Got a link to it?
Bought an old BMW M3, filled with regret...
- Thread starter mrk
- Start date
Hmm that’s quite comprehensive service, which makes it more of a shame seeing angle eyes and replica wheels on it. I did consider ksport brakes at one point as the price for the set was rather excellent, but reading reviews, a number complained about issues with them, noise being the main one.
Seems alright otherwise, you could remove the angel eyes and reps though.
Seems alright otherwise, you could remove the angel eyes and reps though.
It seems a fair price for sure. The ad mentions nothing about any sensors being replaced. AT 90-100k you could expect DSC pressure sensors, o2 sensors, MAF, oil pressure release valve (this starts to leak) and as I recently found, the power steering hose connecting the rack to pump also weeps. Factor those as potential things to see to if you are going to drive it regularly as they will likely show symptoms of being on their way during ownership.
Mine is now just over 110k and I've had it since 61k. Lots of miles in 3 years ownership, pretty much all leisure.
Not sure why he went for PSS tyres just months ago though when there are better tyres out there now for these cars that are also cheaper! But kudos for paying the price for otherwise good tyres, just not the best for the cold/wet really.
If you can factor in the Eventuri carbon intake, then you'll love the induction noise. That one for sale is a 2005, so already has the CSL manifold and will sound meaner than previous years models. The Eventuri puts it close to CSL induction noise, and puts smiles on faces (see sig!)
Mine is now just over 110k and I've had it since 61k. Lots of miles in 3 years ownership, pretty much all leisure.
Not sure why he went for PSS tyres just months ago though when there are better tyres out there now for these cars that are also cheaper! But kudos for paying the price for otherwise good tyres, just not the best for the cold/wet really.
If you can factor in the Eventuri carbon intake, then you'll love the induction noise. That one for sale is a 2005, so already has the CSL manifold and will sound meaner than previous years models. The Eventuri puts it close to CSL induction noise, and puts smiles on faces (see sig!)
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Other things not mentioned in the ad to keep an eye on as they wear and need replacing:
- Flex disc (guibo)
- Propshaft bolts can loosen over time, need checking
- Front wishbones ball joints, even small amounts of play translate to large amounts of knocking over bumpy surfaces and results in steering feel that isn't as composed as it should be
- Rear brake lines behind the fuel tank do corrode if left untreated/cleaned. This is quite a big job actually and typically the fuel tank has to come out
- Front arch rust from the inside. At this age they will all rust. A new wing is over £400 from BMW unpainted. Used wings will just rust sooner as they will all be of the same age.
Some other bits too which I've covered in this thread! With your kind of mileage though you probably won't see most of these issues.
- Flex disc (guibo)
- Propshaft bolts can loosen over time, need checking
- Front wishbones ball joints, even small amounts of play translate to large amounts of knocking over bumpy surfaces and results in steering feel that isn't as composed as it should be
- Rear brake lines behind the fuel tank do corrode if left untreated/cleaned. This is quite a big job actually and typically the fuel tank has to come out
- Front arch rust from the inside. At this age they will all rust. A new wing is over £400 from BMW unpainted. Used wings will just rust sooner as they will all be of the same age.
Some other bits too which I've covered in this thread! With your kind of mileage though you probably won't see most of these issues.
I've spent as much as I bought the car in servicing and maintenance in those 50k odd miles. Granted a good portion of that cost has been labour intensive stuff like all bushes overhaul, all brakes, front wing (OEM) and the little items that end up being quite costly like MAF, DSC pressure sensors and the like. Servicing alone has been over £3k in those 3 years inc parts and labour for worn parts to be replaced where needed.
Put miles on these, the wallet takes a beating. But on the same measure, they're meant to be driven and enjoyed often so... There is that.
Put miles on these, the wallet takes a beating. But on the same measure, they're meant to be driven and enjoyed often so... There is that.
Pics?
My long term average is 22MPG, on a motorway run I could get 32MPG if I simply cruised and barely overtook anyone.
But why would you do that?
Stick on Waze to avoid the £££ makers and make use of ample mile slashing progression
I'm actually really pleased with how my car drives now. With PS4S tyres, new front control arms, all round bushes and the like, the ride is just much more composed than the past year of the ball joints slowly eating themselves.
But why would you do that?
Stick on Waze to avoid the £££ makers and make use of ample mile slashing progression
I'm actually really pleased with how my car drives now. With PS4S tyres, new front control arms, all round bushes and the like, the ride is just much more composed than the past year of the ball joints slowly eating themselves.
That was one of the exact issues I read about with K-sport brakes. The ones on your car are more or less the same calliper, just rebranded.
How did you find the Scorpion exhaust on the motorway? Much drone?
