Yeah yeah I know another E46 thread!

The obvious difference is that a 325Ci has a 192bhp M54B25, whereas the 330Ci has a 231bhp M54B30. The 330Ci also has larger brake discs.

The 330Ci gains the following additional equipment over a 325Ci:

a) Rain Sensing wipers with autolights
b) Headlight washers

This is pretty much it - both cars have electric memory seats as standard, for example.

The issue here really is your budget. £8000 is not a huge amount of money with which to buy a really nice facelift 330Ci Sport Coupe. You are selling your Focus for £9k and insist this isnt one of those boneheaded capital synergy money saving release projects so why not up the budget to at least when you are getting for the Focus or more, surely most people spend more when upgrading car?

If the budget remains static you stand a much better chance of a tidy 325Ci Sport for this money than a tidy 330Ci Sport if you are insisting on a facelift model.
 
The 330 comes with more equipment as standard, such as automatic lights/wipers, and there are slight trim differences such as chromed kidney grill slats.
My 325 has all of the above, in fact every 325 I looked at before buying mine had chrome kidney grills :confused:

EDIT: Oh I see that point was addressed above, my bad.
 
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Can I quickly hijack and ask if anyone knows how much it would cost to have a clutch change on a 330D 6 speed manual?

Ta :)
 
Can I quickly hijack and ask if anyone knows how much it would cost to have a clutch change on a 330D 6 speed manual?

Ta :)

I am going to say between £350 and £450. However this is a complete guess based on zero knowledge of bmw costs, and simply adding a bit to what I thought it should cost.

Rex-Kramer, danger seeker, you don't sound like an ideal person to buy from, with all that danger seeking.
 
I found the BMW bluetooth crap on the Z4. Maybe the runflats caused too much vibration/noise, but other people had great difficultly hearing me.

Was rather cool using iDrive to control the phone though and answering with the button on the steering wheel after the SatNav popped up out of the dash to tell you who was ringing
 
Can I quickly hijack and ask if anyone knows how much it would cost to have a clutch change on a 330D 6 speed manual?

Ta :)

I am going to say between £350 and £450. However this is a complete guess based on zero knowledge of bmw costs, and simply adding a bit to what I thought it should cost.

Rex-Kramer, danger seeker, you don't sound like an ideal person to buy from, with all that danger seeking.

Do they have a dual mass flywheel? If they do then it will be more by time you have added that on :(
 
It does have a DMF but if he's only changing the clutch then it will be abot £400, if he's changing the DMF as well it will be about £650.
 
Going to use this thread again rather than a new one.

Round the corner from me is an E46 tourer (kinda very dark blue black) on an 03 plate. Its a 325i Sport, black leather, I think manual and done 70K. Guy looks after it pretty well I gather. Asking £6795 and already has an E90 replacement.

Thoughts? I appreciate its not the right engine per se but it has pretty much everything I would want in an E46. I'll ask the chap about fuel but what are its MPG figures? Not a big issue because whatever it is its going to be better than my Jeep but I would like to be able to use it for long trips in UK and Europe. 30+ on long hauls would be acceptable.
 
Hi Edd,

I have an e46 325i M sport touring, we generally get around 30mpg living in suburbia. I don't wish it was a 330i or anything, it's a nice workhorse of a car and so far has cost me nothing apart from the parts for an oil service which I'm doing myself. You should achieve 30+ on long hauls. I paid £5000 but as I said it had done about 140,000 miles when I got it.

Weak points I would say are automatic gearboxes and also front wishbones. Luckily both of these items were replaced just before I bought it (gearbox had done nearly 140,000 miles to be fair). The other thing to worry about is the cooling system which can be fragile.

I've fitted factory nav to mine now, which cost me about £500.
 
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I wish you would stop quoting the navigation cost as 500 quid, its very misleading. Most people here would not see change from a grand after fitting it.
 
Taking things apart inside the cabin is never a ballache, putting back however... :p
 
[TW]Fox;16910500 said:
I wish you would stop quoting the navigation cost as 500 quid, its very misleading. Most people here would not see change from a grand after fitting it.

Amazing that I've managed to fit it to two cars for well under a grand then isn't it by mainly using eBay. Am I lucky or just most excellent? ;)

It's not a ballache to fit either, it took me a day the first time and about 4 hours the second time, I spend more time cleaning the car properly. It's time consuming but very easy.
 
[TW]Fox;16910500 said:
I wish you would stop quoting the navigation cost as 500 quid, its very misleading. Most people here would not see change from a grand after fitting it.

Amazing that I've managed to fit it to two cars for well under a grand then isn't it by mainly using eBay. Am I lucky or just most excellent? ;)

When people are doing things like spending £400 on a BM54 when you can pick up a BM24 for less than £100 you can see where the money goes. It's easy to change the connector or get a converter. I reckon I could spec a nav retrofit with parts available right now for close to £600. The only thing I got lucky with was a broken mk4 which I repaired.

It's not a ballache to fit either, it took me a day the first time and about 4 hours the second time, I spend more time cleaning the car properly.

EDIT: I've just found a BM24 that went for £1.24 on ebay, so maybe I could have done it even cheaper than £500:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BM24-Radio-Mo...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item255b68a659

The 'fault' on that is very common and just requires solder reflowing on a few pads.
 
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