Will my BMW 130i Survive a 5000km Road Trip?

Me and my girlfriend Angel his the State Highways of the South Island of New Zealand to see how my 130i holds up on a two week road trip!

[@doueven]

New Zealand is the ultimate country. Cool imported cars, amazing scenery and the people are not too bad G'day from Aus

[@KiwiCarLife]

Yesss I like it here

[@angelrose5080]

Yes such a good trip, had the best time with you handsome 🥰

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks babe ❤️

[@rtt987]

One of your best vids. I'm biased but the South Island is the best playground for roads to drive on and those views as your backdrop!

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man! Glad you enjoyed it

[@snggarageeng]

New Zeland is my dream country! thank you for great shots

[@KiwiCarLife]

All good man!

[@stuart_wood]

Just did this in my E90 M3. Did the prestige tour. Phenomenal.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Nice man! Sounds like you enjoyed it

[@topmarques]

Probably favourite video of the year! Here in OZ I have a 2007 E81 130iLE manual as a daily and rate it highly. To put that in context it follows a long term 996 GT3, M2, 2006 Z4 coupe manual, E46 M3 coupe manual. All sold now and worth many times the 130i but, the smiles are nearly as good for fractional outlay. What a fantastic road trip! Visited NZ twice to do the Targa NZ years ago and the roads and the public's support of the event was amazing! BTW, great driving on the tracks! The 130i can be snappy in the wet with it's short wheelbase especially without an LSD. Would suggest you skip to gold and explore a Cayman S manual if you can. IMO the S2000 is way over priced now and frustrating to drive. I bought one new and sold it after 5000km. Alternatively, a C63 AMG '08 onwards. Total brute but great value by S2000 standards. Cheers from Sydney!

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man yeah I’d agree the 130i is a brilliant bang for buck car

[@Vikturus22]

5:14 That was a excellent save! I want to go on track for the first time in my Mk6 gti but I am worried about this kinda thing.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Haha was a bit of a mission keeping it on the straight and narrow

[@NZBRG1]

You are very polite on the track. I would have been saying more than "Oh Goodness"!

[@KiwiCarLife]

HAHAH

[@GoffyTv]

Great vid dude! All the track days thrown in is fabulous! Well done.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man!

[@snare2741]

Fantastic journey in such a beautiful car. The Scenaries are mind blowing! I would love to visit New Zealand one day. How many km does your 130i have now?

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man! Yeah NZ is pretty neat huh, I've sold it now but it had 135,000km on it when I sold it.

[@AdamLeask]

I remember my first trip through Danseys Pass, in a brand new (at the time) Mk3 Focus RS. I can feel your pain, what I thought was going to be a fun road was a nightmare!

[@KiwiCarLife]

hahah it was horrible

[@NZ_Lexus_IS-F]

Wild that the 370z gave you more of a go than the GR Yaris.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Oh nah in person I had to push harder to keep up with the GR’s. 370 I was probably going 8/10

[@jdmclassicsnz]

The Southern Tour! We just finished the Prestige group tour, had an absolute blast 👍 Hope to see you at some track days in the future mate.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Awesome man! Yeah it was awesome

[@stuart_wood]

What car where you in? I was in my e90 M3.

[@Alkhoholic]

If you could travel to Invercargill for a track day, surely you can come to Hampton downs for a track day on the 31st😁

[@KiwiCarLife]

Ahh funny you say that I’m trying to set that up with some mates in Auckland as we speak haha

[@Alkhoholic]

@@KiwiCarLife cool!! Hope to see you there then haha

[@TheFatSandwhich]

Good ol’ Invercargill. My shithole home town. This video has also made me very homesick.

[@KiwiCarLife]

What a good location

[@thatguyben3128]

_awesome footage, South Island looks beautiful, except the the rubbish in the street ‼️_ .. _another great vid_ 👏🏼👏🏼

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man haha and yeah that was just the uni flats street everywhere else was good

[@bubbles4136]

Great video man, awesome scenes too! Good to see some fun track days in the wet.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man! Yeah it was great

[@kotukumacky3299]

Love it Lee! Absolutely jealous for you! Looked heaps of fun!😍

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man!

