Thank goodness it's an Auto, as Fleet is only down the road from me!

And being sensible I couldn't use it to visit family in the Khanistan Borough of Sutton without paying every time.

Hippea

1,850 posts

70 months

[report]

[news]

Tuesday 14th May

So I went down a wormhole of research on these last night, apparently this era of e36 had nikasil problems with the engines, what I can’t work out is whether this is still a problem

stickylabels

565 posts

93 months

[report]

[news]

Tuesday 14th May

We had 2 x tourings of these back in the day, a manual 320i followed by an auto 328i. The 320 was by far the sweeter of the two smoothness wise and being 'spanish', you could keep it on the boil to compensate for lack of grunt. The 2.8 had good shove (for the time) pretty much anywhere revs wise. I fitted genuine Alpina dampers & springs on it that I got for £350 still brand new in the box!

I did lots of reading up on the nikasil issue, the e39/e38 series also suffered and I think it was the early v8's that started it all. Consensus at the time seemed to be excess sulphur in certain fuels with some areas of the country worse than others. BMW replaced engine blocks with steel linered ones under warranty at the time. The 320 was still running its original when I traded it in for the 328. It was only later on when having a poke around the 2.8 I saw the different marking on the block showing it had been replaced with the steel liners version. I can't remember the what that was but someone online will.

These days, I think its pretty much a case of if its lasted this long.....

The 2.8 could still manage Dundee to north London on one tank giving a genuine 30 -ish mpg. More than a few times the fuel light would come on just as we were passing the Esso garage in Stanmore.

bodhi

10,645 posts

230 months

[report]

[news]

Tuesday 14th May

Me old man had a couple of E36s, an early 325i and a 328i Touring - the 328i had lots of grunt everywhere, but the 325i needed revs, although when you obliged it was almost as quick as the 328i, and made a lovely noise. He also had an E34 520i with the VANOS engine and that was a lovely unit, smooth, sounded great and had more shove than you'd expect for a "small" engine powering a big car.

About 15 years ago I bought my own E36, and whilst the car was a bit of a shed and coming to the end of its useful life the engine was still as I remembered from the 90s. Mine was an original Nikasil block and the general consensus at the time was, if it's made it that far it shouldn't be an issue.

A knackered fuel pump and cooling fan eventually consigned it to the scrapper and I replaced it with an E46 330d, which was a better car in every way. I still missed the engine from the 328i though, so ended up swapping the E46 for an E82 125i, which is very similar to the E36 but with more power and a more modern interior.

I could be tempted by another E36, however I'll more than likely just end up keeping the 1 Series. After 10 years and 120k miles in it I've got quite attached to it smile