How did you find the Scorpion exhaust on the motorway? Much drone?
The baby will easily stow away in the hidden compartment in the middle of the rear seat backs!
Recently I parked at an Aldi and it was all nice and empty either side not too close to the entrance. I was fiddling with the stereo when quite large ladies in a small hatchback rocked up on one side. They took ages to get out of the car. I think they noticed I was still in the car so didn't want to get out in-case the door hit my car. I clocked this and stayed put. They eventually very carefully got out, I could see the passenger was struggling a bit to weasel her way out without touching my door panel.
This will sound weird, but crunchy peanut butter /will/ remove that if it's just scratches to the plastic. It's amazing what the stuff can remove
This thread has developed a bit since I last checked, didn't even get a forum email saying posts were made in it!
Anyway, car still never ceases to be an enjoyment for all. I had a cousin I grew up with come visit recently as I'd not seen him in the good side of 6 years. He's a bit of a petrolhead himself but has never been in an E46 M3 before.
Weirdly the audio sounds better on phone speakers, some reason Premier Clip on mobile tweaks the audio to cater to phones!
This will sound weird, but crunchy peanut butter /will/ remove that if it's just scratches to the plastic. It's amazing what the stuff can remove
This thread has developed a bit since I last checked, didn't even get a forum email saying posts were made in it!
Anyway, car still never ceases to be an enjoyment for all. I had a cousin I grew up with come visit recently as I'd not seen him in the good side of 6 years. He's a bit of a petrolhead himself but has never been in an E46 M3 before.
Weirdly the audio sounds better on phone speakers, some reason Premier Clip on mobile tweaks the audio to cater to phones!
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Autoglym soft top cleaner with a brush I bought online, and autoglym soft top protector to water seal the canvas every 6 months.
Two new rear tyres (same wheel!) in the space of 6 months or so 
The first time it was a screw in close to the shoulder so my tyre guy advised against repairing it for safety. The second time, last week, a drill bit had made its way into a similar position
So now I have one PS4 S which has brand new tread, and 3x which are a few mm lighter. So annoying.
Oil service is now due too but my guy will do that when he returns in the new year, and I've also discovered a noise coming from the rear driver side wheel when turning left mostly, like a light scraping noise as if something is loose and only touches moving parts when turning left. Had a look under but could not spot anything out of the ordinary so the car needs raising up for a better inspection.
Old cars eh.
The first time it was a screw in close to the shoulder so my tyre guy advised against repairing it for safety. The second time, last week, a drill bit had made its way into a similar position
So now I have one PS4 S which has brand new tread, and 3x which are a few mm lighter. So annoying.
Oil service is now due too but my guy will do that when he returns in the new year, and I've also discovered a noise coming from the rear driver side wheel when turning left mostly, like a light scraping noise as if something is loose and only touches moving parts when turning left. Had a look under but could not spot anything out of the ordinary so the car needs raising up for a better inspection.
Old cars eh.
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Today I bring you sad news
My rod bearings have gone...
Sunday night I heard a tapping noise 10 miles or so from my home exit off the motorway.
Stopped at a layby to investigate.
Tap tap tap tap tick tick tap coming from the front top area of the engine block.
Turned the car off, wouldn't turn on again. Called breakdown and someone was with me within 30 mins. (Start Rescue are great, btw!).
Trailered the car to home and the next morning took it to a garage down the road that know my car as they MOT it all the time and do odd bits.
Silver and copper bits of metal in the sump and some scoring on the inner wall lining where the oil pump chain is. Suspect that the oil pump or tensioner may have started to go causing the chain to slack and also rod bearings to go, or maybe the other way round.
For anyone considering an E46 M3, or even any M car of age really, consider this:
1: Oil change every 4-5k miles, or once a year whatever comes sooner. This is an absolute must. Every single person who knows these M engines and has worked on them has stated this numerous times even though BMW's service book states 15k miles. This will keep the bearings in good health and prolong their lifespan. After 100k miles on original bearings, you're basically playing Minesweeper.
2: Consider changing the rod bearings and bolts around 60-80k mileage. There are uprated bolts and bearings that can be installed, but if the car is being used on the road and not driven harsh every time, then OEM bearings and bolts are fine according to Redish Motorsport.
So what have I decided to do?
I bought a new engine with 66k miles on it. The donor car it came from had a side impact so is SORN and being broken for parts. The car had 2 owners from new with main dealer servicing only and is also a 2005 model. Service book and receipts all being included. Cost was £4800...
