BMW and M Power Owners
- Thread starter panthro
- Start date
Robbo - do you need to take it to BMW? I recently had the boot lid on my 335i resprayed by a local bodyshop which cost me ~£200. BMW in Bristol (Cribbs Causway) quoted £700. Both covered the job for the life of the car.
So I'm not hiding anything, BMW said they would have blended the boot lid with the two rear quarter panels, which the local bodyshop did not. However, I'm very happy with the job and you cannot tell it has been resprayed.
I'd recommend finding a good local bodyshop and get a quote from them and BMW and make your decision based on that.
I assume that the majority of BMW's bodyshop work is funded by insurance companies, which may result in them being able to charge large sums of money?
So I'm not hiding anything, BMW said they would have blended the boot lid with the two rear quarter panels, which the local bodyshop did not. However, I'm very happy with the job and you cannot tell it has been resprayed.
I'd recommend finding a good local bodyshop and get a quote from them and BMW and make your decision based on that.
I assume that the majority of BMW's bodyshop work is funded by insurance companies, which may result in them being able to charge large sums of money?
The ***** who owned my car before me coded the sidelights to be on all the time when he had angel eyes wired into them. It doesn't look too bad now since I put the sidelights back in but I might have to turn it off at some point.
I don't need to take it to BMW, no, and I will get another quote from a local place for comparison, cheers.
What car panthro and did they definitely code it? They may have physically wired them up to be on all the time? I retrofitted the LCI rear lights to my E92 335i the other week and managed to code my car myself.
I bought a DCAN cable off eBay and used the NCS Expert software that came with it to code out the bulb errors. I'm going to code some more stuff tomorrow for the alarm and to enable a digital speedo.
I bought a DCAN cable off eBay and used the NCS Expert software that came with it to code out the bulb errors. I'm going to code some more stuff tomorrow for the alarm and to enable a digital speedo.
[TW]Fox;28392475 said:
I think it's situational, the beemer I just picked up is 10 years, 44k on the clock and so far, not a single issue has been brought to my attention.
In fairness, I did spend double your budget Lynchy. But I think the generalisation of "Generally no, you cannot expect 10+ year old BMW's to be 'reliable" is codswallop. If you shop right, know what to look out for. You should be fine.
I'd not take one mans saying as law. This is a forum after all, no one is a expert lol. It's all opinions.
[TW]Fox;28395921 said:'Pulls like a train' is one of the most annoying diesel comments in the universe.
A train pulls heavy loads and takes several minutes to get up to cruising speed.
If your 330d pulls like this book it in to be fixed
Classic Fox response.
You haven't had it a full month, give it time for any issues to show their face I say
My car is 10 years old and within the first 4 months had to replace 2x DSC pressure sensors at £90 each. It's an old car, stuff will fail regardless of FSH and a binder full of receipts
My car is 10 years old and within the first 4 months had to replace 2x DSC pressure sensors at £90 each. It's an old car, stuff will fail regardless of FSH and a binder full of receipts
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Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Dec 2013
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I think a lot of it comes down to luck. For example my parents 11 year old e60 has only had the glow plug module stopped working and a snapped coil spring since they bought it in 2007 or 2008.
My 1998 e39 has had a replacement engine, rad, ATF cooler, shocks + springs, water pump, IHKA unit, 2 hedgehogs, wiper relay, LCD instrument cluster fix, headlight adjuster, PCV and probably a ton more things I cant even think of right now which adds up to a lot more than the cars value over the last 4/5 years.
My 1998 e39 has had a replacement engine, rad, ATF cooler, shocks + springs, water pump, IHKA unit, 2 hedgehogs, wiper relay, LCD instrument cluster fix, headlight adjuster, PCV and probably a ton more things I cant even think of right now which adds up to a lot more than the cars value over the last 4/5 years.
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You haven't had it a full month, give it time for any issues to show their face I say
My car is 10 years old and within the first 4 months had to replace 2x DSC pressure sensors at £90 each. It's an old car, stuff will fail regardless of FSH and a binder full of receipts
Nooooooooo, don't curse it! Haha.
I'm not saying it will be perfect, it will be more effort than a 2 year old car on PCP...
