🔧 BUILD IDAFC21's 2014 BMW M235i

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Yes. I have decided to become a BMW M car knob. And yes, I know it's not REALLY an M car, so at least I still get to piss off all the M car purists who don't believe there should be an M on this car. (Or 17 M's, as the case may be. I've counted :rofl: )

To begin my knobbery, I shall provide a brief synopsis of the car, for the plebs that are unaware of what they're looking at. A few years ago the 2 series replaced the love-it-or-hate-it 1 series coupes as BMW's smallest car in the lineup. It got a complete redesign to make it fall more in line w/ the looks of the 3 and 4 series. It really does look like a mini 4 series. Your early options were a 220i or 228i, which had a 4 cylinder turbo engine, and were boring.

OR. You could go for the M235i. At the time there were no announcements about an M2 model, so this was the most M model you could get for the 2 series. What you got, roughly, were redesigned front and rear bumpers, better wheels and tires, larger M sport 4 piston/2 piston brakes, adaptive suspension, that wonderful M steering wheel, and most importantly, a proper turbocharged straight 6 engine that made 320hp and 330tq. Given the 235's small stature, (relatively) light weight, and near perfect 50/50 weight distribution, there are many who would actually liken this car to a mini e46 M3.

With that out of the way, the car i purchased is a 2014 with a mere 15k miles on it. I found it at CarMax of all places :rofl: and they were asking a very fair price for it, so it piqued my interest. I'd always been kinda interested in these cars, but never really seriously looked into them. I started watching every video review i could find on youtube, and it didn't take long to figure out this is a car I would like to own. Went and looked at it at carmax, drove it, and found that reviews had not been overexaggerated. I offered up my ST as a trade, they gave me what I thought was a pretty fair offer for a trade in, bada bing bada boom, you guys know how car deals work, the ST is gone, and this is now in my driveway.

Last night at carmax.

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This morning at work

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few more random pics

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As you can see I went with God's transmission, the ZF 8 speed auto. I was quite impressed with this transmission, and after 13 straight years of driving nothing but manuals, I was ready for something a little different. With how quick this trans shifts it's almost hard to believe its not a dual clutch. Plus it gets the DSG farts, even tho its not a dsg. And it makes me giggle.

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I'll try and get some more pics this weekend if i get ambitious enough to give this car a decent detail. It definitely needs it after sitting on that carmax lot for god knows how long. Theres a lotta hard water spots on the roof/trunk/hood i need to deal with. Otherwise its actually in pretty damn good shape. Couple scratches here and there, but again, it is a 2014 so i expect a few of those. At 15k miles this thing wasnt driven much more than I drove my ST :rofl:

It was optioned out fairly nice. I had to educate myself on BMW packages, but it does have the premium package, tech package, and driver assist package. I thought it might have had the cold weather package, but i think I just have heated seats. Cuz theres no button on the steering column for the heated steering wheel, and Im not sure if i have the headlight washers. The plates are there, but I think they're there on all the cars whether you have the system or not. Sadly I dont have the harmon kardon sound system, and this standard 6 speaker system just does not compare to the 10 speaker system that was in the ST. I'm also unsure whether I have the optional locking LSD, or the regular open diff. Only way to tell that would be to jack the rear up and try and turn the wheels and see what happens. Or I could just take the car out and try and drift it :rofl:

Overall the way this car was optioned out it was easily a $50k+ car brand new. I did not pay anything anywhere near that :rofl: That was actually one of the complaints people had about this car when it came out. BMW hid a lotta things that probably should have been standard on this car behind their option packages. I would NOT reccomend anyone buy one of these cars brand new, but in the used market, if you can find the right one, I feel like these are quickly becoming the bargain of the century for the amount of car you can get for the money. So far I love everything this car does, and theres so much god damn tech in this car its gonna take me a month to figure out everything this car can do. This morning before I went to work I programmed one radio station in, and paired the bluetooth on my phone, and that was it :rofl:

I still have the GTO at the moment. My ultimate plan was to find a car that could replace both of my cars because I've been growing tired of the 2 car thing. This car is definitely a competent replacement. In acquiring this car, I didn't have to make as much of a down payment as I thought I would to hit my target payment, so it's not AS crucial for me to sell the GTO, but I don't know. It's something im struggling with right now :rofl: But I will say anything is for sale for the right price. This may come a bit out of left field for a select few who thought I may have been headed in a drastically different direction, but I feel like I've made the right choice, as I usually see at least 11 of the OTHER car on every corner on my short 10 minute commute to work every day, and these are definitely not on every corner. Plus as it turns out insurance was way cheaper on this car than it would have been on the OTHER car.

