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

[Gaygle]

All M3's will suffer subframe failure at somepoint in their life, including CSL's as well. Some have literally had the boot floor and subframe fall out, any specialist/BMW dealer should inspect the area come MOT/Service as its a known weakness.

Mine had very minor cracking at 100,000 miles, it has being welded, re-inforced and resin injected now, so should be fine.

Did you get yours done at Redish? How much was it?

 

[Will Gill]

So want.

Reminds me of Will Gill's.

Mine was gayer though, namely coz I had you in it

 

[Gibbo]

Did you get yours done at Redish? How much was it?

Mprove using Reddish plates, my mate owns Mprove so a good saving for me but the cost is normally circa £1500-£2000 for a proper repair and re-inforcement.

If your floor is crack free, a resin injection can help prevent it and cost around £300ish.

 

[Scania]

Nah they are by far the most prone for it, lots of tyre and a locking diff connected to a powerful motor puts a lot more load through the rear end.

Explains why my 2.5i failed yet my old 1.9 didn't I guess (I always felt that I drove the 318 harder than the 325)

the cost is normally circa £1500-£2000 for a proper repair and re-inforcement.

I was quoted £1200 for my 325i, given I'd paid £1550 for the car 14months earlier, it was time to say good bye.

 

[Gaygle]

Mrk, Gibbo. I hope you're happy with yourselves

Just put a deposit down on an M3 because of you guys.

Haven't quite figured out how I'm going to explain this to the girlfriend...

 

[mrk]

I've read that because the boot floor is double walled, simply taking out the boot lining and inspecting the wall isn't enough, gotta check the underside beneath the car too.

I'll get mine booked in at BMW between Spring and Summer hols unless I have a free weekend to spare and can get it inspected sooner and then once again shortly before the warranty expires. If it remains crack free then resin injection should sort it for the long run as Gibbo says

Mine was gayer though, namely coz I had you in it

Top lols
Any pics of your one Will?

Mrk, Gibbo. I hope you're happy with yourselves

Just put a deposit down on an M3 because of you guys.

Haven't quite figured out how I'm going to explain this to the girlfriend...

Details required!

 

[Will Gill]

Can only find one, my old hosting company went bust so I lost 99% of all my old photos



She was a decent enough car which I enjoyed to the fullest

/edit found one more



FYI get m-sport mode your car is new enough to allow it, so much more fun

 

[mrk]

Your headlamp lens looks different, is it all one piece?

Also, M-Sport mode, do you mean the normal Sport mode button?

 

[Will Gill]

no no, m-sport, I used to program it for people, it uses the m-sport setting from a csl, gives you a more sensible traction control setting allows you to have some more fun but still saves you when you run out of talent.

Headlights have depo sides on them, essential in my opinion. That photo makes them look like an all in one unit, they aren't it just removes the ginger sides.

wow I found another one, this is pre-depo

 

[mrk]

That's interesting, need more details on this now

When you say program, via special software or the usual is there a tool that does it?

 

[Will Gill]

M3Cutters will have all the details, just get whoever the new 'me' is to do it for you (seems it's razza77)

I got the name wrong its called m-track

http://forums.m3cutters.co.uk/showthread.php?t=38098

very common, whilst you are at it get all the other cool stuff done, you can sort out one touch roof with folding wing mirrors, auto locking at speed, auto AC/rear heated window etc...

Quite flexible and tweakable for its age

 

[mrk]

Thanks will have a good read later!

 

[Gibbo]

Thanks will have a good read later!

Get the rev lights done at same time or what are a lot of guys in the USA are doing, not ideal for you but they are converting their ECU's to CSL spec so you get all that and about a 20BHP increase too.

 

[mrk]

Certainly something to consider... in time I don't want to go into tuning and more BHP etc so soon. I barely even know how well the stock S54 will stretch!

For now, stock is best and once I'm familiar with the performance I can look to ECU modifications. I don't want to change the sound of the exhaust or intake either, I'm really pleased with how things sound as is and don't want to change the appearance of anything either so will leave those well alone

Edit*
Just seen redish's video on refreshing the undercarriage, pretty big task, didn't realise all that was involved.