Also, I am trying to make the point that baby Fox loves to argue everything. Even when people ask for advice. Take that poor chap a couple of pages back asking if buying a low price beemer was good, posting about 8 links to cars he found. Asking for advice and little foxxy jumped on the poor guy... No need really.
I've got a saying, if it's no the fox way, it's the wrong way
Oh, Mrk, you near Berkshire then? If not, I'll buy the stuff needed to code. Got all the software already from previous beemers, not sure if I have the exact model software, but won't be hard to download. I don't have the cable anymore though.
I am not near Berkshire nope.
Yours is an E9x so you will need a bluetooth dongle. I have an original ElM327, others do less, and some do more. The app is Carly for BMW. If you have an iPhone only though, then you will need the WiFi dongle as Apple devices can't code over Bluetooth.
Yours is an E9x so you will need a bluetooth dongle. I have an original ElM327, others do less, and some do more. The app is Carly for BMW. If you have an iPhone only though, then you will need the WiFi dongle as Apple devices can't code over Bluetooth.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
I don't think you can read anything into the fact you've had a 10 year old 3 Series for 1 week and it's not broken yet.
It's common sense - nothing lasts for ever and stuff wears out. The older a car gets the more likely it is to require both preventative and reactive maintenance and repairs, especially if it's received very little throughout it's life which many cars manage to up to the 10 year old mark (Especially low milers, people are obsessed with mileage and will think nothing of driving around on worn 10 year old suspension components because hey, its low miles).
Now this is absolutely fine as many people buying 10+ year old BMW's know this. They know it has the potential to turn into a labour of love. They know it might need money spending. But they are content with this because they'd rather incur this expense and hassle yet enjoy what a decent BMW has to offer over buying something newer and less interesting to own. But some people, generally those picking models which when new were purchased for economy reasons, just want reliable transport with low running costs and a posh badge and a 10 year old 320d doesn't offer this. If somebody is after a reliable, economical and cheap to run car for £5k then IMHO a Seat, Volkswagen, Ford, Honda, Toyota or often even a Vauxhall is simply a better and more sensible choice. And sensible is what matters because lets face it, nobody really buys a 2 litre 4 cylinder diesel because the heart told them to do it.
His budget appears to be up to £5.5k (One of the cars is this much). If you really spent £10-11k on a 10 year old 3 Series then that is completely nuts. No wonder you are so defensive if thats the case
This is a discussion forum about cars. I post here because I enjoy engaging in discussion and debate about cars, and for no cars is the case more than BMW.
I think you are taking the internet too seriously with terms like 'jumped on' but that guy had a very unusual and specific requirement for a car with under 20k miles on it but a budget that doesn't generally lend itself to such low miles. As a result all his examples were either very old, very poor specification or a combination of both. Why would I post 'nice examples m8' when I genuinely believe that all the examples he bought represented poor buys? Insisting on under 20k miles makes sense perhaps when buying a 1-3 year old car but when you are looking at 7+ year old cars not only will you get completely ripped off by the comedy price premium they attract, a car that has barely been used for 7 years probably has low-usage related issues anyway. It isn't good to hardly use a car and you get nothing extra for your money buying a 20k mile 07 plate over buying a 40k mile 07 plate! They are also a significant depreciation risk because once you start actually driving it the miles pile on and it loses both it's expected depreciation and it's low miles premium.
People post here for advice not to have a bunch of yes men tell them how wonderful what they want to do is - at least, you'd hope thats why they post, as the latter helps nobody.
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To be honest everything fox wrote is a pretty fair representation of the facts.
[TW]Fox;28400464 said:
Personally, I think you're view is warped on current 2nd hand car nature. You're right about the approach knowing there will be expenses. But your assumptions and judgments upon those asking/posting is what your pitfall is chap.
Like you claiming it's nuts I spend £10k on a 10 year old beemer. Not really, if you actually know the market and particularly BMW's of the age and spec then you'd see it's far from insane. You need to open up to what's out there.
I'm a little defensive yes, as I don't like someone judging my choice based upon their personal preference to the point it's 'wrong' or 'insane'.
I don't disregard your input, I just take everything you say with a large spoon of salt as honestly, you're a bit of an arse. A knowledgeable one for the most part, but mostly just an arse.
I'll say no more on the matter as honestly, I don't have time for it. Far more important things to do.
