RE: PH buying guide: BMW M3 (E46)

[1974foggy]

Alex10391 said:

I would agree with this to some extent. The E36 I had before felt more solid and better built inside, door cards have gone rattly on mine.

Then again isn't this inevitable for any car at this age? It's 18 years old and to make it drive and feel like new is going to take money and regular upkeep, you have to go eyes open into this with any older car I suspect.

Yes, my e36 was easier/simpler to take apart without breakages. But I have a similar aged Audi A4, and its screwed together better/less fragile, as is my e39. I still think that below the surface an e46 isn't a particularly well built car from my experience in some areas.

[1974foggy]

Alex10391 said:

I would agree with this to some extent. The E36 I had before felt more solid and better built inside, door cards have gone rattly on mine.

Then again isn't this inevitable for any car at this age? It's 18 years old and to make it drive and feel like new is going to take money and regular upkeep, you have to go eyes open into this with any older car I suspect.

Interesting you mentioned door cards rattly (going off track here), my e36 did this once (One in image not mine) lol

[chirurgus]

The bearing shell issues with the S54 are well known in all of its installations, but have many M3 owners experienced cam follower wear +/- subsequent damage to cam lobes?

The problem has been reported by several ///M owners on the Z4-forum, but I’ve seen very few reports of it happening in the M3. This is surprising given the small numbers of Z4Ms that were sold in comparison to E46 M3s.

Edited by chirurgus on Thursday 8th April 02:25

[Mobrown]

I’ve had mine 4 years and they are great cars, great cars to subtly mod with things like good quality shocks and brakes but go in With your eyes open, they are costly to maintain, servicing costs are high and the more you love it the more of the preventative fixes you’ll carry out, not done all these but preventative fixes are around these prices (all approximately) :

Boot floor fix with an internal brace : £1500
Rear end bushes if your going OEM : £1000 (well worth doing)
Vanos : £1500
Head gasket : £1500
Bearings : £1500 -2k
Major service : £700 to 1k
Set of tyres : £800

Brilliant cars tho, specialty firms like reddish or everythingM3’s and many more are really knowledgeable with them

I think the recent values increase reflect the costs to maintain them, most savvy buyers will ask for a lot of the above jobs completed for cars nearer the £20k mark

Get one and enjoy it, it ain’t gonna be cheap tho

Edited by Mobrown on Thursday 8th April 13:18

[161BMW]

andyman_2006 said:

161BMW said:

andyman_2006 said:

It’s not too late to still get into one of these at sensible money, £15-20k will get a nice low mile manual coupe, numbers of cars for sale/available are dropping and if you want a car that’s not silver or black then choice is further limiting, but don’t be put off by things like vanos, rear subframe, and the servicing is not as bad as it used to be, tyres are cheaper now than when I bought mine 13 years ago, and you really don’t need £2-2500 a year to run one, half that will do just fine.

I mean look at what £15-20k gets you from the older hot hatch Market.... these M3 still look like good value cheap cars for what your getting, even an XR3i or XR2 are £10-15k now, cosworths are £40-100k, the E46 is still in my eyes a cheap car for what you get...

Had mine 13 years and came close to trading it for an air cooled Porsche and I’m glad I didn’t (even though air cooled porsches seem to still be rising) the M3 drives much better than any air cooled Porsche does.

What are you waiting for.... lockdown soon to lift, get onto the classifieds, summer here go enjoy one while we can!

Edited by andyman_2006 on Monday 5th April 11:03

You have forgotten CLK 55 AMG and CLK 63 AMG which are even RARER and CHEAPER. The problem with M3s is apart from the original owners alot tend to get ruined with silly modifications.

Not forgotten them... but both autos - and this is why I’ve never owned an AMG, Sure they are great cars and a good bargain, and If they did a decent manual gearbox AMG I’d have considered one, maybe I’m too single minded (personally I dislike autos) and so that rules out all AMG cars. I’d love to have a C63 manual coupe but an M car would still be dynamically better I reckon.

The fact many M3’s got ruined just makes good ones even better, and why I’m not selling mine, but then some
Mods in the eyes of their owners are an improvement especially if they do track days, so it’s each to their own, but makes finding a standard car harder but still £15k what else manual, fast, desirable, classic, can you get that’s as good as an M3?

All For XR2/3 money?

Even a decent sub 100k mile B7 RS4 is now £18-25k

I guess all I was saying is, many have moaned they missed the boat looking back 5 years, here is the chance now to buy in at XR2/3 money... the opportunities won’t be here forever...

Remember the E36 we all said they were cheap and that bmw made loads but didn’t buy in lost the opportunity, now when you see a good one you go hmm and oh it’s £25k how did that happen....the E46 is going the same way, you can see already the manual 330i and 330 clubsports also creeping up, anybody who really wants one should in my view look to buy one soon or be disappointed....

