BMW and M Power Owners

Im considering buying an E46 M3 for me to use up until September, by which time I plan to sell it on.

One has come up for sale local to me, I plan on looking, but any advice on it? Spec list is below and its up for £10k.

2002 manual coupe in carbon Schwartz black.
124K FSH , most bmw dealer and specialists.
4 owners
Sunroof
HK
Red leather
Power mirrors
Carbon fibre CSL style air box , and mapped ecu
Just had a full vanos overhaul not even 25 miles ago
Bottom end bearings done
Clutch and flywheels 2k ago
Oil and filter change 500 ago
New chain guides
Head gasket replaced.
Original 19” wheels ( need refurbish )
And a set of 18” with ad08s (just refurbished)
Stud and nut conversion
10m hubcentric spacers
Subframe reinforced
 
Picked up the M140i on Friday, very happy so far. How long should the connected drive take to activate?
[TW]Fox said:
10k for a 17 year old E46?!
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That's the going rate. Usually £8k for 100k miles if the bearing work hasn't been done and £12k for a very clean example with all the work done and under 100k.
 
[TW]Fox said:
10k for a 17 year old E46?!
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It's hardly a 318 though is it.

And will realistically be going up in value. Id rather spend £10k on a 17 year old E46 M3 and keep a lot of the value than buy a run of the mill diesel BMW and lose my ass ?

Some examples with lower miles are £17k+
 
After over 5 years with a very reliable but pretty boring CR-V I decided the kids are old and not messy enough to have something a bit more exciting for a family wagon and I bought an X3 M40i (the missus wanted an Evoque - NO!!!). The noise of these things, especially the pops on overrun, is something else, probably one of the most fun cars I've ever driven which I was not expecting when I first tried them. Thanks to Dandle on here who helped me find this one, which I put a deposit on before it even arrived at the dealer. It has panoramic roof, park assist plus, drive assist plus, heated rear seats, heated wheel, tech pack, comfort pack, HK audio - amazing spec! Can't wait to pick it up next week.

5eNhMwA.jpg

tUFu40i.jpg

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Em3bbs said:
After over 5 years with a very reliable but pretty boring CR-V I decided the kids are old and not messy enough to have something a bit more exciting for a family wagon and I bought an X3 M40i (the missus wanted an Evoque - NO!!!). The noise of these things, especially the pops on overrun, is something else, probably one of the most fun cars I've ever driven which I was not expecting when I first tried them. Thanks to Dandle on here who helped me find this one, which I put a deposit on before it even arrived at the dealer. It has panoramic roof, park assist plus, drive assist plus, heated rear seats, heated wheel, tech pack, comfort pack, HK audio - amazing spec! Can't wait to pick it up next week.
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Nice. What year is it? Does it have the petrol filter?
 
hartgeh3 said:
Does anyone have Mondial warranty and have had their car modded aswell?
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I do now, mapped recently.

Debatable as to if/how/what can be detected, trust my indy heavily but equally the tuner was adamant it would require a hell of a lot of work to detect and was basically untraceable (motorsport background and prior experience with a few F1 teams).

So plan to task my indy with seeing what was done and when :)

I wouldn't expect anything that suffers a failure as a direct or related result of a mod to be honoured under a claim. However if a coil snaps or your iDrive stops working and they start pointing at your exhaust there's no correlation there, as I understand. Happy to be corrected.

Have claimed 3 times successfully, pre mod. (HPFP, Thermostat & Waterpump, Snapped snock & leaking gasket).
 
Em3bbs said:
After over 5 years with a very reliable but pretty boring CR-V I decided the kids are old and not messy enough to have something a bit more exciting for a family wagon and I bought an X3 M40i (the missus wanted an Evoque - NO!!!). The noise of these things, especially the pops on overrun, is something else, probably one of the most fun cars I've ever driven which I was not expecting when I first tried them. Thanks to Dandle on here who helped me find this one, which I put a deposit on before it even arrived at the dealer. It has panoramic roof, park assist plus, drive assist plus, heated rear seats, heated wheel, tech pack, comfort pack, HK audio - amazing spec! Can't wait to pick it up next week.

5eNhMwA.jpg

tUFu40i.jpg

a1yJPAH.jpg
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Am I crazy of does the x5 m5d have all the writing on one side?
 
BennyC said:
I do now, mapped recently.

Debatable as to if/how/what can be detected, trust my indy heavily but equally the tuner was adamant it would require a hell of a lot of work to detect and was basically untraceable (motorsport background and prior experience with a few F1 teams).

So plan to task my indy with seeing what was done and when :)

I wouldn't expect anything that suffers a failure as a direct or related result of a mod to be honoured under a claim. However if a coil snaps or your iDrive stops working and they start pointing at your exhaust there's no correlation there, as I understand. Happy to be corrected.

