Bought an old BMW M3, filled with regret...

OcUK Staff
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E60 M5 diff, what are the gains with this Gibbo? Not heard of this swap before.
Mines in with Mr Vanos in a couple of weeks time for rod bearings, preventative vanos work and I'm mulling over a headgasket while he's at it. £2100 if I go for all 3. Any thoughts?

The car has ticked over 10500 miles now, no problems at all, but I'm intending to keep it so its the right thing to do, the rod bearings at the very least.


Its just a slightly fresher design, works the same as M Diff, but longevity is improved and of course it can handle a little more power too. It just made sense at the time.
 
Caporegime
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What's he doing with the VANOS, full rebuild? If so, £2100 for all 3 is a good price but you really don't need to think about the HG until it's blown; then you will get a lot of tell tale signs and if you periodically compression test you'll be able to keep on top of it. The HG issue on E46's has been blown (see what I did there) way out of proportion.
Plus a skim will affect timing as the crank and cams are now slight closer together.
 
Associate
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The vanos is a preventative maintenance job, he said he will rebuild, uprate/replace all of the wear parts and give a warranty.
Ahh, maybe I'll just ask for a compression test, and then respond to the results. I'm pretty sure the HG is fine, but I thought that they commonly go at higher miles because of how close the cylinders are together. As its my daily, I am tempted to just go all in for peace of mind tho. I'll mull it over..

Is there anything else I should be considering while its in?

Its just a slightly fresher design, works the same as M Diff, but longevity is improved and of course it can handle a little more power too. It just made sense at the time.
Very interesting, is it the same ratio? A straight swap? Less susceptible to the M-Clunk? :)
 
Associate
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Ive been hit with an issue today.

Both the DSC and amber brake warning light on the dash are permanently on. Tried to to use INPA, and the cable you provided mrk to read error codes. I've got the software working but the INPA menu is in german. I have eventually given up due to light going away and i was knackered. Also managed to kill my battery pretty quickly so had use jump leads.

From looking it up on m3cutters DSC pressure sensors seems to be one of the most common causes, but obviously need to read codes to find out exactly what the code is. Will have another try tomorrow night. I shall start the car this time though lol
 
Soldato
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I had this issue pop up when I was fitting a new headunit and kept idling the car for excessive periods of time, but I used Carly to read the error codes and they pinpointed the pressure common pressure sensor. However the problem went away quite quickly once driven normally and hasn't returned since. I do tend to do a lot of preventative maintenance so if I get anything else done in that area I'll get the sensors changed as a matter of course.

This was the section out of the Carly report:
ABS / DSC / Brake: Dynamische Stabilitaets Kontrolle / DSC Pressure sensor 1 fault Code: 005E20

I will say that I do like Carly, it seems a great first line diagnostic tool for just reading the errors and emailing them easily, although with an android headunit, I can do this in the car without any problems, so very convenient..
I only break out INPA when you want the next level of diagnostics such as seeing which Parking sensor is misbehaving..
 
Soldato
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Yes the traction control light is permanently on, but also the brake system / handbrake light is also permanently on, in an amber color.
Switch it off and leave it.. it'll probably go away ;) unless an actual sensor had failed.

My Z4 does that once in a while. I think it's the battery in my case being on its way out.
 
Man of Honour
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Switch it off and leave it.. it'll probably go away ;) unless an actual sensor had failed.

Daft suggestion, if the lights are on the DSC and abs are disabled. Turning the DSC off won't change this and the car is an MOT fail if the lights are on.

Best to find out what's wrong and fix it.
 
Soldato
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Daft suggestion, if the lights are on the DSC and abs are disabled. Turning the DSC off won't change this and the car is an MOT fail if the lights are on.

Best to find out what's wrong and fix it.

I mean the car, you can't switch the lights off by disabling the DSC.

what happens is after standing for a while it does recheck the systems. If there's a problem the lights will still be there if its just a false positive which seems to be a thing with bmws and their sensitivity then it'll go away.
 
Man of Honour
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A functioning system won't throw false positives which disable the DSC - intermittent issues are an early warning sign, a component is failing. The likely culprit when it's intermittent is a pressure sensor on the pump. Easy to replace.

Always throws a code too.
 
Soldato
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I occasionally get the two warning lights on my Z4, but does go away by itself or by turning the wheel lock to lock kicks it off, well for me anyway.

Research at the time seemed to point towards the ABS Hydraulic pump which I believe is £1k+ to replace or there's a company who can refurb them for a couple hundred.
 
Soldato
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I occasionally get the two warning lights on my Z4, but does go away by itself or by turning the wheel lock to lock kicks it off, well for me anyway.

Research at the time seemed to point towards the ABS Hydraulic pump which I believe is £1k+ to replace or there's a company who can refurb them for a couple hundred.

my abs pump was done by a specialist a year ago.. was £470 all in for refurb.
 
Associate
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Got the diagnostic codes using the INPA software. These are the codes

0x5e5b - DSC push button pressed longer than 10 sec or Error
0x5e15 - CAN Timeout EGS
0x5e14 - CAN Timeout DME/DDE
0x5e24 - Pressure Sensor 1/2 Not Plausible.
0x5e20 - DSC pressure sensor 1

The last code 5e20 wont clear, so must be pressure sensor one.
 
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