I do think XR2 and XR3 are cool. However they were in the 1980s and i was only driving age from early 2000s. They arent in the same league as E46 M3 in any way. I would rather have Renault Clio V6 than them or an early Ford Focus RS but prefer the Clio being RWD and mid-engined.

Yeah the M cars are generally dynamically better than the AMGs.

Other cars for around the £15k mark are Porsche 996.2 Carrera 2, Maserati 4200, Jaguar XKR. At the time performance wise they would have been rivals to the E46 M3 when they were new. The mags didnt mention the CLK 55 AMG or CLK 63 AMG much. Not sure why as they were about £60k when the E46 M3 was £40k. The Porsche 911 was around £60k. Not sure how much the Maseratis were. Do have a soft spot for the Maserati GranSport which the Maserati's E46 M3 CSL version of 4200.

https://www.evo.co.uk/group-tests/14212/maserati-g...

[GTRene]

chirurgus said:

The bearing shell issues with the S54 are well known in all of its installations, but have many M3 owners experienced cam follower wear +/- subsequent damage to cam lobes?

The problem has been reported by several ///M owners on the Z4-forum, but I’ve seen very few reports of it happening in the M3. This is surprising given the small numbers of Z4Ms that were sold in comparison to E46 M3s.

Mine had such problems as well, but then in a M coupe s54 Z3, but that even wasn't the whole story of that M coupe I bought.

There was already a new engine in, cause the other engine had the s54 engine problem, which e46 M3 owners of 2001 etc cars did get a recall for, the M coupe s54 Z3 did not got such, because those engines were downtuned in rpm about 500rpm lower max rpm, so a bit less risk...except if you went very fast in it and went of to Nurburgring a lot, which that owner has done, seeing the sticker on the bumper when I bought it... it went bust with only 20-30k/km on the clock.

It then got a new engine from BMW with some upgraded parts in it, it was installed in 2004 I thought, anyways, I was happy that all that was done when I bought it in Germany with a 2004 engine in it... so with better parts...

But...after 2.5 years (with not that many km, maybe 20k but incl max rpm to 8k/rpm tuning instead of the M coupe 7.5/6 k/rpm) or so it began to make sounds like tapping valves, so went to the dealer he said, yes sound likes the valves need adjustment... I said huh? normally its around 100k/km for such engine (shims) yes he said, and they never had done such, never needed they said.

Hmm, never done such work, then i better do it myself, so of I went, buying a lot shims because did not know what kind, and some extra tools.

I had 3 valves which needed clear adjustments, so fix that and all was perfect... but still it tapped...grr just drive a bit maybe more oil or something but no, then I went to a specialist, he found the problem... 3 of those cam followers were deeply worn (more backside engine) those were I placed the right shims, the followers were eaten away by the cams by starvation in some corners when you drive fast same road every weekend a few times...

I thought that that new engine had all the better parts from BMW since it was of the shelf in 2004 so a 2004 engine...
yes of the shelf 2004, but inside the engine said 2003... aaaah and that year also got the new oil pump...but we saw in BMW books that already in 2004/5? they replaced that also for a better one, which then stayed for the rest of the s54 engine lifetime...

so...had to replace all followers with stronger ones from BMW racing 320is? and schrick cams and a new expensive latest the best oilpump to be sure, and till date (sold it end 2006 begin 2007) that engine still runs good after many more km with the better parts incl tuning to almost 8k/rpm all that time.

[andyman_2006]

161BMW said:

andyman_2006 said:

161BMW said:

andyman_2006 said:

It’s not too late to still get into one of these at sensible money, £15-20k will get a nice low mile manual coupe, numbers of cars for sale/available are dropping and if you want a car that’s not silver or black then choice is further limiting, but don’t be put off by things like vanos, rear subframe, and the servicing is not as bad as it used to be, tyres are cheaper now than when I bought mine 13 years ago, and you really don’t need £2-2500 a year to run one, half that will do just fine.

I mean look at what £15-20k gets you from the older hot hatch Market.... these M3 still look like good value cheap cars for what your getting, even an XR3i or XR2 are £10-15k now, cosworths are £40-100k, the E46 is still in my eyes a cheap car for what you get...

Had mine 13 years and came close to trading it for an air cooled Porsche and I’m glad I didn’t (even though air cooled porsches seem to still be rising) the M3 drives much better than any air cooled Porsche does.

What are you waiting for.... lockdown soon to lift, get onto the classifieds, summer here go enjoy one while we can!

Edited by andyman_2006 on Monday 5th April 11:03

You have forgotten CLK 55 AMG and CLK 63 AMG which are even RARER and CHEAPER. The problem with M3s is apart from the original owners alot tend to get ruined with silly modifications.

