How broken is my car?

almoststew1990 · 13 Oct 2015 at 17:32

I have a 2003 BMW 330ci manual. It had its inspection 2 today and I had the following comments:

Missfire- plugs 3 and 5 replaced as part of inspection II
Possible Breather Valve required re misfire
'found' o/s/f antiroll bar link- remove and replaced
Annual check due
Rear shock absorber top mounts worn
Trailing arm bushes worn
Corrosion under n/s/r airbag ring
PDC faults stored
Diff bush split
Front brake hose starting to perish
Oil sensor gone
slight play in osf inner track arm joint
Coolant leak from thermostat housing- poss water pump required
Bowed radiator- requires replacement.

That's quite a list. Is all of this little niggley things (except the radiator!) or are they all pretty major and need doing?

What's a ball park £££ figure to fix for each item?

I'm normally not one to sell a car when something goes wrong with it, from the "it'll cost me more money to repair!!" perspective, but with this big list of items... What would you do? The car cost £3200 when I bought it a year ago, and i've put maybe £1250 into it in terms of servicing and replacement parts.

rodenal · 13 Oct 2015 at 17:37

Niggly - will edit this in a min

Missfire- plugs 3 and 5 replaced as part of inspection II. Replace them all £45

Possible Breather Valve required

Leave for now unless it's bad - part circa £70 from memory

'found' o/s/f antiroll bar link- remove and ..

Annual check

Rear shock absorber top mounts

Cheap, if you can do it yourself

Trailing arm bushes
£40 bushes from memory, pain the arse to do but not difficult

Corrosion under n/s/r airbag

Eh, reluctor ring maybe? Clean it up

PDC faults

Meh

Diff bush split

Sort this, part is cheap, maybe couple of hours labour

Brake hose starting to perish

Sort this, £10 part

Oil sensor
Sort this next oil change

Slight play in osf inner track arm

Cheap part, easy diy

Coolant leak from thermostat housing- poss water pump

£120ish for both parts.
Bowed radiator- requires

Can't remember price of a rad, £100?

You need to spend a bit of money on it, but it needn't cost the earth - dread to what they quoted

paradigm · 13 Oct 2015 at 17:41

Well, i'd ignore the oil sensor for starters, don't think I've come across an E46 that didn't have the oil sensor issue. And assuming your PDC works, who cares that once upon a time it might have stored a fault code, it could be massively historic.

almoststew1990 · 13 Oct 2015 at 17:44

paradigm said:
Well, i'd ignore the oil sensor for starters, don't think I've come across an E46 that didn't have the oil sensor issue. And assuming your PDC works, who cares that once upon a time it might have stored a fault code, it could be massively historic.

Yup- I've been ignoring the broken sensor got a while; it burns a fair amount of oil on a regular basis so I check it on a regular basis!

What is the PDC? If it the computer that stores error codes and puts warning lights on the dash, then yeah it works.

Cheers for the response

rodenal · 13 Oct 2015 at 17:45

Pdc is park distance control - rear sensors

[TW]Fox · 13 Oct 2015 at 18:03

almoststew1990 said:
Missfire- plugs 3 and 5 replaced as part of inspection II

All of the plugs should be replaced as part of an Inspection 2. Why didn't this happen?

Possible Breather Valve required re misfire

Impossible to pinpoint it that accurately and far more likely to be coils or plugs.

'found' o/s/f antiroll bar link- remove and replaced

Cheapest thing to replace on the entire suspension setup.

Annual check due

What? There is no 'annual check' on a 330Ci, do they mean the MOT? If not, what are they on about? An Inspection 2 is the most major service ever due on a 330Ci - no checks are 'due' once that's been done!

Corrosion under n/s/r airbag ring

What does this even mean? I can't imagine how anyone would access the actual airbags in the process of an Inspection 2.

PDC faults stored

New sensors, 20 quid on Ebay.

Oil sensor gone

£100ish to replace, or just ignore it and check your oil the proper way.

Coolant leak from thermostat housing- poss water pump required
Bowed radiator- requires replacement.

It's an M54, this is virtually consumable stuff, happens to all of them

I'm normally not one to sell a car when something goes wrong with it, from the "it'll cost me more money to repair!!" perspective, but with this big list of items... What would you do? The car cost £3200 when I bought it a year ago, and i've put maybe £1250 into it in terms of servicing and replacement parts.

These are all common E46 issues which you will encounter time and time again on cars of this age and type. If you want to drive a car like this, suck it up and get it done. If you don't, buy a low mileage Toyota and forget about it.

Mirage · 13 Oct 2015 at 18:25

Welcome to the world of BMWs (or older ones at least)

almoststew1990 · 13 Oct 2015 at 18:40

Thanks for the comprehensive response.

All of the plugs should be replaced as part of an Inspection 2. Why didn't this happen?

It did, the computer read that 2 and 5 were misfiring specifically so they mentioned it specifically.

Impossible to pinpoint [breather valve] it that accurately and far more likely to be coils or plugs.

Garage said to note whether misfire on cold mornings start up still happened. It was also cyl 3 and 5 last time (last week, before the inspection when they had a quick look and then reset the error codes) which suggests coils as it was the same cylinders- unless each cylinder has a breather valve?

[osf antiroll bar link]Cheapest thing to replace on the entire suspension setup.

This was replaced for 'free' + 15 minutes.

What? There is no 'annual check' on a 330Ci, do they mean the MOT? If not, what are they on about? An Inspection 2 is the most major service ever due on a 330Ci - no checks are 'due' once that's been done!

Oil and coolant check is what he described it as.

What does this even mean[corrosion airbag]? I can't imagine how anyone would access the actual airbags in the process of an Inspection 2.

No idea.

New [PDC]sensors, 20 quid on Ebay.

PDC doesn't work. I'm quite happy to park using my eyes and judgement for now; good to know the price though.

[oil sensor gone]£100ish to replace, or just ignore it and check your oil the proper way.

I do anyway due to the oil burning, this one doesnt bother me.

[coolant leak-water pump; bowed radiator]It's an M54, this is virtually consumable stuff, happens to all of them

Water pump was done a year ago so they would hopefully do that for free as the work was done with 1 year warranty. Radiator is top of my list; the part if £50 on Euro carparts.

These are all common E46 issues which you will encounter time and time again on cars of this age and type. If you want to drive a car like this, suck it up and get it done. If you don't, buy a low mileage Toyota and forget about it.

Genuinely thinking about it at the moment until I have the money to spend on this sort of maintenance

Third Opinion · 13 Oct 2015 at 18:42

BMW dealer trying to sell you a new car by convincing yours is borked?

I have had it with Alfa Romeo, Nissan, Ford etc.

An independent will get your car on the road at a fraction of their cost. Up to you at the end of the day but I only deal with repairers only after 4 years. Otherwise they see you as bait for a new or used car!!

almoststew1990 · 13 Oct 2015 at 19:05

It was done at an independent who doesn't sell cars. They didn't try to sell anything, just mentioned the radiator should be at the top of the list.

They are quite well respected on the south coast (Bartley BMW)