E91 BMW 330i Touring "Project"

[Max M4X WW]

Evening all, I've recently joined the "E91 Straight Six Bearding" club/thread with a bit of a project. 150k miles, Auto and needing a bit of a tidy-up.

So far, I have put a new battery on, which highlighted a dead FCM, that I posted off today to be repaired, hopefully. I also changed the oil filter as the engine made an odd noise, which seemed to have cured it. I will do it again with an oil change after I've confirmed if the oil under the car is from a previous leak or a current one!

I will also be removing all of the black bits (including wheels/tyres) as the rear tyres are through to the threads, so I've only driven it home so far!













Plate surrounds were removed and exhaust tips were cleaned as well as I could:







Tomorrow's job is washing it...

Comments and wishes of luck are welcome! Thanks

[Mr Tidy]

That looks like an interesting project, so good luck with it.

Out of curiosity does it have the N52 engine or the N53?.

I had an E91 325i but it felt a bit sluggish so I replaced it with an E90 330i for a bit more fun factor! Oil leaks from the cam-cover and oil filter housing gaskets are pretty common.

[RUNAMOK]

Doesn't look too bad inside! I have an E91 330i, 57 reg. Great car but throwing up a few problems as it gets older unfortunately.

[Deep Thought]

Looks like a great project and nothing there looks insurmountable.

I really enjoyed my E90 330i when i had it. Great car.

[d_a_n1979]

Looks a good project that Max

Long gone are the days of rusty E39s

[Max M4X WW]

Mr Tidy said:

Out of curiosity does it have the N52 engine or the N53?

Pretty sure its N52 as its pre-LCI, hydro steering and silver engine cover?

RUNAMOK said:

Doesn't look too bad inside! I have an E91 330i, 57 reg. Great car but throwing up a few problems as it gets older unfortunately.

Oh yes I have had a couple already! Some I knew about, some not..

Deep Thought said:

Looks like a great project and nothing there looks insurmountable

Thanks, most of it is cleaning. its obviously been sat under a tree and not washed for a few months. I plan to take the seats out and do the interior properly too.

d_a_n1979 said:

Looks a good project that Max

Long gone are the days of rusty E39s

Errm, I think they still rust! I need to have a good look at the rear arches and behind the front arch liners!

E39 is still here as well obviously, that's not going anywhere! This will replace our Mk1 Octiavia vRS Estate if it goes to plan.

[Sofa]

Looks like it'll be a really nice car once you've given it a bit of care. The N52 is a masterpiece of an engine, I've owned one for roughly 18 months and it still feels special, even when I got back in it straight after doing nearly 1,000 miles in a B58 M340i!

What did you do to the exhaust tips? They've come up really nicely- the ones on my 125i are disgusting and also looking a bit rusty but I've been too scared to properly attack them as I've heard you can end up going right through to the copper underneath...

[Mr Tidy]

Max M4X WW said:

Mr Tidy said:

Out of curiosity does it have the N52 engine or the N53?

Pretty sure its N52 as its pre-LCI, hydro steering and silver engine cover?

My E90 has the N52 silver-top and HPAS, which was one of the attractions for me. It may be Band K for Road Tax but doesn't have HPFP, injector and coked up inlet manifold issues like N53s seem to! And I really rate the N52 engine having had a few before. Mine has done over 120K miles but still pulls like a train.

Yours deserves to be saved with those M-Sport seats, front and rear pdc and i-drive!

[JakeT]

Nice to hear the filter swap has hopefully sorted out the noise on the engine.

Shame the FRM died, but they have a habit of it. I try not to disconnect the battery on mine unless absolutely necessary. Looks like you’ve got your work cut out with the cleaning products, too. Looking forward to seeing how you get on with it.

[Court_S]

Looks like a good project; yours is a good spec too. Finding a petrol touring with a decent spec is no easy task. I had to settle for a pretty basic spec car, but so far we really like it.

Depending on how it’s been cared for, it’d be a good idea to remove the arch liners and give everything a good clean out. The rears on ours are pretty crusty. At some point this summer I’ll take the liners and side skirts off to remove any falling rust before treating it with POR15 or similar.

The N52 is a great engine; I’m on number four now.

[Max M4X WW]

Sofa said:

What did you do to the exhaust tips? They've come up really niceley

OK, so everything I do to this car at this stage will be to make things "better" (aka look from 10ft away!) but I took them off the car and used brake and clutch cleaner for the tar etc, then a lot of Autosol and carefully scraping the soot off with a knife. Wire wool may have been better, but I didn't have any!

Mr Tidy said:

Yours deserves to be saved with those M-Sport seats, front and rear pdc and i-drive!

Yes I must admit the spec did make me more keen on the car. Especially the Xenons (also has auto high beam), cruise with brake and its got lumbar support and the inflatable bolsters (the latter I assume, is standard).

