Another silver BMW - 2005 330i Touring

[JakeT]

Not an exciting update here. Still tramping on, passing through 194,000 miles this weekend.

Nipped the engine cover off to look at what will need doing soon. Valvetronic motor gasket is leaking.



I’ll get one ordered and fit it. And an oil cap too, as I think that’s leaking slightly. Surprisingly the valve cover isn’t leaking, which is good going for the mileage. I’ll probably leave that alone and just do the valvetronic one, and see how we go. Off to Sweden at the end of the month.

[JakeT]

4 Year Update

Well, I didn't think I'd really own this for so long. But a pandemic, and other things put paid to that. 2020 and 2022 have been the only years since I passed my test where I haven't bought or sold a car.

That said, according to my records, I bought this on the 25th June 2019, with 138,225 miles on the clock. Conveniently, the mileage it currently sits on is... 198,159. A nice 59,934 miles, or 14,983 miles per year. Considering I've been primarily working from home since March 2020, it's not bad going.

In the previous 4 years, it's visited:

• France
• Belgium
• Luxembourg
• The Netherlands
• Germany
• Lichenstein
• Austria
• Switzerland
• Denmark
• Sweden
• All four furthest extremeties of the continuous Great Britain.

I'd like to visit Italy, or Spain and Portuagal, soon. Tentative plans are afoot.

And, what does it take to keep one of these 'fighting fit' over advancing age and miles?

• 6 Oil Changes and Microfilters
• 3 Air Filters
• 1 pair of Rear brake calipers
• 1 set of rear brake pads
• 1 Waterpump (This was preventative, really.)
• 2 Thermosats (One wasn't really needed as the thermostad had died)
• 1 Starter Motor
• 1 AC Compressor
• 1 Belt, and tensioner
• 1 Battery
• 2 Rear suspension arms
• Rear Brake lines
• A couple of gaskets

There's also lots of elective spending, that probably wasn't needed. Lots of while you're in there jobs, and a new Birds B3 kit. So, what was the cost for this?

A total of... £6,945.32. And that excludes tyres and cash bits.

How does it feel after these miles now? Well, it's definitely not brand new. But it's still willing, and will go (on road) Anywhere. It's been ever the faithful companion. Births, Christenings, weddinds, and indeed funerals. It does it all, and has been faultlessly reliable in doing so. I should hope so, with such lavish expenditure on an old car.

I was going to save this write-up for 200k, but this is a nice time to do it. What are the plans for it, currently? Not a lot, really. I need to change the oil soon, which is on order, and resolve an oil leak from (I think) the valvetronic gasket. The rear subframe needs tidying up as it's getting quite grotty, and some paintwork. Otherwise, I'll do what it does best. Drive it some more, and more, and more...

I'll get some pics soon, too. Have one for now. In Belgium, on a nice jolly. (Wearing winter wheels)

[JakeT]

Court_S said:

Good update; it’s certainly been well used and done some great euro trips.

I’m growing very found of our E91 very quickly, even though it’s like an oven in this weather with no A/C!

I’ve got a few leaks to look into but it’s coming up to 161k.

The no AC would get me. These cars are kind of crap with the window down and no sunroof (on mine) for ventilation doesn’t help. You’ll get there though, it’s just a little galling to have to do this work so soon.

Mr Tidy said:

That's good going!

I bought my E90 330i in March 2019 and it's only done about 15K miles since then. But I did a 500+ mile round trip in 2 days last week and it performed brilliantly. Then again it's only done 121K miles.

Good stuff. Easy miles, since they’re a modern day Sierra equivalent. I think my max miles for a day is 550 in one trip. Neither the car, or I minded really.

d_a_n1979 said:

That's a cracking update and inside story; great touring

My pals E91 330D and his Dad's F31 330D are both about to cross 200k miles; a lot of trips to Germany & back for the 'job' they do... TBH the E91 seems to have faired better bodywork wise; but as you've said re yours, his rear subframe looks a bit hammered. He's ordered a better condition 2nd hand one and it's coming to me to take to my pal's powdercoating business later this week, then I think he's going to rebuild it, but all OEM (Lemforder etc)

I really wanted an E91 (335i ideally) but when I'd test driven a few 320Ds local to me (which TBH were great cars, very well looked after etc); just too small for me

The F31 is much roomier

When I bought this I was expecting to do 30k per year, but things changed fortunately. My plan is the same for the rear subframe. I may put M3 subframe bushes in though, as standard E90 ones are quite soft to account for the run flat tyres these cars came with new.

F31 is definitely larger, even though the E90 is becoming a mini 5 series.

[JakeT]

Agreed, Mervin. Absolutely. They also still drive very well too and don’t suffer from the malaise of driving dynamics that many modern cars seem to. These are all good reasons to do some more rust prevention, as that will be what takes it off of the road.

