The E46 325ti Appreciation Thread

[JakeT]

Well, better blow the dust off of this one! Seeing as it was ideal weather for it yesterday I decided to do my once yearly massive clean that my daily gets. For any that are interested this involved:
1. Wash the entire car with Fairy liquid to remove the old wax
2. Go over the entire car with an AutoGlym claybar
3. Go over the entire car with Autoglym super resin polish
4. Wax the entire car with Autoglym High Definition Wax.
5. Applied Rain-X to the side glass and door mirrors

After a good four and a half hours of work it looked excellent! But I didn't get a pic of it... Then it rained overnight. Here it is currently


And an obligatory beading shot with a silly shallow depth of field...

[FredClogs]

Fairy Liquid!?

I'm reporting you to the "Detailing" section of the forum...

[JakeT]

Only to remove the old waxes and any oils or grease that has accumulated on the paint. For regular washing its Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner.

[breezer42]

Has anyone dropped a more fun engine/box into these? S54 maybe? I imagine that would be extremely simple...

I suppose it takes the point out of it being low cost motoring, but that's never stopped most people!

[FredClogs]

breezer42 said:

Has anyone dropped a more fun engine/box into these? S54 maybe? I imagine that would be extremely simple...

I suppose it takes the point out of it being low cost motoring, but that's never stopped most people!

A colleague of my did, his 325ti came to him as a fire damaged right off, engine fire, he put an e46 M3 engine in, there are issues with one of the gearboxes (5 or 6 can't remember), the prop shaft is the wrong length or something, but he managed to sort it out quite easily with a mechanic mate, other M3 bits have been added too, there are build threads on here and other places. It went like stink and sounded ace. He's the reason I looked into buying one originally, the S54 engines I see around are quite dear, £2.5 to £3k so it's not a particularly cheap thing to do but I'm giving it some consideration.

[trashy]

I've enjoyed dipping into this thread - they look like cracking cars for the money.

Anyone looking to sell their Sport in the near future? If so, please let me know

[Mr Tidy]

FredClogs said:

breezer42 said:

Has anyone dropped a more fun engine/box into these? S54 maybe? I imagine that would be extremely simple...

I suppose it takes the point out of it being low cost motoring, but that's never stopped most people!

A colleague of my did, his 325ti came to him as a fire damaged right off, engine fire, he put an e46 M3 engine in, there are issues with one of the gearboxes (5 or 6 can't remember), the prop shaft is the wrong length or something, but he managed to sort it out quite easily with a mechanic mate, other M3 bits have been added too, there are build threads on here and other places. It went like stink and sounded ace. He's the reason I looked into buying one originally, the S54 engines I see around are quite dear, £2.5 to £3k so it's not a particularly cheap thing to do but I'm giving it some consideration.

I can't remember which firm it was (maybe Hartge?) but one did offer a deal to put an E46 M3 engine and other bits into a Compact (316 donor car) back in the day. A few years on Hartge were offering to put a 5 litre V8 into a 1 Series!

Someone on PH has put an M54 3 litre into a 316 Compact and there was a 3 litre one on E-bay recently, but it had apparently had some "enthusiastic" use - but that is probably the whole point!

Just a shame BMW never offered a 330ti Compact - would have been a fantastic car! But maybe it would have spoiled things for 330Ci sales!

[Mr Tidy]

trashy said:

I've enjoyed dipping into this thread - they look like cracking cars for the money.

Anyone looking to sell their Sport in the near future? If so, please let me know

I wasn't planning to sell mine, but might be persuaded for the right price!

It's a 52 plate 325ti Sport manual so pre-facelift with 92,000 miles recorded in Imola Red with full black leather (most Sports have Alcantara), power-folding mirrors and CD Changer.

Inevitable photo required:-



If you might be interested please PM me and we can go from there! FWIW I am in Berkshire - getting tempted by the next generation, as in 130i!

[dirtychinchilla]

Mr Tidy said:

Sorry to hear about the shock absorber, but once you get driving it I am sure you will forgive it!

Sport and sunroof - nice combination (even if the wood isn't so great)! Is it a facelift (i.e. a 6-speed)? That would be my ideal combination!

Hope it behaves better for you in future!

Hi, I've just noticed this post, so apologies for the very delayed reply.

I've very much forgiven it for the shock absorber incident. It got a completely clean MOT a few weeks later, so that helped! But it's just a great car. I'm loving the big powerful engine. I had a 1.8 Mk2 MX-5 5 previously and that was rapid, but in a different way.

I've got a big list of basic things I'd like to do to the car, and one is to change the wood for carbon cubes. Very much looking forward to that!!

Yes it's the facelift

Has anyone got any pictures of a 325Ti with mud flaps? I live on a new development, which is very much still in the process of being built, and I get mad flicks of mud and dust all over the car, which would be stopped by mud flaps.

I've ripped out the BMW stereo as it sucked, and installed this lovely Pioneer DEH-X8700BT. It's got rear USB, so I now have a USB drive in the glove box with my music on, Bluetooth and a mic for the phone, and it can be pretty much any colour you'd like, so it's looking great!



