E91 Straight Six Bearding

[Court_S]

VS02 said:

I requested the original wheels and the seller took offence .

I’m going to try and get that E92 bought this week

The style 225’s on the E92 are prone to cracking. One of mine was replaced not long to me buying mine and when I swapped for CSL’s, the other one had a bloody crack in it too.

[VS02]

Court_S said:

The style 225’s on the E92 are prone to cracking. One of mine was replaced not long to me buying mine and when I swapped for CSL’s, the other one had a bloody crack in it too.

Excuse me for naivety but do cracked alloys present a safety flaw ?

[Court_S]

VS02 said:

Excuse me for naivety but do cracked alloys present a safety flaw ?

It’s less than ideal!

On a more serious note, mine seemed to be holding air despite the small crack.

[dhutch]

cerb4.5lee said:

Le Mans Blue suits everything for me!

Do like a deep rich blue.
Also like a fast estate.

Neither are grey, which is nice.

I've seen worse wheels. But you can easy swap them.

[dhutch]

Court_S said:

My experience is that they’re interested in newer cars (valuations for my old M140i were strong) but they couldn’t give a fig about older stuff like my 130i or my other half’s 125i, so I don’t think they’re a great gauge for stuff like that.

This. They 'offered' me something like £250 for the E46, very good condition, low mileage 330ci. But as you say, not their bag.

survivalist said:

Blueprint said:

I miss my N54 335i. It's basically the same engine as the E46 330i (M54) with direct injection and couple of turbos.

Like that.

[dhutch]

VS02 said:

I would prefer an M Sport in automatic.

Not sure if I've missed the answer, but why auto?

[VS02]

dhutch said:

Not sure if I've missed the answer, but why auto?

My family all share cars, thats why I am the policy holder of a multi car policy insuring myself on some vehicles of family and friends that I drive regularly.

My mum never learnt manual due to rushing to get a driving licence during pregnancy and my dad has mostly given up manual to injury. I insisted on doing a manual test and driving a manual car and I have never heard the end of it so auto it is.

Shame as everyone says the auto is lazy. I’ve never driven a E9x auto, nor a torque converter (I don’t think a shagged out ancient Sprinter work van counts). I’m not expecting it to drive anything like a DCT so I think XHP will be in order to give it a bit more spirit.

I drove a 330i (N53) in manual a few days ago and I thought the manual gearbox was excellent. It’s not mandatory to get an auto, after all my mum survived nr 3 yrs without using my Polo

Edited by VS02 on Wednesday 8th June 22:32

[Court_S]

VS02 said:

My family all share cars, thats why I am the policy holder of a multi car policy insuring myself on some vehicles of family and friends that I drive regularly.

My mum never learnt manual due to rushing to get a driving licence during pregnancy and my dad has mostly given up manual to injury. I insisted on doing a manual test and driving a manual car and I have never heard the end of it so auto it is.

Shame as everyone says the auto is lazy. I’ve never driven a E9x auto, nor a torque converter (I don’t think a shagged out ancient Sprinter work van counts). I’m not expecting it to drive anything like a DCT so I think XHP will be in order to give it a bit more spirit.

I drove a 330i (N53) in manual a few days ago and I thought the manual gearbox was excellent. It’s not mandatory to get an auto, after all my mum survived nr 3 yrs without using my Polo

Edited by VS02 on Wednesday 8th June 22:32

An auto will widen the search. A decent 330 manual is pretty tough to come by because most people opted for the auto.

My friend has had his car and gearbox mapped and says it’s a big improvement; they actually work together now.

[cerb4.5lee]

VS02 said:

Shame as everyone says the auto is lazy. I’ve never driven a E9x auto, nor a torque converter (I don’t think a shagged out ancient Sprinter work van counts). I’m not expecting it to drive anything like a DCT so I think XHP will be in order to give it a bit more spirit.

I always have a little moan about the ZF6 auto when it is mated to the N52 engine. I had my E90 330i auto for almost 4 years(so it couldn't have been all that bad!), but I never really thought that it suited the engine though.

The E90 is a fairly heavy car, so for me they suit a more torquey engine than the N52. Plus the auto also seems to hamper the N52 engine in my view(it feels dim-witted when it is mated to a NA engine in my experience).

So for me I'd rather go for the E9x 330d/335d/335i with the auto, and I'd go for the manual in the E9x 325i/330i.

[Swervin_Mervin]

The auto is absolutely fine, and it's not as lazy as everyone makes out. And if you want a thrash, knock it over into manual mode. I've had mine 10yrs this year and I genuinely don't find it an issue. I could find you more issues with the more modern ZF8 that everyone raves about.