Do BMW do it to the same standard too? (Obviously minus the customer choice in colour etc)

 

[Tom|Nbk]

Redish will be doing mine soonish I think it's a worthy investment considering I want to potentially be the last owner of this car and always keep it on going

 

[Dave85]

Lovely car bud just makes me wish I waited and got a manual but curiosity got me with the SMG and its been in the garage since end of November and had a whole unit and still wont go in gear so you made the right choice

Also

the bottom line is that a 11 year old car with 70-100k miles will have a failing SMG pump at some point. It might be tomorrow, it might be in a year or two, but it will happen.

Even when it does go and you buy a whole new pump it still doesn't play ball, it such a complicated nit picky system

 

[mrk]

I've always been a manual fan myself even though I've driven DCT/MCT and enjoyed them. There's no replacement for a good involving manual though

I have had an update from Andrive. I spoke to them on the phone on Monday and they said it is still in transit and that they could refund me if I wanted, I said no I will wait and that was that.

Today I got this message:

28/01/2015 Refunded We do apologise but due to the delay on your order, we have refunded your credit or debit card. This'll typically take 3-5 days to reflect on your account.

Please check the website for stock in the coming weeks.

Kind Regards,

Andrive Sales.

Lol? Looks like I may go the Parrot Asteroid route then. Such a shame, AN46-3 seemed to be a great unit but I can't be dealing with this faff.

Edit*
Just seen Parrot have a new RNB6 Asteroid running Android Auto and Apple CarPlay coming out. I'm going to wait for this. Have tweeted them to see about getting a review sample...

 

[miikeeyy92]

This thread has done a great job in making me very jealous.

 

[Gaygle]

Details required!

Just got back. What a machine. Seriously.

It's an August 2004, Librarian Grey with Accountant black nappa leather.

- 93,000miles
- 2 previous owners, first one had it from 2004 until 2014, when the last owner had it for a year.
- FSH and just had an oil service done at a local BMW specialist with Mobil 10w60 oil. Then only Insp 1 next.
- Heated seats, nav, TV, bluetooth, Harmon/Kardon.
- Subframe and boot floor replaced by Dick Lovett Bristol in June 2014.
- 4 x good Continental ContiSport M3 tyres.
- Leather is in what can only be described as immaculate condition, which I'm hugely shocked about. No cracks, shininess, nothing.
- Managed to get it for £8250 in the end.

Needs a couple of bits doing to it to get it to where i want it. Namely needs new front brakes and needs, what I hope to be, just a thermostat as the water temp isn't getting up to the dead centre (and a coolant change at the same time). Also needs a valve cover gasket and valve clearances done as I'm not convinced they have been done. Also, some twonk has put the M3 badge on the back far too high up and it's making me feel embarrassed to drive it - that's tomorrow's job!

Also, in classic fashion, the OEM 19" alloys are corroding a bit so could do with a refurb or a CSL makeover.

I'm not going to lie, I haven't pushed it because I'm scared too! I've had a few times of giving it beans in 3rd or 4th gear, but 2nd gear and foot to the floor is just mental. And this is coming from someone who has owned 2 330i's and 1 335i!

All in all, I'm absolutely thrilled. I'm going to try my hardest to not be an E46 M3 owner who just talks about it constantly, but I'm only human so I may fail.

 

[mrk]

Great stuff! The coolant needle might not always be dead centre even though we always read online etc that it should be. From what I read after reading multiple owners club posts mid last year, there is a buffer to the needle so it may sit slightly under on some cars. You can check fairly easily the actual temp of the water though by going into the cluster hidden menu. Hold down the left stick button on the cluster and turn key to position 2.

Let go and quickly keep pressing the right cluster button until you hit number 19, after a second the menu will unlock, go to position 7. IIRC the first reading is the water temp, pressing the button cycles the other temps/.readings. Someone put up a key to which number tab refers to what.

I may have read completely wrong but it makes a bit of sense if your thermostat is fine

When you're in 4th gear pull to redline, you'll feel the strength in that gear on the motorway good and proper