E46 Coupes, nightmare or still worth looking at?

I could do with 9 or 10 cars to fulfil all my wants :)

I am going to meet the chap on Sunday half way to have a look at his and vice versa. I am sure I will know on the spot then. I've spent about an hour talking to him tonight and truth be told mileage difference apart, it sounds as though his has a lot less "wrong" with it than mine. I was totally open about mine and he said he didn't expect it to have as many little bits wrong but still interested if we meet with no obligation and that suits me.

So, I need to know about these cars now.

Weak points, common failures and so on. Timing chains, are they truly life long on these 325 engines? I understand the coolant systems are not too strong but what will be a tell tale sign of an issue?

Anything you guys can teach me to check would be great. Ta :)
 
engines are bulletproof, but saying that look out for any smoke from the exhaust, worn valve guides can be an issue, also vanos, check for oil leaks on valve rocker cover.
check the CCV.

just check over everything electrical including the parking sensors as they can be an issue.
 
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M54 engines are renowned for liking a drink of oil, that said mine didn't on my 530i, mine died when the headgasket failed, a sign mine was failing was a lot of steam when idling (hot or cold) and a build up of mayonnaise on the inside of the oil filler cap, no oil apparent in the coolant nor on the dipstick though.

Cam & crank position sensors fail (not too expensive to fix) and the rocker cover gasket goes brittle and results in oil leaks.

Having had a long line of M52 engines - 728i,328i and 528i - (all of which were faultless engine wise) I must say I was disappointed with my M54, it was never quite right I felt (despite throwing lots of new parts at it) and I hated the electronic throttle, give me a cable every time!
 
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Check oil leaks first. Valve cover gasket is common and it usually leaks around the exhaust manifold area the most. The oil filter gasket is another leak spot. CCV is common and I would have expected it to be changed at 100k miles. Take the oil cap of while running the car, there should be some suction but not like a hoover. If it's like the latter it needs changing. If there isn't any at all it needs changing iirc.

Coolant bottle leaks at bottom and radiators can bow too. Vanos rattle when shutting off is another one. Check front and rear arches for rust and the sills. Also check the boot floor underneath the spare tyre to make sure the subframe mount haven't cracked. Don't think it effects these but better safe then sorry.


Inside wise just the usual electrics, power window regulators go so make sure when the windows are going up or down they're not creaking as that's normally a telltale sign. Heater should blow strong on max otherwise the final stage resistor needs replacing.
 
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The E46 is a nice car and all, but heroically unreliable at this age, prone to many cooling systems issues, oil system issues, rear subframes falling off... and if i'm honest.... a bit slow. Totally different animal to the EP3, too, not really comparable in my eyes.
 
[TW]Fox;30143989 said:
Why do you change so often?! I thought the EP3 made perfect sense?

The idea of a swap always seems strange. Why do people do it? If the car they were 'swapping' was in good order surely they could simply sell it and have pick of the market for its replacement.
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Boggles my mind too - surely alarm bells ring if someone isn't looking to try and get actual money for it......
 
I wouldn't do it.

The E46 is a lovely car, I have a 330i 6 speed manual, but I am fully aware it will need money spending on it. It burns about 1l oil every 600 miles, which doesn't bother me, but the guy I bought it off spent a lot chasing the issue, replacing the entire oil breather system, gaskets etc. You might get lucky. There will, I guarantee, be rust lurking in, on, under or around the wheel arches. Mine is very clean, but I know next year I'll be forking out ~£500 to have the rear arches properly done.

My car has had a new alternator since I've owned it, drinks oil, and has a weird rattle when cold which may or may not be piston slap and has had the DISA flap just done. It also idle rough when cold, but doesn't throw any codes. I'm not a particularly neurotic car owner, I simply stump up when something breaks or I think something needs doing. If you have any tendency to worry about the reliability of a car, an old E46 that's been buggered about with is not for you. The guy that owned my car before me spent nearly £2k in his 18 month ownership, I've spent about £1.5k in one year.

Don't kid yourself it might be cheaper than an EP3. It won't be (I had one of those for 5 years). I'd be disappointed with an E46 with the 2.5 after an EP3.
 
so far so good with my 330ci had it 4 months and been a dream so far. lowish mileage at 81k but i guess that does mean I'll have a fair bit of work to do when it starts getting up towards 100k

if it's not for you it's not for you but they aren't all bad.
 
I'm quite close to pulling the trigger in a 325i touring from a mate, it's had a bit of work done (ccv, brakes, water pump) but needs a coolant system refresh, after which I reckon the total cost to me will be a little over a grand. It's approaching 150k.