One small positive I do know about the auto - it will shift up into as high a gear as it can if your water temp is getting too high - a sure fire indicator that your water pump has shat its biscuits.

[bmwmike]

Swervin_Mervin said:

The auto is absolutely fine, and it's not as lazy as everyone makes out. And if you want a thrash, knock it over into manual mode. I've had mine 10yrs this year and I genuinely don't find it an issue. I could find you more issues with the more modern ZF8 that everyone raves about.

One small positive I do know about the auto - it will shift up into as high a gear as it can if your water temp is getting too high - a sure fire indicator that your water pump has shat its biscuits.

I agree with that, i regularly use manual mode on my zf8 (mated to an n53 272ps) and give it a good thrashing and use full rev range, its also the only way to get the auto to use the full torque of the engine in a single gear. Also it changes faster than i ever could, and without having to take your foot off the throttle I am not sure i'd go back to manual.

What issues do you know of with the zf8 out of interest? Mine is at 80k near enough and i'm on the fence of servicing it or moving the car on as i've had it a long time and think i fancy a change, but not sure what to get.

[Swervin_Mervin]

bmwmike said:

I agree with that, i regularly use manual mode on my zf8 (mated to an n53 272ps) and give it a good thrashing and use full rev range, its also the only way to get the auto to use the full torque of the engine in a single gear. Also it changes faster than i ever could, and without having to take your foot off the throttle I am not sure i'd go back to manual.

What issues do you know of with the zf8 out of interest? Mine is at 80k near enough and i'm on the fence of servicing it or moving the car on as i've had it a long time and think i fancy a change, but not sure what to get.

I didn't get on with the one we had in our F20 125i. I found it quite agricultural at times. Sometimes too eager to drop a gear, quite often the changes would be a bit rough. It would invariably improve with an adaptations reset, but would gradually slide back into being a bit st. Maybe we just had a bad one, but I did find the same in a few courtesy cars - F30 series models usually.

I'm not really a huge fan of the DSG in our Skoda either. I sometimes wonder if the chase for quick shift times - which does result in some surprising 0-60 times for some cars (5.7s for our Superb 272!) - has come at the loss of refinement.

[Court_S]

Swervin_Mervin said:

I didn't get on with the one we had in our F20 125i. I found it quite agricultural at times. Sometimes too eager to drop a gear, quite often the changes would be a bit rough. It would invariably improve with an adaptations reset, but would gradually slide back into being a bit st. Maybe we just had a bad one, but I did find the same in a few courtesy cars - F30 series models usually.

I'm not really a huge fan of the DSG in our Skoda either. I sometimes wonder if the chase for quick shift times - which does result in some surprising 0-60 times for some cars (5.7s for our Superb 272!) - has come at the loss of refinement.

What year was your 125i?

I think they changed the software a few times. My late M140i was much smoother / slushier than the 2018 car I drove which was much more aggressive in it’s changes. The changes on the ZF8 in my 140i were super smooth.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Ours was a 2012 model with the Sport Auto mapping. Courtesy cars would've been more like 2016-2018 models I suspect.

Stil debating what to do with my 330. I'm waiting for some funds to come my way and was all set to change. But what I want to change to has shot up in sales prices by £5k or so, whereas the 330 will barely have shifted much at all I suspect. What I don't want to do is change and then the chip shortage sort itself out and suddenly find myself in a car that's lost £5k very quickly.

I still love the 330 but it really is time for a change after 10yrs and nearly 75k miles!

[Court_S]

Swervin_Mervin said:

Ours was a 2012 model with the Sport Auto mapping. Courtesy cars would've been more like 2016-2018 models I suspect.

Stil debating what to do with my 330. I'm waiting for some funds to come my way and was all set to change. But what I want to change to has shot up in sales prices by £5k or so, whereas the 330 will barely have shifted much at all I suspect. What I don't want to do is change and then the chip shortage sort itself out and suddenly find myself in a car that's lost £5k very quickly.

I still love the 330 but it really is time for a change after 10yrs and nearly 75k miles!

I think they engineered in quite a lot of shunt to make it feel 'exciting'. It was certainly not apparent in my 140i which was very smooth, especially when driving normally. I think it changed quite significantly for 68 plate cars on. Lots of owners on BabyBMW were moaning about their cars post software updates.

The cost to change is getting pretty silly now.

[bmwmike]

Swervin_Mervin said:

Ours was a 2012 model with the Sport Auto mapping. Courtesy cars would've been more like 2016-2018 models I suspect.

