They seem to go through coil packs regularly. Also the first oil service is too long (same for all new BMWs) and they are commonly sludgey under the oil filler cap at 2 years old. Other than that i'm not aware of many common faults.
Rare but scary faults, there's only one i know of -- there have been a few (~3 or 4) publicised cases where an ECU in the passenger footwell get's toasted (don't know why, but it smells burnt apparently) leading to funny lighting + window wiper behaviour. The reason it's scary is because the ECU + the unit it lives in is almost £1000 to replace.
I know a few folks with 116's and the complaints are not much power and under spec'd, i'm pretty sure they're all m-sport variants too but they are spartan inside.
Hope it helps!
EDIT: and i don't fit in the passenger seat very well in the 5 door, wouldn't like to do a long journey, even with the seat right back!
Last edited by: CraigP on Thu 3 Jun 10 at 16:13
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BMW 1 Series E81/E87 - 116i or 118i? 
BMW 1 Series E81/E87 - 116i or 118i? 