Redish will be doing the engine swap, and will be doing an oil service + VANOS test + rod bearings before it goes in. They will also be doing a comprehensive inspection of the whole car and videoing the entire job with photo updates and the like. Also their inspection services are a bit cheaper than my local specialist, so I'm going to have them do all servicing from now on and make use of my rail fair discounts to get to and from Bristol. Redish estimate is ~£1500. However I've offered them my old engine which they can rebuild or use for something else, so the price should be lower, or offset against labour or something, will see what James Redish says.
I weighed up various options, I considered breaking the car for parts as the condition of my car is excellent and the parts would fetch strong money. But then what do I replace it with, no other car within reasonable money I buy now without leasing would feel the same, and I've already invested a lot of time and energy into this car to keep it tidy, so decided to get it fixed. I will be putting fewer miles on it going forwards as maybe next year will look to buying a 2nd car (an EV), maybe a Leaf or something similar for daily stuff and commuting leaving the M3 for proper roof down and weekends away etc. At least once this is all done I know the biggest problem should no longer be a worry.
Work begins December 10th for a 7 day period. Redish will send me videos and photos of each stage, along with valve clearance reports and everything else.
So in short, whilst you can get these cars for cheap, yet also a lot of money for clean examples, no matter what you get, you will still need to be spending a couple grand on preventative maintenance on the engine alone during ownership if you use the car regularly and the previous owner has not had these things seen to.
My rod bearings have gone...
Sunday night I heard a tapping noise 10 miles or so from my home exit off the motorway.
Stopped at a layby to investigate.
Tap tap tap tap tick tick tap coming from the front top area of the engine block.
Turned the car off, wouldn't turn on again. Called breakdown and someone was with me within 30 mins. (Start Rescue are great, btw!).
Trailered the car to home and the next morning took it to a garage down the road that know my car as they MOT it all the time and do odd bits.
Silver and copper bits of metal in the sump and some scoring on the inner wall lining where the oil pump chain is. Suspect that the oil pump or tensioner may have started to go causing the chain to slack and also rod bearings to go, or maybe the other way round.
For anyone considering an E46 M3, or even any M car of age really, consider this:
1: Oil change every 4-5k miles, or once a year whatever comes sooner. This is an absolute must. Every single person who knows these M engines and has worked on them has stated this numerous times even though BMW's service book states 15k miles. This will keep the bearings in good health and prolong their lifespan. After 100k miles on original bearings, you're basically playing Minesweeper.
2: Consider changing the rod bearings and bolts around 60-80k mileage. There are uprated bolts and bearings that can be installed, but if the car is being used on the road and not driven harsh every time, then OEM bearings and bolts are fine according to Redish Motorsport.
So what have I decided to do?
I bought a new engine with 66k miles on it. The donor car it came from had a side impact so is SORN and being broken for parts. The car had 2 owners from new with main dealer servicing only and is also a 2005 model. Service book and receipts all being included. Cost was £4800...
Redish will be doing the engine swap, and will be doing an oil service + VANOS test + rod bearings before it goes in. They will also be doing a comprehensive inspection of the whole car and videoing the entire job with photo updates and the like. Also their inspection services are a bit cheaper than my local specialist, so I'm going to have them do all servicing from now on and make use of my rail fair discounts to get to and from Bristol. Redish estimate is ~£1500. However I've offered them my old engine which they can rebuild or use for something else, so the price should be lower, or offset against labour or something, will see what James Redish says.
I weighed up various options, I considered breaking the car for parts as the condition of my car is excellent and the parts would fetch strong money. But then what do I replace it with, no other car within reasonable money I buy now without leasing would feel the same, and I've already invested a lot of time and energy into this car to keep it tidy, so decided to get it fixed. I will be putting fewer miles on it going forwards as maybe next year will look to buying a 2nd car (an EV), maybe a Leaf or something similar for daily stuff and commuting leaving the M3 for proper roof down and weekends away etc. At least once this is all done I know the biggest problem should no longer be a worry.
Work begins December 10th for a 7 day period. Redish will send me videos and photos of each stage, along with valve clearance reports and everything else.
So in short, whilst you can get these cars for cheap, yet also a lot of money for clean examples, no matter what you get, you will still need to be spending a couple grand on preventative maintenance on the engine alone during ownership if you use the car regularly and the previous owner has not had these things seen to.
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Oh certainly they are a strong engine, more-so than other M car engines, just these issues show up once they fast approach 100k miles depending on the kind of life they've lived and how often the oil has been changed. The latter being the most important. I've always supplied Castrol Edge 10w60 during my 4 years of ownership to the indy, but also always stuck to the book interval period. That all changes now of course. Oil is cheap to be honest, ECP, GSF and Carparts4Less sell the oil with DFS-style discounts regularly, so I'll just stock up a couple months before I do the next oil change and that's then sorted.
