I’ve definitely been slacking on posting here – and it surely isn’t wordpress’ fault. I just always seem to find better things to do on evenings and weekends.

Anyways, the summer vacations in Spain have been awesome this year although I didn’t go spear fishing half as often as I planned to. And that despite the fact that it became a hell lot more difficult to acquire the license, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all this way it keeps the waters clear from competitors and inexperienced (read: dangerous) tourists which is good for both the fauna and the quality of the fishing experience.

Now that everything’s back to normal in the work department – and I even decided to increase my workload a little -  I’m looking for a new car. Well, that’s odd because I’ve just bought a ’93 Starlet (55kW) not even a year ago and it’s still having no critical flaw, if  you don’t count the time one tire blew up on the motorway.

So the plan was to drive the Starlet until it falls apart and/or doesn’t pass the inspection while saving for a new one, after all I’ve bought it in a rush in order to get to work and back, nothing more.

Given the financial target that I’ve set for a new car I would’ve to save up for another year now (approx Oct ’10). I’m looking for a car that yields some improvement to my current one and an up to date combustion engine (e.g. more power at the same intake). To be exact I’ve been fancying an Audi S3 or even S4 until I’ve settled for a BMW simply because they’re a little more luxurious and a bit less aggressive – plus the Bavarian touch to it has made it impossible for me to resist. I’ve ordered information and been checking the web for the 1 series because it seemed to be the most economical one. Unfortunately the 3- and 5 door models aren’t an option because the rear looks sort of weird in my opinion and the price impact of the convertible isn’t justified which leaves me with the coupé.

The coupé is a sweet car, looks almost like the 3 series and with a proper engine (120 and above) would more than satisfy my needs. Unfortunately there aren’t awfully many such used cars to be found, especially two years and older. Plus, the truly shocking news for me were the ridiculous prices of used 3 series saloons with similar equipment. To make a long story short, I’m currently crawling traders and offers for an E90 (younger than mid 2005). The engine has a very economical consumption, even the gas version – I guess it should be something between a 320i and a 330d.

So, now that I’ve settled with the model I’ve been looking for the proper interior outfit. Leather seats would be nice and anyway, heat seatings are mandatory for my girlfriend. But what i really want is a proper audio and navigation system. The iDrive (isn’t the i-prefix patented by now?) and Professional navigation kit of the E90 are quite nicely integrated on top of the center console and together with the bluetooth handsfree set it does everything I ever need. But the price impact, even on used cars, is quite hefty and led me to search for alternatives.

That’s when I discovered a wide range of high-end moniceivers which cost approximately half of the stock BMW setup and offer so much more that I really wouldn’t want to have anything else in there. Especially the Alpine IVA-D106R which fits into a single DIN slot and expands a 7″ QVGA touch screen serving all my multimedia needs and together with the NVE-N099P it results in the best navigation system I could ever imagine. There’s a similar system from Kenwood, the KVT-524DVD together with KNA-G421V and misc adapters. Of course these devices offer a lot more than my original requirements, e.g. DVB-T TV, DVD playback, all kind of connectivity and a supported media formats.

I’ll see what the BMW dealer has to offer me this week, but I’m most certainly not picking an iDrive-equipped car even if he’d offer it to me for the same price – it’s just not as flexible. Perhaps there’s even the option to free two DIN slots to install an even more powerful all-round board computer.