My logic behind the purchase is that any car around the £1k mark will potentially need work. Nothing else seems to offer the comfort, handling and power for the price.

Even if this does need some more work it'll still end up as costng under £2k I reckon (I'm guessing clutch and alt). I just need a runabout to last a couple of years and I'm tempted to risk it. Going by this thread I should avoid?
 
Stick with the Civic in my opinion. A work mate had an E46 330Ci and it cost him a fortune over the year or so he owned it. It was a nicer place to be than my EP3 but I don't think it's worth the additional cost in maintenance
 
Illusion said:
Stick with the Civic in my opinion. A work mate had an E46 330Ci and it cost him a fortune over the year or so he owned it. It was a nicer place to be than my EP3 but I don't think it's worth the additional cost in maintenance
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What's a fortune?

I had an E46 330Ci and it cost me pittance over two years. Appreciate he might have been unlucky, but I don't get what fortune could have incurred unless literrally everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
 
My experience of these cars (ive had a few E46's now) is that they are actually very cheap to run as most of the niggles you'll get will be very DIY'able. The actual problem with them and why i would not recommend one these days are that they are just a constant annoyance.

I had a 330i last year, ran it for 10k miles before i just got too annoyed with it. It was nice, but I was spending probably a day per month fixing random little problems with it which kept cropping up.
 
I've done about 50k miles in my E46 330ci and love the car. Though I wouldn't recommend one to anyone unless you like being hands on with the car and willing to tinker (I've learnt so much off this car), and can live with it being unreliable at any time.

I've put some money into mine, but I'm at the stage now where hopefully any niggles will be small. It's like Triggers broom at this point :p

So yeah, if you enjoy DIY or want to learn, the E46 is great to work on. If not, I'd probably avoid one.
 
Jez said:
My experience of these cars (ive had a few E46's now) is that they are actually very cheap to run as most of the niggles you'll get will be very DIY'able. The actual problem with them and why i would not recommend one these days are that they are just a constant annoyance.

I had a 330i last year, ran it for 10k miles before i just got too annoyed with it. It was nice, but I was spending probably a day per month fixing random little problems with it which kept cropping up.
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+1. They're easy to work on and parts aren't expensive. The only reason I am selling mine is due to the mileage I am now doing. The fuel costs were getting a bit too much. But mine was fine, didn't really have niggles which got to me.
 
sigma said:
What kinda things go wrong?

Am I likely to be left stood by the road clutching my RAC card?
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I was left stranded twice by my 330d. Once was PAS failure, the pump started to liberate it's oil. Second one was diesel specific, it blew the intercooler hose off and broke the clamp/fixing in the process.
 
sigma said:
What kinda things go wrong?

Am I likely to be left stood by the road clutching my RAC card?
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Side of the road issues for me over the past 4-5 years have been attributed to a few things, autobox failure, any number of cooling system components failing, coil packs.

The cooling system can be negated by just replacing the whole lot in one go, I messed around swapping bit at a time but it's a matter of time before the next part in the system fails. Coil packs are cheap but get overlooked.
 
Cooling is no bother as I plan to do the lot but didn't think of coils, they're , what £50 each from what I can see?

I must admit I am less enthusiastic however any car I look at which is this cheap could be in need of camblet, clutch, pumps etc...
 
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I cured the oil usage in my e46 325ti by replacing the ccv system with a pcv & catch tank setup. When I got the car it was using a litre of oil per 800-1000 miles which people seem to accept is normal, then after 20k miles or so the ccv obviously completely failed and it was using a litre of oil per 300-400 mies. It's now not used a single drop in about 3k miles. (the car is on roughly 120k)

The only other main issues are cooling system (all mine replaced with genuine parts just before I bought it 18 months ago so should be good for a few years yet), autobox failure (bought a manual) and rust (bought an ugly compact as these don't seem to rust). Oh and rusty rear brake lines which I have rubbed down and painted before they got too bad and it passed the next MOT with no advisory, however if they've gone too far it's a pretty big job I'd probably leave to a garage.

All other things are little niggles that can be sorted easily with basic tools at home which I don't mind doing. I've done in 25k miles: rear trailing arm bushes, front rear wishbone bushes, discs & pads all round, oil filter housing gasket, rocker cover gasket, vanos seals and front brake flexi hoses.

I've also just bought some 16" wheels for it as per SE specification which I am going to fit with 205/55 tyres. This I'm hoping will add some ride comfort, make the car a little more fun to drive and as a bonus will be cheaper to replace the tyres. I think its quite over tyred as standard with 225/45 fronts and 245/40 rears.
 
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