Not forgotten them... but both autos - and this is why I’ve never owned an AMG, Sure they are great cars and a good bargain, and If they did a decent manual gearbox AMG I’d have considered one, maybe I’m too single minded (personally I dislike autos) and so that rules out all AMG cars. I’d love to have a C63 manual coupe but an M car would still be dynamically better I reckon.

The fact many M3’s got ruined just makes good ones even better, and why I’m not selling mine, but then some
Mods in the eyes of their owners are an improvement especially if they do track days, so it’s each to their own, but makes finding a standard car harder but still £15k what else manual, fast, desirable, classic, can you get that’s as good as an M3?

All For XR2/3 money?

Even a decent sub 100k mile B7 RS4 is now £18-25k

I guess all I was saying is, many have moaned they missed the boat looking back 5 years, here is the chance now to buy in at XR2/3 money... the opportunities won’t be here forever...

Remember the E36 we all said they were cheap and that bmw made loads but didn’t buy in lost the opportunity, now when you see a good one you go hmm and oh it’s £25k how did that happen....the E46 is going the same way, you can see already the manual 330i and 330 clubsports also creeping up, anybody who really wants one should in my view look to buy one soon or be disappointed....

I do think XR2 and XR3 are cool. However they were in the 1980s and i was only driving age from early 2000s. They arent in the same league as E46 M3 in any way. I would rather have Renault Clio V6 than them or an early Ford Focus RS but prefer the Clio being RWD and mid-engined.

Yeah the M cars are generally dynamically better than the AMGs.

Other cars for around the £15k mark are Porsche 996.2 Carrera 2, Maserati 4200, Jaguar XKR. At the time performance wise they would have been rivals to the E46 M3 when they were new. The mags didnt mention the CLK 55 AMG or CLK 63 AMG much. Not sure why as they were about £60k when the E46 M3 was £40k. The Porsche 911 was around £60k. Not sure how much the Maseratis were. Do have a soft spot for the Maserati GranSport which the Maserati's E46 M3 CSL version of 4200.

https://www.evo.co.uk/group-tests/14212/maserati-g...

Sorry wasn’t meaning the XR2/3 was in any way comparable in performance terms or even when new on price but more suggesting given the price points today, what a real
Bargain the E46 M3 looks at the given XR2/3 price points, in fact just seen a series 2 RS Turbo £29k... for all 130hp.

E46 is pretty much on another level even to a clio v6, wasn’t that long ago the RS and Clio were sub £10k cars...

I would say the 996 you may struggle to get a half decent manual coupe one for under £20k.. and even at that money IMS/RMS/bore score issues, those cars can easily part you from £10k if it has an engine rebuild on the cards, but values are on the up and seems they are getting more desirable, pulled up by the sky high air cooled cars prices, both 996/997 have been steadily on the rise in past years. My choice would be of the 996 the GT3 or the turbo as the engine is based around the MEZGER designed engines used in racing and the old 959 and people say they are pretty unlikely to have bore score and IMS/RMS issues, but then your into £40k for a turbo and £60/70k for a GT3.

The mazza gransport a good shout nice red one on auto trader for sale (rare colour) for £22k and I nearly bought one myself only put off by the gearbox (F1 fezza item) and when JCT told me it’s upto 20k mile for clutch life with a £2k menu service price (and that was a good few years ago!) they have a “clutch service” listed as a standard service item! The M3 can easily do 60k on a clutch.

But I do still like the gransport, they look, sound and drive fab.. imagine what a manual one could have been like!

[161BMW]

Mobrown said:

I’ve had mine 4 years and they are great cars, great cars to subtly mod with things like good quality shocks and brakes but go in With your eyes open, they are costly to maintain, servicing costs are high and the more you love it the more of the preventative fixes you’ll carry out, not done all these but preventative fixes are around these prices (all approximately) :

Boot floor fix with an internal brace : £1500
Rear end bushes if your going OEM : £1000 (well worth doing)
Vanos : £1500
Head gasket : £1500
Bearings : £1500 -2k
Major service : £700 to 1k
Set of tyres : £800

Brilliant cars tho, specialty firms like reddish or everythingM3’s and many more are really knowledgeable with them

I think the recent values increase reflect the costs to maintain them, most savvy buyers will ask for a lot of the above jobs completed for cars nearer the £20k mark

Get one and enjoy it, it ain’t gonna be cheap tho

Edited by Mobrown on Thursday 8th April 13:18

Most of these jobs apply to the high mileage E46 M3s.

Also spending money on servicing doesn’t really increase the car’s value.

There are also many low mileage E46 M3 CSLs which have missed services or not in correct order sub 40k milers. That’s the owner not sticking to the schedule. They cannot really expect top money then imo.

[Me Alec]

What an interesting and well written write-up.

Would the same in-depth expose be available for the 335i Coupe, I wonder? I'm now on my second one - a '58 plated car and I'm very attached to it.

[SS427 Camaro]

Anyone own or owned a Silverstone edition ( 50 cars were built in late 2004 )