Brief summary: Leased this bastard October 2016 from Crevier BMW in Santa Ana. Black sapphire, 2016 328i lot lizard - M sport, drivers asst, premium, heated seats, navigation. MSRP $48,875. Selling price $42k, 68% RV, $1500 drive off (incl 1st payment), nothing down, $368 p/month. Was planning on leasing, handing it in, rinse repeat but me and the ol' battleaxe split the sheets over a year ago, I moved to a temp place about 20 miles away for 6 mos before getting this house which is now a mile away from my old house (yes, its weird) and since I was hell bent on seeing the kids every day, NTM carting them back and forth between places and still taking them to school each morning; that combined with work and some road trips lead me to putting some epic miles on this car in a years time. So here we are at lease end and I'm 8k miles over and that + a barely scratched up bumper equates to $2500 or so to hand my car back to BMW. 23 cents p/mile, plus tax, plus damage repair gouge. The bumper is fine and repairing it would be gay.
I inquired about purchasing the car because I'd rather do that than give those humorless, grand canyon visiting, sandals with socks wearing, highly rational and efficient no ice having kraut fuckers $2500 for nothing and in short, I love it, love it more today than the day I got it, and BMW has a thing now where they are taking $4k off residual value on MY2016 models, prob due to massive glut of lease returns, so my buyout is down to $27171. Still WAY high. Car would cost about $22-23k best case, CPO, so yeah, its overpriced as fuck. Totes expensive AF.. I could get a CPO 340i for that money. But I'm gonna do this instead cuz I'm a dipshit. I'm attached to it now. We have history.. So I'd rather keep it and keep going with'r vs. cutting the Rolex contingent a $2500 to hand my car in and get something else so fuck it, I'm keeping it. Case closed. "But bro, we whack it really hard to Fords here and you could get 2 used Ford Fusions for the price of this car. Or better yet, a Cadillac ATS. Car and Drive said that was the '3 series killer and you could be the 10th guy in the US who actually bought that car, what are you thinking?!" and bro's, you'd be right. You don't have to be John D. Rockafellor to know this isn't the most triumphant financial move ever.

Some minor personal touches - Ceramic tint, limo in the rear, 35% up front. All weather sport line rubber floor mats. Bunch of coding was done incl. auto mirror fold, 'm sport' splash screen @ start up, fog light cornering lights enabled and a bunch of other crap. And then ofcourse, the ol' Burger JB+ juice box piggyback tuner that I absolutely love. Other threads where bros have dyno'd this thing are out there and it has this little turbro 4 banger doing about 270hp/295tq @ the crank, and you can feel it. I don't know how to embed a youtube vid so here is me doing a quick 0-60 post jb+ complete with epic fake engine noise. https://youtu.be/1p68s92HFFc
So yes, I love the car. I don't care about the light steering or whatever, I love it. Flat handling, extremely stable at high speeds, total road highway warrior, good amount of power for a daily, quiet, averages 25/26mpg overall, easily doing 35 highway on long trips, seamless transmission/motor integration, if its one thing they got right its the 8AT + turbro4 combo, epic seats, epic steering wheel etc. etc. BMW Nav w/the connected drive app on my phone is tits, I don't care about apple car play and I've yet to find a more ergonomic, driver-focused jet like cockpit but Audi prob gives a run for the $. Car fits me like a glove. Sometimes it feels telepathic. It also fits 2 small children in the back comfortably and a grip of shit in the trunk. Gripes... panel gap has been a bitch but the creaks and rattles that were present in the beginning are all gone now thanks to much insertion of felt tape and things @ various contact points. At this point its bank vault-ish inside, spare some 85mph+ wind noise and there are no creaks or rattles to speak of. Base stereo isn't great but seeing as I mainly listen to podcasts and Howard 100/101 and PRX on satellite, it doesn't really matter though HK would be nice. Last gripe is total lack of exhaust note. It has gobs of fairly pleasing fake engine noise piped in which I don't mind but exhaust note is almost non existent. I would consider M sport exhaust as a future mod. Oh and the ground clearance w/the lower front fascia and that M sport bumper is pinner, so you gotta be careful with curbs and stuff. Won't be going off roading with this thing anytime soon. Though I did drive it out in the middle of the desert off of the 15 just outside of Vegas to go shooting and it did fine on dirt roads.
So thats it for now. Finalizing purchase and all that w/my credit union in the next week or so and then I'll be saddled with the ol' ball and chain for at least 3 more years. Planned future post warranty expiration mod is charge pipe replacement. Apparently those are prone to going. I think they make a more robust charge pipe vs. the shitty plastic stock one. Maybe upgrade to Jb4 as well. M sport exhaust would be nice but I can't see actually doing that.
Have some good pics to post at some point when I figure that out. Tales of casting a wide net in the world of online dating, shooting fish in barrels, and 1st date bareback bonanzas and red tides to follow. Cheers gentlemen, cheers.
Here's to my wife and all my sweethearts.. may they never meet. Thanks for reading.