff is running one as a long termer and his comments were that it was a highly worthy replacement for his previous M6.

High praise indeed

Usual magazine caveats apply, of course

 

Why has my car no warranty mate? 3 years on vauxhalls, mine's just 12 month old and going in for it's 1st service on friday. Takes me 30 secs to take the box off, and the same to put it back on. Not a problem of gigantic proportions is it?
It may look better (opinions vary) but they come with very little kit as standard! Multi cd...No. Auto climate......No. PDC.....No. Are they really worth £28k?
Dave

 

My brother had one for a fortnight as a company car. Awesome is the only word for it. Pins you in the seat at 90mph. His was a charcoal colour and resembled a killer whale in a way. As it's got an auto-box, just press the loud pedal and hang on.

Didn't seem to be too hard either in terms of a ride, despite the low profile tyres. Even made a good sound.

If I had a spare £35k and had all the property I needed etc, I'd get one

But I haven't so I drive a Skoda

 

Because the service manger reads Scoobynet

We are not comparing apples with apples here though putting a £15k car against a £30k car (I don't know the exact figures). A better fight would be the Astra vs a 120d.

Steve

 

just moved from a wrx to a 330D
not as fast but so smooth and drove 80 miles up the motorway yesterday at 65mph (drafting lorries) and it returned 61mpg..........i was amazed. Driving norammly its dropped to 55mpg.
But the torque is amazing
Yes the mpg is going to drop when i "drive" it.

Peter

 

We ( missus and me) tested the D3 for her new CO. car.
Superb engine and ride BUT there are no official CO2 figures for it yet.
Also - no options UNLESS you want to pay £2000 surcharge just for the pleasure of adding any options - that's PLUS the price you pay for the option you want!! i.e xenon lights=£650 PLUS £2000 = £2650!!! Don't think so!
I'm afraid we couldn't get over the fact that it is basically de-valuing the Alpina branding, being so (relatively) cheap. The front splitter is added to a bog standard bumper and looks very Halfords-ish, there are no side skirts to follow the splitter lines, hell, it hasn't even got an auto dimming rear mirror that you get on the SE!
We're probably going for the 320D Tourer M Sport or the 525D M Sport with a few options......
It obviously depends what you want the car for but wifey does 25K+ miles p.a and wants some creature comforts!
And we know the M Sport rides a bit harder than the D3, but motorway driving isn't a problem.

 

I've read that there will be a 325d which has a 3.0 diesel engine much the same as the current 330d/530d but will have around 197 bhp. It will be priced comparitvely to the D3.

As for the astra, you can get the 888 ltd edition which has 200bhp standard. I sure I saw autocar get 0-60 & 0-100 in 6.8 and 17 seconds respectively. You can get them for around £15 - £17k these days and they aren't bad looking cars.

 

Or just get an astra cdti 150 and put a DTUK green box on (£225) for the same figures matey
Dave

 

I moved from an STI to a 330d a year ago. One word of warning about the mpg - on a motorway my computer showed 61mpg - average 52mpg for a weekend away. I filled it up (tank to tank) and the real mpg was only 42!

 

Diesel ohhh that ....