E91 Straight Six Bearding

[JakeT]

Sir_Dave said:

Realistically speaking, running a 335i is perfectly fine if you are handy with the spanners and have proper diagnostic/coding abilities.
If you have neither of those, dont go anywhere near one

For reference, i've had the following e90's:

e92 320i N43 manual, 10k miles - absolute st, unreliable st box, company car. Did i mention it was st?
e90 M3, S65, 61k miles, manual - 21mpg, 8k+ rpm. daft engine in a normal(ish) looking 3 series. I had one before everyone worried about bearings & actuators, but having had a couple of e46 M3's before it, any unusual noise still instilled the fear of immediate wallet emptying.
e91 330d N57 auto, 90k miles - 42mpg, xhp transmission flash woke up the gearbox, great daily
e90 330i N52 manual, 130k miles - lovely engine, bomb proof, cost bugger all to run, barring fuel
e91 325i N53 manual, 110k miles - noisy engine on idle, plenty of fuel/spark related things to break, pretty slow, very good mpg however.
e91 LCI 335d M57 auto, 234k miles - EGR/DPF delete and 375bhp/580lb ft of torque courtesy of BWChiptune. The thing was a monster once locked into 3rd, no major mechanicals changed in a quite ridiclous number of miles, felt like it would do another 200k easily. Very quickly, at 42mpg. No idea why i sold it.
e90 335i N54 manual, 116k miles - MHD Stage 1 map, circa 360bhp, goes very well. Replaced the coil packs/sparkplugs, gave it a service and thats it. Its had some electrical issues, but thats what happens when you start messing about with rewiring CIC retrofits and forget to disconnect the battery Theh have the same issues with fuel/spark related gremlins as per the N53's, but also have the added fun of a pair of impossible to get at turbos. Realistically speaking, these things will go on rattling their wastegates off for years before failing, but when they do, its £1200 or so to sort now.
e91 LCI 335i N54 auto, 14k miles - totally standard, havent really driven it yet, so cant comment on reliability.

For me, each engine/car has their pluses/minuses, but for me, if you want cheap/bombproof & fun, buy a 330i, if you want daft oomf, but decent mpg, buy a 335d, then if you want the potential to have a massive power sleeper, but are happy for it to break down on occasion, buy a 335i.

That's a good summary, and is the general consensus of these engines.

Doing 25,000 miles per year I chose a 330i. I had a 330d before and just did not get on with it. Not to mention the 330d would do 8 MPG better on my commute than the 330i does, so not enough to worry about in the grand scheme of things. Plus something like a set of injectors would more than spend any savings I'd have made. Both of them had a manual gearbox.

Nowadays if I was buying an N53 or N54 car I'd be putting the latest injectors in it straight away unless it already had 6 matching recent injectors. I'd also do plugs and coils to make sure it runs right. They're great when on song. I drove a 630i from Loughton in Essex to Reading and did almost 50 to the gallon, but the mate that owns it keeps battling with failing injectors. He's now going to just replace them all so that the lumpy idle when cold is gone.

The M57 is the best of the diesel engines really, they don't break. I had a 530d with other 230,000 miles on it still on the original injectors, clutch and... Everything. N57 engines share the timing chain components with the N47. There's a decent amount with rattling chains and ones that 'just needs an engine'. Lack of stop start in the E90 platform and usually having an easier life helps them last longer.

[tenmantaylor]

Assuming you got 30mpg out of the 330i and 38mpg out of the 330d when doing 25k a year... don't know how rich you are but £1200 a year, after tax, isn't an insignificant amount to me.

Having owned a 330d I got minimum 42mpg out of a tank. Close to 50mpg on long trips.

[bodhi]

tenmantaylor said:

Assuming you got 30mpg out of the 330i and 38mpg out of the 330d when doing 25k a year... don't know how rich you are but £1200 a year, after tax, isn't an insignificant amount to me.

Having owned a 330d I got minimum 42mpg out of a tank. Close to 50mpg on long trips.

Personally when I was doing a lot of miles I stuck with petrol (an E36 328i) as I would rather have a nice engine than an extra 100 quid in my bank account.

[JakeT]

tenmantaylor said:

Assuming you got 30mpg out of the 330i and 38mpg out of the 330d when doing 25k a year... don't know how rich you are but £1200 a year, after tax, isn't an insignificant amount to me.

