BMW and M Power Owners

Excellent, the sport auto box is supposed to be very sharp on these and you get the paddles too. Should be a great car! Nice to have the pro nav, I spec'd mine up and didn't pay the extra for many options, I got the heated leather, parking, hifi upgrade and paint and 19's in the end but that's about it. Mine doesn't have xenons either, looks better than I thought it would though.
 
The saga continues with my dodgy M54 engine in my E46 CS. The garage who were due to strip the head, rebuild, and refit gave me a call this morning asking me to come down for a quick chat. Got down there and apparently they're unable to do it, they showed me the issues that they were having with the head bolts.

From what I was told and shown, when they took the head bolts off, they put one back in and tried to re-torque it to the BMW specs of 90Nm iirc and it just wasn't having any of it, they did say they could helicoil it but couldn't guarantee how long it would last as the integrity of the actual block was compromised so we agreed that it wasn't worth the cost involved with such a big risk factor involved.

From what I've researched from the internet and speaking to various BMW indies, the heads are notorious for not going back on properly and eventually they'll misfire or leak coolant into the cylinders causing a hydrolock in the worst case scenario.

With that in mind, I've just purchased another M54 engine from a 2004 330 which is showing as having 24k miles on the clock. The block is complete with ancillaries so fingers crossed, I'll have it delivered and fitted this week.

It's been an expensive and stressful few weeks without the car so I'll be glad to have her back on the road and running properly. I'll also be stripping down the old engine and I'll check the valves in the head to see what's gone wrong.
 
If you want to push on then stick it into sport mode and use the paddles, it really is very effective and I always manual **** using the paddles when I want to make a rapid overtake.
 
dont worry he isn't just some street racer

he is pro

u cant drive car that way u have to be born with the talent to drive the car that way :D
 
Atari said:
With that in mind, I've just purchased another M54 engine from a 2004 330 which is showing as having 24k miles on the clock. The block is complete with ancillaries so fingers crossed, I'll have it delivered and fitted this week.
Click to expand...

Out of interest how much is the engine and how much is the labour to fit?
 
[TW]Fox;23553451 said:
Out of interest how much is the engine and how much is the labour to fit?
Click to expand...

Thankfully not too painful at all, seems that a lot of 325/330s are getting smashed up so there's loads of M54s about. I paid £450 for the engine, and labour is £200, plus another £100 for new fluids and servicing (which I'll likely do myself).
 
Nice deal. Kinda takes the worry off engine problems now knowing that even worst case scenario is under a grand.

Not like when a 'specialist' told me my then 5 year old 530i had head gasket failure, I was a student, and the cheapest engine on Ebay was £2000 :eek:
 
Yeah I was initially worried about the costs but there's an abundance of parts available and generally speaking, even a lot of the 'major' jobs (engine, gearbox) can be done under a grand on cars of this age so it's honestly not too bad at all.

If I'd gone the rebuild route, once I'd factored in the price of labour, the rebuild itself, and the other bits like a new head gasket and head bolts, I'd probably only have saved about £100 and would have the worry of when it was going to fail next.
 
Skill or not, its only a matter of time before he kills someone, hopefully just himself and not an innocent bystander.

If he is really good, he should be proving it on a track. Driving like that on public roads is beyond negligent.

The baldness on the back of his head (driver) suggests he is old enough to know better as well.
 
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