The car has quite a lot of damage on the outside and I've managed to split the splitter, which really sucks! Gonna have to do some DIY I think.

Edited by dirtychinchilla on Friday 1st July 16:03

[FredClogs]

Up in the lakes in the compact this weekend. Buzzed over kirkstone pass today, great fun. Airbag light had so much fun is decided to intermittently let me know by flashing itself :-\ that aside it was great.

[Kawasicki]

I've had mine a couple of weeks.

The good- the engine, the stability/agility mix, the oversteer in the wet

The bad - flimsy trim, and ugly...

I like it

[TheAlastair34]

hi guys,

stumbled upon this thread whilst hunting for a cheap daily car

what are people thoughts on these two that are for sale?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/53-BMW-325TI-COMPACT-M-S...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-325ti-Sport-M3-M-Spo...

ive seen afew around 1k non m sport kit cars, are they worth a punt or likely to be money pits?

[Andrew Kettle]

First one seems steep, I got mine with 90k on the clock for a grand less. Second one looks to be the right money although has been modded a bit, but looks to be looked after and the work that has been done - clutch, bushes etc will save bills in the future.

With regards to mudflaps mine has them - I assumed they were standard! I will try to get some pics tomorrow.

Split splitters seem to be common! It's a shame it's part of the whole bumper and can't be replaced separately, mine is split and I saw a few split on others when looking.

[Mr Tidy]

First one seems top money, but if you want black with red interior, Xenons and electric memory seats there aren't too many to choose from!

But I hate black wheels, and it isn't an M-Sport, it's a Sport! M-Sport got invented later, although 325ti Sport models got "M" badges on the wheels and steering wheel plus "M" finishers on the top of the sills!

But all 325tis had the Sport suspension and seats so the only real difference is in the aesthetics - so a 325ti SE is fundamentally the same car as a 325ti Sport, although SEs had "square" 16 inch wheels as standard whereas the 325ti Sport had "Staggered" 17 inchers. Oh and SE had trapezoidal fog-lights rather than the small round ones fitted to the Sport.

Mind you it isn't too tricky to buy a new set of wheels if you can live with the stylistic differences!

Unless you specifically want certain options I would go to AutoTrader - I've seen a couple of good ones there for less money than these.

[s m]

Kawasicki said:

I've had mine a couple of weeks.

The good- the engine, the stability/agility mix, the oversteer in the wet

The bad - flimsy trim, and ugly...

I like it

Yes, they're definitely for driving rather than looking at

Out of interest, what trim problems have you had? Mine has stayed together pretty well with the exception of the internal moonroof blind. To be fair that broke on my 330 saloon as well so I'm a dab hand at repairing them now and the sliders/clips are cheap off Ebay

[Andrew Kettle]

dirtychinchilla said:

Has anyone got any pictures of a 325Ti with mud flaps? I live on a new development, which is very much still in the process of being built, and I get mad flicks of mud and dust all over the car, which would be stopped by mud flaps.

Probably going to remove them next time I wash the car. Would have let you have them but the back two are broken

[JakeT]

That top one is strong money for them, especially as its a 5spd model. My 61k example cost £200 less than that one. As Mr. Tidy mentioned, the sport and SE are mechanically the same, its only bumpers on the sport models. My SE was optioned with a staggered set of 18" wheels.

My moonroof blind also got broken somehow, I managed to fix it but now it doesn't fully close. Never bothered me as I leave it open all the time, and leave an inch gap when 'closed'.

[Kawasicki]

s m said:

Kawasicki said:

I've had mine a couple of weeks.

The good- the engine, the stability/agility mix, the oversteer in the wet

The bad - flimsy trim, and ugly...

I like it

Yes, they're definitely for driving rather than looking at

Out of interest, what trim problems have you had? Mine has stayed together pretty well with the exception of the internal moonroof blind. To be fair that broke on my 330 saloon as well so I'm a dab hand at repairing them now and the sliders/clips are cheap off Ebay

The last bmw I owned was an e30...the e46 has way more clips that seem to disintegrate as I'm taking parts off, it could just be down to the previous owner having no mechanical sympathy. Also the doors make a right clatter when I close them.

[s m]

Kawasicki said:

The last bmw I owned was an e30...the e46 has way more clips that seem to disintegrate as I'm taking parts off, it could just be down to the previous owner having no mechanical sympathy. Also the doors make a right clatter when I close them.

I must be lucky with mine
Thinking hard about it I did replace the plastic trim finisher for the seatbelt bolt cover on the driver's side where it had probably been kicked off by back seat passengers exiting
Plus also the plastic tether for the fuel cap

Then again, none of the bits were much or difficult to replace and I'm quite finicky re keeping everything as it should be
Probably did the same sort of things on my old E21/E30//E36

[dirtychinchilla]

I finally got the car jacked up and managed to do a CDV delete, and it's made a world of difference. All the terrible gear changes have just gone! I can pretty much drop the clutch if I want to, and there won't be any kangerooing etc.

Highly recommended!

Cheers for the images of the mud flaps. They look good I think, and will reduce the amount of cleaning I need to do dramatically. Shame they are half broken!!