Discussion
Hi there,
At around 1000 miles a week, only you can decide if running an E46 M3 at this frequency is going to be the right thing for you.
Most E46 M3 owners I know will fill up on Super Unleaded, so you'll have the 'extra' price of fuel there. So approximately 65 litres per fillup at £1.25/litre = £81 per fillup. Those same owners report circa 300 miles per tank, so with you doing motorway miles I assume, perhaps you'll manage 350-360 miles per tank. So that'd be at least 3 tankfuls per week £240. Multiply that by 4 weeks and that'd be around £1000/month on fuel alone. I 'think' the Inspection 2 major service is every 12,000 miles - and you'd hit that approximately every 3 months. At 'approx' £650 for a BMW garage to do the servicing, and perhaps £450-500 at a reputable independant, those are the big services, also there's the inspection 1 services which are considerably cheaper but will be needing to be done very frequently. You'll also need to add on the price of any replacement parts as well.
As you mention 'economy' the 'usual' response will be to get a Diesel, however, there are plenty of M car's that are being used as daily drivers, however not at this very high miles/per week that you are mentioning.
Ultimately, only you can make the decision based mainly, on the depth of your wallet.
Cheers, Dennis!
At around 1000 miles a week, only you can decide if running an E46 M3 at this frequency is going to be the right thing for you.
Most E46 M3 owners I know will fill up on Super Unleaded, so you'll have the 'extra' price of fuel there. So approximately 65 litres per fillup at £1.25/litre = £81 per fillup. Those same owners report circa 300 miles per tank, so with you doing motorway miles I assume, perhaps you'll manage 350-360 miles per tank. So that'd be at least 3 tankfuls per week £240. Multiply that by 4 weeks and that'd be around £1000/month on fuel alone. I 'think' the Inspection 2 major service is every 12,000 miles - and you'd hit that approximately every 3 months. At 'approx' £650 for a BMW garage to do the servicing, and perhaps £450-500 at a reputable independant, those are the big services, also there's the inspection 1 services which are considerably cheaper but will be needing to be done very frequently. You'll also need to add on the price of any replacement parts as well.
As you mention 'economy' the 'usual' response will be to get a Diesel, however, there are plenty of M car's that are being used as daily drivers, however not at this very high miles/per week that you are mentioning.
Ultimately, only you can make the decision based mainly, on the depth of your wallet.
Cheers, Dennis!
I'm running an 04 M3 at the moment, but have had 2 cars converted to LPG, a saab 9000 and a Monaro, saab was old tech and not great, the Monaro was multipoint injection and worked well, had it rolling roaded on both petrol and lpg and power was down about 20bhp but only in the upper rev range which in all honesty I rarely used. Fuel consumption is down by about 20% which you need to factor into your calculations.
Would I do it again? Probaby not, I sold them both about the time the LPG install had paid for itself, so covered my costs but didn't profit from it, although the Monaro sold very quickly it wasn't at a premium price.
My M3 shows 29mpg on the computer (lots of boring motorway miles)which is just about acceptable, particularly if you factor in Indy servicing costs which are very cheap compared to main dealer costs.
Would I do it again? Probaby not, I sold them both about the time the LPG install had paid for itself, so covered my costs but didn't profit from it, although the Monaro sold very quickly it wasn't at a premium price.
My M3 shows 29mpg on the computer (lots of boring motorway miles)which is just about acceptable, particularly if you factor in Indy servicing costs which are very cheap compared to main dealer costs.
Gassing Station | M Power | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff