I actually got it from another source, it may well be incorrect. The dealer who quoted was Wood in Salisbury, I assume they are part of the same chain as Wood in Odiham. I will try them, I work that way sometimes.

Well here we go again....

The idiot at the dealer who told you all 330i's have sports suspension should have been sacked or told to go and work for Suzuki or something.  Complete rubbish.

The coupe's have different suspension to the saloons, so a coupe will be marginally more sporting that an SE saloon.  Both saloon / touring and coupe /cabrio have the Mtech suspension fitted as part of the 'Sports' package. This does improve the handling but destroys the ride completely.  The improvement to the handling you will benefit from for about 5 minutes a week, and for the rest of the time you will be constantly jostled by the restless overdamped rear suspension of the sports model.  The sad thing is - people buy the sports model because it looks so much better especially the Coupe which they really loused up with the 2001 facelift. It would be better if Mtech remained an option and that the dealers were rather better informed. Many BMW sales people haven't a clue about the cars and think there can't possibly be any thing about the car that they should change... yeah right !.

The Alpina suspension is much better - more sporting - but without be bouncy and takes out the small road imperfections which the Mtech doesn't.  Mtech is design for german roads and not British ones with all their lateral ridges which cause most of the problems. I tried to get it fitted to my 330d Sport and it was all going ahead and then the dealer rings me to say that BMW UK advise me against having it fitted.  Its a real shame as the motoring press have done this to BMW.  The original E46 suspension was relativley soft but the car still handled - sure if the road was really rocky it could wallow a bit but I miss my old car so much at times.  Everything else about the car is great.  Yet to drive an E90 but again,  you will want the sports version to make that car look half decent and yet you will probably have to have the sports suspension - lets hope they tune it for British roads first.

simnew wrote: ...Its a real shame as the motoring press have done this to BMW.

Please explain?

Hi Peter,

What I was referring to was that when the E46 was launched, the motoring press rightly hailed it as by far the best car in its class and for most puposes it still was when it was discontinued earlier this year. But they also said that it had gone soft by comparison to the E36 and that it was more of a smaller 5 series - which is true. But what they also forgot was that the E46 was a substantial upgrade from the E36 in terms of space comfort and refinement. And part of the refinement upgrade was to make the suspension even better. The problem was that they made the steering less direct so the feeling was that the E46 was less sporting that the E36. They also offered sports suspension on the pre Oct '01 E46 which was very good.  Improved damping and control but still with good ride comfort. But still the press hailed back to the good ol days.  So when the 2001 facelift came along, they made the standard suspension much like the old sports suspension - better control and good ride comfort but then offered the Mtech setup on the 'Sports' models.  This is significantly different to the old sports suspension and in truth is quite close to the way the M3 feels. At the same time they also finally sorted out the steering after making a mess of it after the launch of the E46 compact. The increased the weighting and reduced the lock to lock number of turns. This makes it feel much more responsive. 

So if you look in the motoring press where they compare final generation E46 with all their competitors - its wipes the floor with them.  Read the ones with Sports suspension and you will read about great handling but fidgety ride... and sometimes harking back to older road tests where they gave BMW stick over 'going soft' and perhaps they got it wrong. 

I think that the original coupes - non sport but with the 'subtle' standard sports suspension was very good and the 2001 SE saloons have got it just right.  If you want really good sports suspension and a firmer feel then Alpina wipes the floor with Mtech as it also has ride comfort and the Hartge kit is also much better.

In truth most of the people who buy BMW's these days are company car drivers and well heeled wives or young guys wanting to look flash. Many of these buyers just want 'the look', so the sports model is great in this respect. Hence its improved residual values. And then you look at what BMW did to the 2001 coupe and what a mess they made of that and you understand why hardly any coupes are sold without sports kits - its to make the car look good again just like the original did !!.

I hope BMW take a lesson from the likes of Alpina and Hartge and get some E90's over here before releasing the Sports version of the E90. They need to tune in some initial compliance to take out the ripples and lateral ridges that mar British roads then the suspension will be doing its job.  Any fool can make a car appear to handle well by sticking stiff springs and dampers in but it takes a lot more skill to achieve excellent handling and body control with good ride comfort. It can be done and BMW used to achieve this just not with the Mtech Sports suspension.  Sigh.....