[@GgSyUm]

Very Cool video, recently got myself a 2006 130i, had it's first track day 3 weeks ago and I was impressed with how a bone stock 130i went and handled. Being the Auto model it was not the fastest changes but not that bad considering, had to use a lot more brake but even with stock pads and disks NO brake fade.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Yeah I’d agree man mines been through heaps of track days and has never missed a beat, no brake fade and drives awesome. Keeps up with cars it really shouldn’t

[@ianmacnz]

Ah, you missed a trick here, next time take the west coast route south, such an epic drive and arguably the best part of the Southern Tour!!

[@KiwiCarLife]

I took the West Coast route north? We had family in Christchurch and Dunedin hence why we went down that way to Invercargill

[@mantarayal]

What a cool vid. Thanks guys. That 130i is an impressive car. Glad you both had a sweet holiday. Gotta love summer!!! :)

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man! Yeah it was a very fun time away

[@TheSkyline35]

Very interesting! Owning a more reasonable F20 120i, I would love to trash that little B48 on a trackday to properly learn to handle this rwd car, while traveling in a nice place !

[@KiwiCarLife]

Would definitely recommend!

[@jawaadumar4207]

Hey mate, cool video, always fun driving these hot hatches I call pocket rockets on South Island scenic roads. Can I ask you, is that rear spoiler original or you bought it after market? Looks amazing. I have got same car 2009 model. Cheers.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Hey man I bought used from a friend and put it on

[@davidtristram8019]

Solid time at Teretonga. A good 3 seconds quicker than I managed there in my 130.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man yeah was certainly giving it some E

[@spadgm]

Really loved this vid mate, one of your best! Looked like a really awesome trip, I want to come back to NZ and do a south island roadie one day!

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man! Glad you enjoyed it. Would definitely recommend! I’ll loan you my car if you want haha

[@spadgm]

@@KiwiCarLife Haha cheers mate!

[@CYMRU619]

Awesome roadtrip, would love to do a similar one around Wales in my 130i. What rear spoiler have you got on your car?

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man! Yeah would recommend it’s a great road trip car. And I’m not sure tbh I just got it used from a mate

[@JasonGibbens]

Cool video man, nice work 👌🏽

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man!

[@andythorne1211]

Awesome vid mate! I have an 02 NZ 540i MSport in almost perfect condition. Still throwing lots of cash at it to have her in showroom condition. Would love you to film / drive it if you’re interested…? Keep up the awesome work!

[@KiwiCarLife]

That’s awesome man! E39’s are some of my favourite cars. I would although I’ve already reviewed an E34 540i and the video didn’t do too great that’s all

[@andythorne1211]

Stink, worth a try! I’m inspired m539 Restorations - love Sreten. Thanks for replying and go well. Absolutely love your work!

[@liamfebruary1622]

Love your videos mate keep it up!

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man!

[@rbprojects9062]

Sweet driving sweet car great road trip

[@KiwiCarLife]

Absolutely man it was really fun

[@EFRANEED]

Do you have an LSD? You slided really nice in those curbs. Nice vid man

[@KiwiCarLife]

Nah no lsd thanks man it was a lot of fun

[@benjaminwingchun9665]

N52 it's BMW's most reliable engine. It's pretty cool you smashed that Yaris on that corner😂, MILVs and headers and you'd have him.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Yeah definitely man! That’s why I keep telling people with 116i’s complaining of reliability issues to get one of these

[@IBOO57]

Really enjoyed this one. Would have loved it to be in a bit longer and seen a bit more of that beautiful scenery. If only the back seats had a bit more leg room Android teenager friendly I would have a 130i in my driveway as well.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thanks man! Yeah I try keep my videos relatively short but will keep that in mind for next time. And yeah they’re not too practical in the back haha but it’s fine for just me and Angel

[@IBOO57]

@@KiwiCarLife Absolutely mate.

[@HashDogg06]

@@KiwiCarLife I second their comment about showing more, you had a great opportunity to either have a 30-45min video or even multi part 10min video's if you like to keep them short, either way it was still a good watch, keep it up & hopefully will see you at a Manfeild event one day.