Stil debating what to do with my 330. I'm waiting for some funds to come my way and was all set to change. But what I want to change to has shot up in sales prices by £5k or so, whereas the 330 will barely have shifted much at all I suspect. What I don't want to do is change and then the chip shortage sort itself out and suddenly find myself in a car that's lost £5k very quickly.

I still love the 330 but it really is time for a change after 10yrs and nearly 75k miles!

Good going. I'm 50k into a 530i (n53, 2012, only a few made ) and owned it 7 years.

Must admit i don't fully recognise your complaints of the zf8 either, but, it can be a little clunky when cold and always has been, but mostly very smooth. It does try to keep the revs around 1000 when cruising around in comfort/D but that's easily sorted. Wierd thing is, in sport mode when i first had it, would make a "distant" siren noise like there were police cars following but its gone away all by itself. I know a few people had boxes replaced because of that, only to have the new ones make the same noise. Only did it in DS never D or manual. That's my only real complaint with it, and it fixed itself - if only every fault did hehe.

[bodhi]

Swervin_Mervin said:

The auto is absolutely fine, and it's not as lazy as everyone makes out. And if you want a thrash, knock it over into manual mode. I've had mine 10yrs this year and I genuinely don't find it an issue. I could find you more issues with the more modern ZF8 that everyone raves about.

One small positive I do know about the auto - it will shift up into as high a gear as it can if your water temp is getting too high - a sure fire indicator that your water pump has shat its biscuits.

Only real issues I found with the ZF6 were:

- Bit lazy in normal mode
- Not great for fuel consumpation, costing around 6 or 7 MPG compared to the manual.

First bit can be fixed via Sport/Manual mode, second part was more of an issue for me. Add in the 1 Series works better with a manual that's the way I went, but think the ZF6 suits the 3 Series a bit better.

[ferrisbueller]

Swervin_Mervin said:

Stil debating what to do with my 330. I'm waiting for some funds to come my way and was all set to change. But what I want to change to has shot up in sales prices by £5k or so, whereas the 330 will barely have shifted much at all I suspect. What I don't want to do is change and then the chip shortage sort itself out and suddenly find myself in a car that's lost £5k very quickly.

I still love the 330 but it really is time for a change after 10yrs and nearly 75k miles!

I had a similar tenure and only sold when running costs and how I was using the car didn't really make sense anymore. The problem is that, ignoring cost to change for a moment, there aren't many appealing alternatives. You're into the realms of complexity that doesn't really add value and turbocharged, relatively characterless, motors.

I looked at the swap to 235 and M2 and neither were for me. I considered RS4 and such but the potential running costs were wince inducing. The beauty of the 330i for me was that it did 80+% of what an M3 would do for the vast majority of the time at, based on my experience of dailying M3s previously, a fraction of the cost. As a doitall car, they're really very good.

I genuinely couldn't find another similar car. I somewhat surprisingly found myself in the Toyota dealership buying a brand new car, which I always said I would never do, with an old small hatch for mundane duties, costing peanuts to run.

[VS02]

Swervin_Mervin said:

Ours was a 2012 model with the Sport Auto mapping. Courtesy cars would've been more like 2016-2018 models I suspect.

Stil debating what to do with my 330. I'm waiting for some funds to come my way and was all set to change. But what I want to change to has shot up in sales prices by £5k or so, whereas the 330 will barely have shifted much at all I suspect. What I don't want to do is change and then the chip shortage sort itself out and suddenly find myself in a car that's lost £5k very quickly.

I still love the 330 but it really is time for a change after 10yrs and nearly 75k miles!

What is wrong with your 330?

[Swervin_Mervin]

VS02 said:

Swervin_Mervin said:

Ours was a 2012 model with the Sport Auto mapping. Courtesy cars would've been more like 2016-2018 models I suspect.

Stil debating what to do with my 330. I'm waiting for some funds to come my way and was all set to change. But what I want to change to has shot up in sales prices by £5k or so, whereas the 330 will barely have shifted much at all I suspect. What I don't want to do is change and then the chip shortage sort itself out and suddenly find myself in a car that's lost £5k very quickly.

I still love the 330 but it really is time for a change after 10yrs and nearly 75k miles!

What is wrong with your 330?

Nothing, generally speaking. I just want a change. 10yrs in one car is a long time - more than twice as long as the last car I owned. I need a V8 in my life!

If you're specifically asking what's actually wrong with it, mainly leaks (rack, sump and valve covers), and the bodywork of a 16yr old car. I'm not one to worry about oil leaks tbh - as long as they're not gushing it's not really an issue. But some people get really hung up about these things.

It's generally very healthy mechanically though, and still looks good from 10yds! If I had the space I'd probably never sell it tbh.