£3000 petrol or diesel?

[TW]Fox;19903905 said:
How much is a pattern 5HP19?
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Large items are what breakers are for.

Anyway, how regularly do these chew through autoboxes for that to be a relative question? :confused:

If you were to miss a shift on the 530i, crunch it into gear and spectacularly ruin the box would you genuinely be looking to fit a brand new dealer supplied gearbox?
 
Joshy said:
Anyway, how regularly do these chew through autoboxes for that to be a relative question? :confused:
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It's a when not if! Most of them tend to go pop between 100k and 150k. Half the internet thinks this is because you've not changed the oil. The other half thinks its because you do change the oil.

If you were to miss a shift on the 530i, crunch it into gear and spectacularly ruin the box would you genuinely be looking to fit a brand new dealer supplied gearbox?
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BMW won't supply a brand new gearbox for the car anymore but a manual box is rather different to an autobox in that failure is exceptionally rare rather than 'pretty much a given' so there probably isn't a huge amount of risk involved in a second hand transmission. However buying a used autobox out of a 10 year old car is stupid - all that labour and nothing to say it won't go bang 4k miles down the road. Therefore the sensible thing to do is get it properly reconditioned by an autobox specialist.
 
paradigm said:
Having just got rid of a 166,000 mile 330D, I'd be saying a definite NO to that one.

It could easily cost him the purchase price again in repairs in a few years. I had one because I wanted an e46, it was something I just wanted to own, and at the time did the mileage to warrant a diesel. But I'd not recommend one over a petrol 330i to anyone who isn't prepared to spend a small fortune keeping it "as it should be".
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Care to give a few samples of the costs involved and your experiences please?
 
[TW]Fox;19903985 said:
Therefore the sensible thing to do is get it properly reconditioned by an autobox specialist.
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Okay. If gearboxes are a major weak to such an extent that you describe, then we agree, a recondition by a gearbox specialist is the way forward....

Sorry, what was your point again? :confused:
 
sigma said:
Care to give a few samples of the costs involved and your experiences please?
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paradigm said:
What car is it?
2002 (52) BMW 330d


What mileage are you currently on?
166,656

What major parts have you replaced?

  • PAS pump/pipework
  • Turbo (and Intercooler/associated pipework)
  • Radiator
  • A/C compressor
  • Two brake calipers
How long do you intend to keep the car for?

Just been sold after 2 years (purchased on 135,000~)
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The work added up to a total of well over £2000 worth of repairs. The turbo alone was £500~ (And I fitted that myself) with the rest of the intercooler/pipework/ancillaries another couple of hundred, the PAS repairs were £200~ the radiator (and coolant system refresh at the same time) was £250~ and the aircon compressor was £250~ again. Then all the little odds and ends such as a reverse parking sensor and a relay replacement in the central locking module (had to get that professionally de-soldered as nothing I tried would remove it!)
 
[TW]Fox;19904028 said:
I hear a UK based gearbox specialist will give you change from £10 for that job.
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I'm still struggling for a point? Automatic transmission failures in older cars is hardly something new, and is an issue that can almost entirely avoided by buying an example with a manual gearbox.
 
To be honest my crazy gearbox man will crack a box for £70...........................if you bring it to him in a boot.
 
Joshy said:
I'm still struggling for a point? Automatic transmission failures in older cars is hardly something new, and is an issue that can almost entirely avoided by buying an example with a manual gearbox.
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It's just an example of some of the things that can go wrong - I'm not saying this is a uniquely BMW thing, far from it - it applies to all cars of this type, many of which have automatic gearboxes for example.

And I just don't see the point in buying them. If you can absorb the costs of them without having a hernia then... just buy a newer one, unless of course you are a particular enthusiast of a certain model which makes things different - as we all know that enthusiasts are irraitonal and may well be happy to sink loads of cash into a car they could easily afford to just buy a newer model of :p

But for your average joe after a cheap car, why bother? The only thing cheap about them is the purchase price.

I saw a £3995 Mercedes S500 the other day. Who on earth would buy one of those? I mean.. why?! You can do better than a £3995 car if the daily costs of a V8 Mercedes uber-saloon which 10 years ago had more flakey-tech than NASA don't phase you.
 
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[TW]Fox;19904176 said:
Exactly. 200 quid for an ELEVEN year old box, then however much again to fit it and no guarantee it wont simply explode like the other one a month later!
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damn sight cheaper than the 1660 euro eurotransmissions are quoting for a refurbished one.

That's 8 gearboxes worth of second handys

and as i've said already, fit it yourself or steer clear of this

Pays your money, takes your choice, which is what the thread pretty much hinges on

But totally irrelevant anyway as the one I linked to was a manual
 
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If you genuinelly can spanner your way around everything I agree it changes the economics. Most people can't though - and those that can generally don't need to come to a niche motoring corner of an overclocking shop to ask for advice - so the people who post these 'Wow guys check out the wikkid sick beemer i can get for £3k' threads are not the people who could have a full set of injectors done in an afternoon.
 
[TW]Fox;19904182 said:
It's just an example of some of the things that can go wrong - I'm not saying this is a uniquely BMW thing, far from it - it applies to all cars of this type, many of which have automatic gearboxes for example.
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So the point is cars sometimes go wrong? :confused:.

I'm genuinely not trying to be awkward here but I'm not getting the point you're trying to get across by asking me earlier how much a pattern ZF gearbox was. I pointed out that costs can be kept down by using pattern parts and stuff off of cars being broken can drastically lower running costs and you've used about the only possible example as some sort of a way of disproving this theory.

Like it or not it is possible to run prestige cars on the cheap. It might not be the 'proper' way and it may not be the way you'd go about doing things, but it can, has been and will be done for many years to come.
 
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Joshy said:
So the point is cars sometimes go wrong? :confused:.
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Well done, yes. And old BM's etc go wrong more often, cost more to fix, and generally go wrong and cost enough to fix that they are completely pointless, stupid and nonsensical buys for people with only 2 grand to spend on a car.

The point with the box is that not everything is available as a pattern part - and besides, many pattern parts are crap and cause more problems than they fix. Try using pattern MAF/O2 sensors on an M54 and see how far you get. Waste of time. The genuine ones are several hundred quid each...

Like it or not it is possible to run prestige cars on the cheap.
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Your last one ended up in the bin, so I'm not entirely sure I'm satisfied that you really can say this with any certainty. Infact have you even owned a car registered in this millenium? :p Where has all this certainty on how to run post 2000 BMW's come from? Last time I checked you had a Soarer.. that didnt work, and previously owned a Soarer. That didn't work. And before that a 205, then before that an E34 you appear to have owned for about 26 seconds? Please do correct me but I don't see E46's there?
 
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Joshy said:
99.9% of people don't run their cars in such a way.
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Just to clarify, that's 99.9% of the people in your mostly likely to be chavvy, circles.

There's are all sorts of owners. The top end - and the sort of owners - you'd want to buy from, dealer or indie/specialist service it regularly, maintain the specified maintenance regime as a minimum, and do what needs to be done when its needs to be done using original parts. Amazing as it might seem to you, more than 0.1% of the car owning population in the UK actually want to look after their cars.

The bottom end, and these are the people that you're probably familiar with, given your wildly inaccurate, skewed, perspective, are the gippo chavs who run a car into the ground because they can't even afford basic repairs, or a change of oil, and use parcel tape to repair a wing mirror, before punting it on.
 
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