Having owned a 330d I got minimum 42mpg out of a tank. Close to 50mpg on long trips.

Long term from the 330i is 35. The 330d did about 40-43 usually. That was in warmer weather, too. Cold weather and short trips really killed it. Much moreso than the 330i.

I can certainly say it isn't £1,200 a year in fuel savings from the 330d. I am not rich enough to ignore that sort of saving. It's maybe £500. I know it's not an insignificant difference, but to drive something I really enjoy driving vs something that I didn't like at all I would rather pay the extra £50ish a month.

I know Gizlaroc did more maths than me, and found it very close for a lot of driving, which also swayed me out of diesel.

[gizlaroc]

tenmantaylor said:

Assuming you got 30mpg out of the 330i and 38mpg out of the 330d when doing 25k a year... don't know how rich you are but £1200 a year, after tax, isn't an insignificant amount to me.

Having owned a 330d I got minimum 42mpg out of a tank. Close to 50mpg on long trips.

All about perspective and overall costs though.

When they were new, these were loosing around £600 a month doing £25k a year.
At 3 years old they were loosing £450 a month doing that mileage.
At 6 years old they will still be loosing £250-300 a month.

The 330i is returning 32mpg at the moment for me, so £86 a week in fuel.
And auto 330d would be returning around 38mpg average, so £74 a week.
That is £12 a week or £624 a year.

I'm talking averages here, yeah the 330d can see high 40s on a steady run, but then the 330i would be seeing 41/42 as well.

You then have servicing, tyres, insurance, tax etc.

So lets say £250 a month in depreciation and £100 in servicing, tax, insurance?
Then you have fuel at either £320 for the diesel or £372 for the petrol.

So it is £670 vs £722, or 7% difference.

If it is a new car it is more like £920 a month vs £972, so 5% difference.

That is someone doing 25k a year, and people still buy a new diesel to save money doing only 12k a year, which is not really saving a thing. If you can't afford £6 a week don't buy a new BMW.

[Swervin_Mervin]

I have never seen anything near 40s from my 330i! I have a best of 34!!

[gizlaroc]

Really?

If I sit at 60mph it will hit 42mpg, but by the time I get to the end of the tank it is NEVER above 34/35.

But the same with the 335d, that was always 38mpg at the end of the tank at best.

I often get 27mpg at the end of a tank too, but them I would get 32mpg over a tank for the 335d.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Err, I've never sat at 60...

That 34mpg was 3.5 up, full boot, full roofbox, at a steady 80 to be fair

Edited by Swervin_Mervin on Friday 31st January 23:58

[cerb4.5lee]

Swervin_Mervin said:

I have never seen anything near 40s from my 330i! I have a best of 34!!

The best I ever saw from my E90 330i was 38mpg when I babied it on a long run. It was shockingly thirsty if you put your foot down though!

Mine was an auto though and I believe that the manual is far better on fuel from what I read.

[bmwmike]

MPGzzzzzzzzzZ best way to kill a thread.

[cerb4.5lee]

bmwmike said:

MPGzzzzzzzzzZ best way to kill a thread.

I've never seen anything above 22mpg out of my 370Z if that helps!

[bmwmike]

cerb4.5lee said:

bmwmike said:

MPGzzzzzzzzzZ best way to kill a thread.

I've never seen anything above 22mpg out of my 370Z if that helps!

Ha, but no. I know mpg is important to people who do a gazillion miles but I don't understand why every single thread descends into mpg discussion like it's the only important attribute.

[Mr Tidy]

cerb4.5lee said:

bmwmike said:

MPGzzzzzzzzzZ best way to kill a thread.

I've never seen anything above 22mpg out of my 370Z if that helps!

Wow - even my Z4M Coupe is showing 26.4 mpg on the OBC, and I thought that was thirsty!

But my daily 330i with the N52 engine is managing 32 mpg over the 5,000 miles I've had it - and while a diesel might do better I really don't care! A diesel will never be as good to drive.

[MikeM6]

cerb4.5lee said:

I've never seen anything above 22mpg out of my 370Z if that helps!

Pah, I got 13mpg out of a recent tank.

I did manage 24mpg on a trip to Norfolk though, single carriage way and traffic meant I wasn't going anywhere fast for 2 1/2 hours.

[cerb4.5lee]

MikeM6 said:

Pah, I got 13mpg out of a recent tank.