Anyways, TL : DR. ST-OUT. BMW-IN. #Knoblife

The Broken Regal

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And DanJ DanJ I am glad I went w/ 235's. Tho we'll see once I actually put them on the car :LOL:

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Now since there's one last 90% chance of rain tomorrow, all thats left is to let my horribly filthy car get even filthier, and then hope that it all clears out this weekend so I can clean and coat the new wheels, wash my car finally, get the new wheels on which will hopefully fit like a glove, and then clean up my stock wheels and bag them up for.........i don't know what Im going to do with them.

Once I get past all this I really need to get planning on getting this things paint corrected and coated again. It's a hot mess and i really need to get it done before its hits triple digit temps again.
OMG, so glad I saw the update, good shit they are all here

What size wheel is that with the 235/40/18 installed? 18x8.5? I'm about to order this same tire and size for my 18s and those look plenty meaty!
 

The Broken Regal

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I think it’s deceiving. Not sure if those Michelin’s have that lip saver feature because it does look meaty where it meets the wheel, but the sidewalks are still sloping in towards the tread.
I see what you mean, looks a million times more natural than the lip saver feature on like pirellis, its such an eyesore imho
 
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IDAFC21

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Went out for a bit of a test fit earlier! The results were mostly encouraging. I lost a lot of gap in the front wheels. Maybe I didn't take into account that fresh tires have more meat on them then the bald shit I've been driving around with. Rear gap appears to be nearly the same surprisingly

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front

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rear

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Front poke seems pretty good w/ the 5mm spacers. And I definitely would have neeeded them anyways because inner clearance is TIGHT. Guess Apex knows what they're talking about.

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Rears do actually sit a tiny bit further in than my stock wheels did w/ the spacers, which actually lines up w/ what I was seeing from the wheel calculator you all kindly pointed me to. I didnt think of trying it this morning, but when I go to throw these back on, I may toss one of my 5mm spacers in the rear to see how that looks. I think a 3-5mm spacer in the rear will make it about perfect. Or I could throw my now spare 10 or 15mm spacers back on the rear and really go for it :ROFLMAO: Rear inner clearance is also pretty tight in a couple small areas of the inner fender lining. Hoping that wont be an issue. Also another excuse to put spacers on the rear as well

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The fronts tho. I really think im gonna have to raise them up another half inch. This is really more where I'd like to be, and it would be more even w/ the rears

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Now tho. I need to get some lunch in me. Then I'll go back out, give the new wheels a quick clean so those can start drying out, then wash my filthy ass car now that the rain has finally gone, and hopefully later after that the new wheels will be fully dry and I can get them coated. I don't care if im out in the garage at 10pm doing it, those wheels will be coated tonight so they can get their 12 hour cure and I can get em slapped on the car tomorrow.
 

DanJ

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It would be nice to have that flexibility with spacers. I’ve debated converting my car to studs for that reason. I already have 3 sets of wheel bolts and don’t feel like buying even more to run spacers. They seem trivial but when you’re buying 20 of them a good set of wheel bolts costs over $60 and I’d need different sizes for each spacer.
 
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IDAFC21

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It would be nice to have that flexibility with spacers. I’ve debated converting my car to studs for that reason. I already have 3 sets of wheel bolts and don’t feel like buying even more to run spacers. They seem trivial but when you’re buying 20 of them a good set of wheel bolts costs over $60 and I’d need different sizes for each spacer.

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At this point I now have all my stock wheel bolts. Wheel bolts sized for my 10mm spacers and my 15mm spacers. And when I bought these wheels I had to buy wheels bolts sized for 5mm spacers for the fronts, and I also bought a new set of stock length bolts for the rears because I just wanted them all matched. And now if I end up buying new spacers for my rears...... :LOL:

But the wheels are all coated and will be ready to rock and roll tomorrow after I get my shit done at work.

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And christ almighty I need to get more active in my daily life. My lower back is already SCREAMING at me from crouching over these motherfuckers all day. Tomorrow is going to be unpleasant. For now I shall kill it with alcohol.
 

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