JakeT said:

Shame the FRM died, but they have a habit of it. I try not to disconnect the battery on mine unless absolutely necessary. Looks like you’ve got your work cut out with the cleaning products, too. Looking forward to seeing how you get on with it.

I think I could have potentially saved it by leaving the car on trickle charge whilst disconnecting the battery, but I didn't know this at the time and it seemed a bit wrong! Hoping its an easy fix anyway.

Court_S said:

Depending on how it’s been cared for, it’d be a good idea to remove the arch liners and give everything a good clean out. The rears on ours are pretty crusty. At some point this summer I’ll take the liners and side skirts off to remove any falling rust before treating it with POR15 or similar.

This is on the list. The arches are FILTHY and need a good jet out. There is a bit of a brown mark on one of the arches, but I hope I can save it.

[pmorg4]

That looks like it's been a bit unloved in its recent past but plenty of potential to be a really nice car with some TLC. It has bi-xenons which are a rare option and probably the most important option in my view given how bad the halogens are. When I had my E91 330i I couldn't find a decent car with xenons so I bought one with halogens and retrofitted a set of OE xenons to it.

Max M4X WW said:

JakeT said:

Shame the FRM died, but they have a habit of it. I try not to disconnect the battery on mine unless absolutely necessary. Looks like you’ve got your work cut out with the cleaning products, too. Looking forward to seeing how you get on with it.

I think I could have potentially saved it by leaving the car on trickle charge whilst disconnecting the battery, but I didn't know this at the time and it seemed a bit wrong! Hoping its an easy fix anyway.

The FRM dying is a bug of the firmware that causes it to fail to restart after a full power down, which can either be battery disconnection or applying a coding change which causes it to do a full restart. Hopefully your repaired FRM won't be susceptible to this in the future, as they will rewrite the software directly onto the chip on the circuit board. It only affects some revisions, and as far as I know mainly affects FRM3 and less commonly FRM2. I'm not aware of any of the original FRM1 being affected. Both my E91s car had/have an FRM2 and neither were affected by it, as I've had the battery disconnected and done coding on on both.

[Max M4X WW]

That's all good information, thanks.

It has actually had a reasonable amount of work in the last 3-4 years (front arms, cam cover gasket, oil cooler gasket etc.) whilst the previous owner had it (who I know loosely). It's been unloved for the last few months and not kept very clean!

[Court_S]

Max M4X WW said:

That's all good information, thanks.

It has actually had a reasonable amount of work in the last 3-4 years (front arms, cam cover gasket, oil cooler gasket etc.) whilst the previous owner had it (who I know loosely). It's been unloved for the last few months and not kept very clean!

They seem to get to a certain age and fall into a slightly unloved state. From there they either end up on a downward trajectory or get saved.

The E91 does seem to be suffering from bubbling arches (based on a small sample) more so than the others. I wonder if it’s because they end up a workhorses.

[budgie smuggler]

Nice spec, well worth some attention.

Is that rust along the bottom edge of the tailgate? Can't quite make out from the pics.

[Max M4X WW]

budgie smuggler said:

Is that rust along the bottom edge of the tailgate? Can't quite make out from the pics.

Yes there is that too! I'm told its because the previous, previous owner had a bumper protector on which rubbed the boot! Quite silly, really.

I will touch it in for now, then potentially ask a favour from a friend or get a quote from the dreaded Chips Away!

[Court_S]

Max M4X WW said:

Yes there is that too! I'm told its because the previous, previous owner had a bumper protector on which rubbed the boot! Quite silly, really.

I will touch it in for now, then potentially ask a favour from a friend or get a quote from the dreaded Chips Away!

How are the sides of the bootlid? The areas under the black plastic seem to get crusty as well.

Pic taken from a forum.

[pmorg4]

Court_S said:

How are the sides of the bootlid? The areas under the black plastic seem to get crusty as well.

Pic taken from a forum.

These cars are generally quite good from a rust proofing perspective (compared to the E46 at least) but that area is just poor design and is asking for all the protection to be rubbed away by the trim leading to inevitable rusting. Unfortunately due to the positioning around a seam and various holes etc it's not easy to sort once it starts.

[Court_S]

pmorg4 said:

These cars are generally quite good from a rust proofing perspective (compared to the E46 at least) but that area is just poor design and is asking for all the protection to be rubbed away by the trim leading to inevitable rusting. Unfortunately due to the positioning around a seam and various holes etc it's not easy to sort once it starts.

Yeah, compared to the E46/39 they’re a dream from a rust resistance point of view. The tailgate is a crap design though, I need to do something with the 330i. I doubt it’ll be solved but it I can hold it off from getting too bad I’ll take that for now.

There’s that and the small bubble on the nearside rear arch to sort.

[Max M4X WW]

I've just given the car a good wash, and I think I did see a bit of "worming" on the tailgate on one side where those photos show. Annoyingly all the shuts are filthy, which will add to this issue.

I've also put some standard grilles back on, which I much prefer!