Have claimed 3 times successfully, pre mod. (HPFP, Thermostat & Waterpump, Snapped snock & leaking gasket).
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Interesting, I have read people take their cars (CSLs) to Elms in Cambridge as they don't mind mods! Mine will be a remap, exhaust system and springs, maybe alloys at some point on a E63 M6
 
hartgeh3 said:
Interesting, I have read people take their cars (CSLs) to Elms in Cambridge as they don't mind mods! Mine will be a remap, exhaust system and springs, maybe alloys at some point on a E63 M6
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That would surprise me somewhat, given warranty claims will be reasonably well scrutinised I should think? Otherwise where would you draw the line?

My E92 335i will be 10 years old next year and knocking on 90,000 miles. I would still hope to have hassle free warranty experience but would not be at all surprised if they refuse a claim based on a component failure as a direct or related result of my remap. Hard to prove but equally hard to disprove...

If you're worried about your warranty consider saving it to use for a slush fund or accept that you might be paying for something end end up with nothing (bar breakdown and recovery/emergency service) in return :)
 
I'm currently looking into E46 330ci Coupes (Automatic) and wondered if anyone has one or am I mad for even thinking about it? There's a few really clean looking examples about but having never owned a car with 100k+ miles on before is it worth the risk?
 
FlapR said:
I'm currently looking into E46 330ci Coupes (Automatic) and wondered if anyone has one or am I mad for even thinking about it? There's a few really clean looking examples about but having never owned a car with 100k+ miles on before is it worth the risk?
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The issue mainly is age, lots of plastic parts (especially in the cooling system) that go brittle and fail, Miles isn’t the problem so long as it’s been maintained correctly.

You’ll be constantly paying out fixing little niggles most likely, but I wouldn’t necessarily expect any major failures just because it’s done 100k

One thing to bear in mind is at 100k and the cars age the automatic box will most likely be desperately in need of a transmission fluid change, BMW say it’s sealed for life which it is, on the other hand, to them 10years is the car’s lifespan.

Most automatic BMW boxes fail around 100-130k miles and 10+ years old simply because the oil is way past it’s useful life.

If you do buy one, make sure the gearbox is smooth and no delays selecting gears, no shunting into gears etc and get a transmission specialist to change the fluid and filter as a matter of urgency, the transmission should then outlive the car rather than being the reason it’s scrapped.
 
My partner took her 1 Series in for its EGR recall yesterday and whilst it was there she asked them to look into a slight but consistent clutch juddering.

It’s an approved used, out of its used warranty next month, she was basically told that as the car has been driven by someone else previously there’s no way of them knowing how it’s been treated and therefore they wouldn’t cover it under the AUC warranty even though it’s only done 5k since she’s had it, on top of this they want £119 just to inspect it (but only for an hour) and if they don’t deem it to be a manufacturing fault she’ll have to pay for the replacement clutch and most likely flywheel.

Is this right?

They then, once she pointed out if it had a pre existing fault when she bought it the onus is on them to prove otherwise, effectively said it’s down to her not using her clutch correctly, interesting given her previous Focus covered 50k with no clutch issues not to mention her late husband was a Police instructor who had taught her to drive to a very high standard - she probably treats a clutch better than I do!

They then argued she wasn’t entitled to a courtesy car (even though the car was in for a recall and they may need it for “a few weeks” due to parts backlog) eventually after a undignified argument with a “manager” she’s got a Mini, three hours later...

To say she’s not impressed is an understatement, she couldn’t believe a supposedly “premium” brand has such inept dealers and poor attitude towards their customers.l, although sadly it being “Knights BMW” I wasn’t really surprised.


She’s going to be writing to both BMW UK and Lookers PLC (the dealers owner) to make her displeasure known.
 
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That’s not right at all, but I’m not surprised by the level of service she has received though. They are talking **** re someone else having driven the car being a reason to deny a warranty claim.

The AUC warranty is the same as the extended warranty (is she taking that once the AUC expires?), they charge for investigating the issue (£119 for an hours labour is excessive though, my local charges £86 and they’re expensive), if they find a fault which is covered by warranty then no charge (outside of AUC on extended warranty you would have an excess).

Is there another BMW dealer that she could take it to instead? She might find one with better service, if you post location others in here might be able to recommend.

My 330i has been in for almost 2 weeks now while they investigated, waited for a new part to arrive and are allegedly fitting it today, at least they gave me a courtesy car though (Merc B18). All covered under extended warranty minus my £100 excess.

I’m sure you’re aware of the BMW extended warranty that you can pay for annually/monthly which I think is well worth it (has been for me anyway) - just bear in mind to tell her to renew it before the AUC expires otherwise there will be a 1 month moratorium on claims.
 
They're talking balls. By selling as approved used they're accepting the car as being completely suitable for sale therefore it's previous history is irrelevant.
 
Are there any recommended products (or products that are actually worth while) to use as an additive to help keep injectors and valves clean and to reduce carbon build up?

I was advised the front two on my N55 (335i @ 83,000 miles) have some build up that isn't insignificant but also not overly concerning at this stage.

Over exposed image:

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Presumably running premium unleaded at this stage wouldn't do much to remove or reduce existing build up but would slow the rate it's accumulating? Given my recent remap I intend to change oil more regularly ahead of schedule.
 
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