I can relate to that and 12mpg used to be pretty normal for me in my X5 4.8iS on my commute...because I enjoyed listening to the engine a bit too much!

My E92 M3 was a little bit better at 17/18 mpg though. I'd love a V10 like you for sure!

Apologies for carrying on the mpg chat.

I do enjoy reading about everyones experience with different engines though.

[gizlaroc]

tenmantaylor said:

Having owned a 330d I got minimum 42mpg out of a tank. Close to 50mpg on long trips.

580 to 700 miles a tank, that is pretty impressive.

The OBC used to say 48mpg average on Fiona's E91 320d touring, the reality was more like 540 miles a tank, which is more like 39mpg.

Don't think we ever saw close to 700 miles, so to get that on a 330d is impressive I reckon.

[ferrisbueller]

gizlaroc said:

tenmantaylor said:

Assuming you got 30mpg out of the 330i and 38mpg out of the 330d when doing 25k a year... don't know how rich you are but £1200 a year, after tax, isn't an insignificant amount to me.

Having owned a 330d I got minimum 42mpg out of a tank. Close to 50mpg on long trips.

All about perspective and overall costs though.

When they were new, these were loosing around £600 a month doing £25k a year.
At 3 years old they were loosing £450 a month doing that mileage.
At 6 years old they will still be loosing £250-300 a month.

The 330i is returning 32mpg at the moment for me, so £86 a week in fuel.
And auto 330d would be returning around 38mpg average, so £74 a week.
That is £12 a week or £624 a year.

I'm talking averages here, yeah the 330d can see high 40s on a steady run, but then the 330i would be seeing 41/42 as well.

You then have servicing, tyres, insurance, tax etc.

So lets say £250 a month in depreciation and £100 in servicing, tax, insurance?
Then you have fuel at either £320 for the diesel or £372 for the petrol.

So it is £670 vs £722, or 7% difference.

If it is a new car it is more like £920 a month vs £972, so 5% difference.

That is someone doing 25k a year, and people still buy a new diesel to save money doing only 12k a year, which is not really saving a thing. If you can't afford £6 a week don't buy a new BMW.

Boom!

[JakeT]

I knew Giz would come along with the evidence I needed.

I've managed to average over 40 to the gallon for an entire tank once. Mostly a week of boring outside of rush hour driving from Newbury to Maidstone and back. 480 miles of driving before the fuel light came on.


In other news, I took mine to balance my wheels today, since fitting the winters I've had a bit of a 'vibration'. They all needed some weights, so rebalanced fine, but one of the rears was the cause of this. 43/18 production Goodyear Ultragrip Gen1 winter tyre with maybe 12,000 miles on it has an inner sidewall issue. Not sure how long for, since these have been on (with this mild vibration/noise) since October. New one on order and will go on next week.

Also thinking about a new set of summer wheels. Currently have a set of MV3 wheels, but thinking about a set of 17 inch summers. Either:



Style 188s. I believe Zippy has these on his. Staggered 17 inch set.



Style 286s. Same sizes.



BBS SR. 17 inch. The pricey option.

[tenmantaylor]

gizlaroc said:

tenmantaylor said:

Having owned a 330d I got minimum 42mpg out of a tank. Close to 50mpg on long trips.

580 to 700 miles a tank, that is pretty impressive.

The OBC used to say 48mpg average on Fiona's E91 320d touring, the reality was more like 540 miles a tank, which is more like 39mpg.

Don't think we ever saw close to 700 miles, so to get that on a 330d is impressive I reckon.

I have a 320d e91 Manual now and I never (unless hooning it consistantly) get less than 50mpg out of a tank (A road driving, not much town). So always 600+ a tank. 700 when longer trips in the mix. Even a 200 mile round trip with 3 mountain bikes on the roof rack, a car full of kit and 3 blokes in the car it still did 42mpg going 60-70mph on the motorway recently.

[six port]

After a few older 6 cylinder BMWs we've picked up a sensible 3.0 lci 325i touring auto.
Stood out to us as a 1 owner, FBMWSH, 54k miles. Its an se which we wanted without leather. Did all the n53 checks, runs great although no history of injector replacement we decided to play n53 roulette anyway. Great lazy cruiser, still feels like a new car with an old skool feel. Hopefully treats us well. Been blasting shell super through it as I think it's sat for a while before we got it (was serviced on collection). Some YouTube videos claiming injectors were a full re call I've seen, has anyone had these done through BMW?