It's one reason I want to get an EV sooner rather than later, just keep the miles off the M3 and use it purely for leisure. I don't use it for daily commuting, but do use it regularly nonetheless. If I had a small EV, that would be perfect for dossing about daily in.
It's one reason I want to get an EV sooner rather than later, just keep the miles off the M3 and use it purely for leisure. I don't use it for daily commuting, but do use it regularly nonetheless. If I had a small EV, that would be perfect for dossing about daily in.
Just watched the Evolve video, really quite good and sounds exactly like what mine experienced. My car has been on original bearings of course and as I wasn't the first owner of it, I don't know how the previous owners warmed up the car before any heavy accelerations.
I still go back to the annoyance at BMW that they only reprogrammed the rev dial lights to reflect actual oil temp on the CSL. The lights on non CSL models show water temp which heats to nominal much quicker, so people automatically see the lights slowly reach 7500rpm and think it's OK to start having a spirited drive or hard accelerating. Mine has been coded to reflect actual oil temp, so matches the oil temp needle.
I'm also wondering if MOT testing has an affect on this during the emissions test. You drop your car off and they have it sat there for hours before someone gets round to the MOT, by which point the engine is cold again and there they are revving the engine for the emissions test, an MOT tester doesn't care about your engine needing to warm up to nominal oil temps beforehand, he doesn't have time to do that, so what can we do about that? Once the tabs have worn down, bearing wear is a gradual process, and as Imran says in the video, sending the oil away for testing just once isn't enough, it has to be done regularly to monitor any gain in metal content.
Armed with this knowledge now, my local garage carry out my MOTs and are friendly enough to take advice about driving the car normally for a bit before the MOT, or I book it in when I know they will get right into it and drive it myself up to temp before dropping it in going forwards.
At least now I know that my new engine will be healthy and I don't need to worry about rod bearings again. A huge expense, sure, but it has also been a learning experience.
Ah yes, I did enjoy the last round of moving parts gifs
I'l see what I can conjure up from the videos they send!
I still go back to the annoyance at BMW that they only reprogrammed the rev dial lights to reflect actual oil temp on the CSL. The lights on non CSL models show water temp which heats to nominal much quicker, so people automatically see the lights slowly reach 7500rpm and think it's OK to start having a spirited drive or hard accelerating. Mine has been coded to reflect actual oil temp, so matches the oil temp needle.
I'm also wondering if MOT testing has an affect on this during the emissions test. You drop your car off and they have it sat there for hours before someone gets round to the MOT, by which point the engine is cold again and there they are revving the engine for the emissions test, an MOT tester doesn't care about your engine needing to warm up to nominal oil temps beforehand, he doesn't have time to do that, so what can we do about that? Once the tabs have worn down, bearing wear is a gradual process, and as Imran says in the video, sending the oil away for testing just once isn't enough, it has to be done regularly to monitor any gain in metal content.
Armed with this knowledge now, my local garage carry out my MOTs and are friendly enough to take advice about driving the car normally for a bit before the MOT, or I book it in when I know they will get right into it and drive it myself up to temp before dropping it in going forwards.
At least now I know that my new engine will be healthy and I don't need to worry about rod bearings again. A huge expense, sure, but it has also been a learning experience.
On the plus side...
...I'm looking forward to many new .gifs of various BMW moving parts
Ah yes, I did enjoy the last round of moving parts gifs
I'l see what I can conjure up from the videos they send!
Ah that makes sense. Righto then carry on!
This is the last photo I took of the car, it wasn't even properly clean that day but carbon black does look nice under cloud cover.
This one car has been through so much in 4 years, but it will continue to survive....
This one car has been through so much in 4 years, but it will continue to survive....
I was about to go this route as I found those very places and phoned them up to enquire. I then asked about them to people who have better experience of them to learn more. I then spoke directly to James Redish who was aware of these places and said he had a lot of customers bring their cars in over the years who said they'd been to these places for similar work to be done as they were cost effective, only to end up with issues later and it turns out the places often skipped corners. He and everyone else advised against using them because for £2650 they simply have to be cutting corners since the cost of labour and using high quality OEM or greater spec parts would come to more than that. If it sounds too good to be true and all that.
One of the places I phoned I asked if they specialised only in BMW engines, they said no, they do these services for a wide range of brands.
I'm sure a few of these places do a fine job and do what they advertise, but I'd rather not risk it and instead know that work of this magnitude is done by people who live and breathe M engines!
If you've got the correct tools and experience sure. I have neither of those things for this kind of job.
Redish won't just be doing the engine swap though, it's the vanos test, comprehensive inspection of everything and full report along with all the videos and photos of everything being done.
Redish won't just be doing the engine swap though, it's the vanos test, comprehensive inspection of everything and full report along with all the videos and photos of everything being done.