[@KiwiCarLife]

@@HashDogg06 30 MINUTES the length nah I can’t do that haha. I barely took enough videos for an 8 min video, mayyybe I could have gone into more detail about and included more track footage but even so it’d still be barely more than 10-15

[@HashDogg06]

@@KiwiCarLife Yeah that's fair, i was leaning more towards track footage but footage of driving the roads is an added bonus. I just thought you went to town on chopping as much footage as possible to keep it short, not realizing you hadn't taking all that much video time in the first place, sorry about that.

[@camiloandrescaicedog.1786]

Nice video! what size of wheels are those?

[@KiwiCarLife]

18’s

[@neekras]

amazing. Did you plan the whole trip yourself? I'd love to do this one day.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Yep! The track days were fixed days but we planned all our other activities ourselves

[@Adam-lp5xp]

In terms of noise insulation which one do u think is better the e87 or the cu2 ( I know it s not the same segment) Awesome video!

[@KiwiCarLife]

I’d say both pretty similar. We had no complaints about road noise

[@KavinFan0803]

i see this is for sale now, what's the next car👀

[@KiwiCarLife]

Nah I’ve taken the listing down, changed my mind

[@perpetualgrin5804]

This carries more risk than Edmund Hillary's attempt on Everest😅.

[@KiwiCarLife]

Haha I don’t think so! 130i is a far cry from an F10 550i from a reliability perspective

[@bondmcnugget]

I asked the same question when I was road tripping almost 5500km in my corolla, it was an unnecessary question for a corolla 😅

[@KiwiCarLife]

lol

[@97accordvtec]

Looks like the brake warning light is on at 3.08.Handbrake on slightly?

[@KiwiCarLife]

Nah that’s the brake pad wear sensor light

[@Will0w_Th3rianPawzz]

Has is puked oil all over thr floor yet lol.Thinking of getting this or rx8 maybe an Ek.What do you think?

[@KiwiCarLife]

Oh for Pete’s sake people just have no idea about these cars. NO it hasn’t puked oil everywhere. Hilarious to hear you mock BMW for unreliability while asking if you should buy a 30 year old Honda or RX8… The 130i will be a better drive, way more features and more reliable than both. Honda will fail WOF for rust, RX8 will lose compression.

[@lucasrafael8777]

Got one 116I last year and was my worst nightmare…

[@KiwiCarLife]

Yes and this is exactly why people say BMW’s are unreliable. You have to get one with an I6

[@arnebatty]

I got the 116i 2L since 5 years, no problems at all

[@micahcrashes]

When will KiwiCarLife get on a motorbike for us?

[@KiwiCarLife]

Haha unlikely

[@AllDayBlazer89]

yeah, that gr has more than a little power, hahahah. 4wd turbed out ligter and down three cylinders...hahaha. good effort, lad!!!!!

[@KiwiCarLife]

I still kept up though! Never underestimate the power of the 130i it is quite a surprising car

[@olihaub]

is it stock? sounds amazing if it is

[@KiwiCarLife]

Yep bone stock

[@NZbmxer0]

what road is that at the end?

[@KiwiCarLife]

Ohariu valley road

[@Realitywords89]

do you have lsd on the car?

[@KiwiCarLife]

I do not, it’s got like an e LSD

[@caioronnau5226]

honestly, south island is cursed. Every time I went to the south island I got a windshield stone chip

[@KiwiCarLife]

Beautiful scenery, but too bad to get there you have to drive for hours on campervan, truck and rental car riddled chip seal roads at 35 under the speed limit

[@Slowcr.2]

No more honda content?

[@KiwiCarLife]

Nah man I haven’t owned a Honda in over a year

[@Slowcr.2]

@@KiwiCarLife makes me sad man i fell in love with your channel because of all the honda content but keep up the good work you’ll always have my support

[@ridingtherr0502]

It's a n52, it will survive like a toyota

[@KiwiCarLife]

Yesss good strong engine

[@ridingtherr0502]

@@KiwiCarLife Does ur's have the plastic or magnesium valve cover? My F25 x3 has this engine as well, but slightly updated after the F series. I remember it is called N52N.

[@KiwiCarLife]

@@ridingtherr0502 plastic

[@tan9640]

130i got an LSD?

[@KiwiCarLife]

eLSD yeah

[@jackturner990]

no

[@KiwiCarLife]

Thank you