BMW M3 (E46) | The Brave Pill
One owner, big miles - and an enticingly low price
Anybody with kids will be familiar with the sort of unanswerable questions the young like to torment their elders and betters with. A popular one from a few years back is whether you’d like to fight a hundred duck-sized horses, or a single horse-sized duck. This week’s Brave Pill isn’t a horse or a duck, but it does inspire a similar dilemma: is it better to buy a leggy, well-worn performance car with one owner, or an apparently tidier example with a football team’s worth of former keepers?
This E46 M3 comes from the former category, having only had a single name on its registration document since it was new in 2003. It ticks plenty of other positive boxes, too. It’s a manual coupe in a handsome shade of Sterling Grey and with the deep red interior that always seemed to suit M cars of this era particularly well. It was serviced last year, has had a recent new clutch and flywheel, also newish discs and pads and four Continental tyres. Yet is also being offered for £9,950, a figure which, in the current market, is dangerously close to “can I have a receipt for my bitten-off arm?” territory.
That asking price makes this the cheapest E46 M3 in the classifieds, with the only ones anywhere near it being convertibles. It is also four grand less than the SMG coupe that got Pill’d last September, and which is still on sale. Against the available evidence it’s hard to argue too hard with the selling dealer’s assertion that this one is being offered for a “ridiculously low price,” even with 163,000 miles factored in.
There are reasons for the affordability, of course. This is Brave Pill after all. Although it looks smart in the pictures this M3 is reportedly pretty rough up close. The commendably honest advert acknowledges corrosion on both rear arches plus a ding to the nearside one, four kerbed wheels, various scratches and some rusted stone chips. There are no images of the interior, but the seller admits that this needs a deep clean and that the driver’s seat is stained with “some dark marks in the leather creases”. It’s likely the reality of that is less scary than the mental image that conjures up.
The car’s one former keeper has sadly died, and the advert says that the last MOT expired in March. Yet a visit to the Check MOT website shows that it has recently been given another one, recording a clean pass just five days ago. Despite the acknowledged issues the rest of the online history doesn’t throw up anything too scary. There have been earlier failures for worn suspension linkages, an ineffective handbrake and broken coil springs. Plus advisories for the tired tyres and broken brakes that tend to come as standard with lower priced M cars. But there is no mention of any structural corrosion, which is a solid plus for any E46.
The M3 was a critical darling when new, one of those rare cars that managed to go through its lifespan without being significantly bettered by newer competitors. All-wheel-driven alternatives, like the Audi S4 and Subaru Impreza/ Mitsubishi Lancer were grippier, and the V8-powered W203 Mercedes C55 AMG that launched in 2004 was faster and sounded fruitier. But none could beat the BMW for handling finesse or the pure mechanical charisma of its high-revving straight-six. By modern standards 338hp might sound a bit anaemic - the current turbocharged G80 has 165hp more. But no M3 has offered a better balance between grip and go, with the E46’s combination of rear-drive and a limited-slip differential making it pretty much a kindergarten of oversteer.
But despite the love, as the M3 grew older it developed some significant problems, these consisting of both mechanical issues and also what could be termed as social ones. The first list included the well-known tendency of the VANOS variable valve timing to throw expensive issues, reports of worn rod bearings from engines that hadn’t been treated to an appropriate frequency and quality of oil changes, plus the big, scary one - a disintegrating boot floor. This is caused by cracks that start in the rear subframe mounting points and then spread, often invisibly, requiring expensive reconstructive surgery by a skilled welder to put right.
While all these issues are fixable, the M3’s falling values saw its ownership demographic changing as it entered middle age. Having bought cars in search of cheap performance, many owners were reluctant to spend what was necessary to keep them in tip-top condition, leading to bodging, deliberately hidden problems, or sometimes just ignoring them in the hope they’d go away. Attempts by repentant buyers to prove the greater fool theory – by finding somebody to offload their problematic cars onto – led many to record spiralling numbers of former keepers. It isn’t unusual to find examples that have got into double digits. As a genuine one-owner car, our Pill is very unusual at this end of the market.
When E46 M3 values plateaued many shabby cars became worth more in parts than they were whole, something that soon thinned the numbers and doubtless played a part in the value reversal. Asking prices started to increase about a decade ago, and in recent years the trend has accelerated as the market acknowledges just how special this generation of M3 really is. More optimistic (or possibly forward-looking) dealers are already asking more than £30,000 for the tidiest and shiniest examples. And that’s the standard car; the CSL bubble shows no sign of popping even as cars head into six figures.
Our Pill looks fairly priced for a car that needs cosmetic work, but seems to be in decent mechanical fettle. It’s usable, but also improvable - and although it is unlikely to ever be flattening the grass at a Concours d’elegance, it definitely doesn’t look like a basket case. This M3’s former keeper clearly lavished plenty of care and cash in getting it so far. There seems no reason why the next one can’t add plenty more chapters to the story.
Rust around the rear arches means the inner arches have gone, so £££’s already.
Plus if the RCAP hasn’t been done it will need doing - my last one was very mature owner from new, never been thrashed and still had cracks.
But they have to be one of the most pleasure giving, beautiful cars ever made.
The one I should have bought was very similar to this with about 130k miles. Cosmetically a bit rough (no rust but front end looked like pebble dashed from stone chips) but mechanically well looked after. Was definitely the most ‘honest’ one I looked at and could have had it for £4500.
I think they are out of their yob phase but when I was looking it was right at the tail end. So many with money spent on poor performance mods but not maintenance and servicing. Anything described as “yeh, it’s mint bruv” was guaranteed to be terrible.
Based on my experience I would say this car is a very interesting proposition. If the service history looks good I think it would make a great long term rolling project. Some good specialists who can sort the Vanos (Mr Vanos) or sub frame cracking for reasonable money but genuine M3 wings and arches expensive.
Worth a punt I reckon and quite tempted myself!
It could very easily cost the same again as the purchase price to put it right at which point are you not better off buying a much better car with lower miles.
It could very easily cost the same again as the purchase price to put it right at which point are you not better off buying a much better car with lower miles.
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