No matter how careful you think you’ll be, you’ll eventually ding, scrape or mark something by putting it in the car.
Even with a huge tarp covering it, a stray component with wriggle free and your (other) pride and joy will suffer.

Seems everyway is a compromise in some way then RRR.

Your call, whatever your preference is, its seems light putting it in the car is cheapest short term.

Or do you have a beige interior?

RRR if your anywhere near Sutton Coldfield then you can come round to mine to test with two bikes and a big dust sheet. Willing to help as I want one of these as my next car and internal bike carrying is a sticking point. I much prefer putting my bike in rather than on the car.

I do have a beige interior as it happens 🙁

I_ache – I’m based near Sheffield unfortunately so not exactly local :-S but thanks. I’ll let you know how my experiment goes.. perhaps I could try stuffing the hybrid in there too..

I just bought an old E46 Touring for MTB and baby duties 8)

If you have a proper pedal spanner it is a piece of cake to whip off the pedals and it does give you quite a lot more room.

I’d be surprised if you can’t fit two bikes in the car with the back seats down – it’s a pretty decent space. The main issue is that it’s not a tall loading aperture so I reckon as I_Ache says taking the pedals off will help a lot.

tbh I find both the 3 series, like the Audi A4, to be pretty useless cars for people who want to actually put stuff in them – saloon or estate style.

Maybe get some heavy duty plastic sheeting, a dust sheet to soak up any water/mud and some wheel bags.

taking pedals on and off sounds like a faff, both wheels off is bad enough!