My freind is going to view one tommorow and he wants to know what he should be looking out for please?
What to specifically look out for? Make sure it feels perfect is about the best advice I can say. One in good condition drives completely smoothly and is very refined. Look for odd vibrations when driving, any other than a virtually 100% smooth experience suggests there may be problems.
Common faults will be wearing upper/lower control arm bushes (You replace the whole arm at £250 an arm inc fitting to fix this), turbocharger failure, swirlflap failure on automatic models (This can write the engine off), injection failure, electrical issues with the climate control, check for rust, etc.
If it doesn't feel perfect, walk away. There is too much scope for a nightmare if you buy one thats less than mint.
he said "I've looked on the internet and I can't find ANY common faults.
He clearly hasn't looked very far then.
2000 330D SE (Top Range Mod Cons etc also It's got M-Tech Wheels, Dash and Steering Wheel) 101k miles full service history Failed one MoT on corroded brake hoses. £4,999 value"
Brake hose thing is quite common. If it has M-tech wheels on a 2000 SE they are almost certainly cheap fake ones from Ebay with poor quality tyres, seems to be the way the older E46's are going. Good to hear it's got a dash though, wouldnt want one without one of those.
Hope he realises what he's letting himself in for. When working, they are great cars, but unless you are buying it for something to be more than simply a way of getting from A to B the issues that will crop up will make it considerably worse value than virtually anything else.
oh and "And can you ask if it's Chain cam driven"
Yes.
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