Just picked up a Valvetronic motor gasket and another 5l of screenwash from BMW. I will probably do those bits on Saturday.

[JakeT]

Final service pre-200k today. Oil, filter, air filter, microfilter, and a valvetronic gasket to take care of a weep that's been there for a while now.

As you can see below, the mess had accumulated after some time, I've been meaning to get around to it for a while, but didn't. Until today.



As it's an early (08/2005) build car, many instructions on the internet didn't really work that well, and the wiring harness for coils, and the motor can't be removed without renewing the bolts that fasten it down. So I left it there. Getting the motor out is very tight, and the screw at the bottom that secures the motor is tricky to access. Can't get an E8 Torx spanner on it, and my E8 torx socket was too fat. Fortunately a quarter inch fits it perfectly, and it came out fine.

With the motor out, the eccentric cam gear is a little worn, but it's been used for nearly 200k now, so I'll forgive it. Everything still seems to work fine, so no complaints. Noted at the bottom is lots of the oil reside where it's been slowly leaking for some time.



Cleaned up (sort of) and back together. The bottom bolt was installed the other way around, as per newer cars. Far easier to do up.


Oil changed, and other bits done, and taken for a run to check the oil level. As it should be.

[JakeT]

pmorg4 said:

Good stuff, here’s to the next 200k! Nice to see an N52 being well looked after into higher mileages, as it does feel like an engine that will happily do mega miles.

Cheers. It seems fine now knock on wood, so I’ll keep running it for foreseeable, honestly. Considering there’s ones with far more miles than mine, I’m happy there.

Max M4X WW said:

I always enjoy checking in on this thread and was mildly annoyed to see you took the E36 today, especially as I was viewing an E91 330i touring straight after the event Didn't manage to catch you either as the carpark was all a bit disjointed!

Anyway, I've just sent you an email from your profile as I have a couple of questions regarding N52's!

Cheers

Apologies, max. I saw E36 attendance was low, so figured I should pump that number up a little bit. I had to dart a little earlier than planned, so didn’t catch you.

Seen your PM though, and replied.

[JakeT]

Crossed the magic milestone. Fortunately there was a very convenient lay-by to stop and capture said moment.

[JakeT]

Thank you, all. Onwards indeed! I don’t have any plans as to how far it will go, but I’ll keep driving it and doing what I can.

[JakeT]

No big update, but MOT day today. Passed, with advisories for rear subframe corrosion and floor pans at the back, too. Not unexpected, and I slightly expected worse.

All I’ve done since the last test is drive it (16k), and service it twice. Good car. Here for another year. I best do some de-rusting on the rear undercarriage too, I suppose.

[JakeT]

It is! I wasn’t the person with the rolling disco, playing awful music.

I did see your car too, I’d have come over and said hello, but it’s always difficult to find owners once we’re all mixed in.

[JakeT]

We're off to Italy soon, and with a service about due, with it on 207k now. I bought a Filter and microfilter through my good lady at work, as she gets cheap parts, and Opie had a sale on Mobil1 oils, so 7 litres of that. Borrowed a ramp to do it this time, which was convenient.



Now we're over 205k the service indicator has stopped working properly, as expected. It only reset to 14k instead of the usual 19k that it would go to. At some point it won't reset at all and will tell me that a service is always due. BMW have a fix, and so I'll get that applied at some point. It just disables the service indicator for oil, which I don't mind as I do the oil at 10k intervals.

With this done, I tried the snow chains that I purchased too, to have some practice should we need them on a mountain. I'm glad I did, as one of the chains was defective, out of the box. Below is how they should look:


And how one set looked...



The permiter chain was looped through the ones that go over the tread. Fortunately there was a couple of fixings that weren't welded up, so I could open them out and re-route the permiter chain to be correct.

Finally, test fitted...

[JakeT]

Thank you, and you’re right! I don’t think chains are needed in Naples.

That would make it a very early one too. Mine was built on the 30th of August in Munich and was registered on the 23rd of September 2005.

I’ve driven it back to where it was built too, for a novel thing.

[JakeT]

Yes. Here’s a doc from the US regarding the matter. There’s a job in ISTA to disable it.

https://www.e90post.com/forums/attachment.php?atta...

I’ve also read the doc from BMW UK on the matter as my good lady has access to all of the TSBs and the like. At some point soon I’ll get it disabled, but for now it’s fine.

[JakeT]

It’s easily fixed though, INPA does it, and some third party scanners will do it also. Honestly I won’t miss the oil change reminder, I am quite militant about doing it at fixed intervals.

[JakeT]

Thank you both, we did Switzerland and Austria in 2022, and Sweden in 2023. Funnily enough, my vignette is still stuck on too!

I don’t think my 330i will do anywhere near 900 miles to a tank. With careful driving it will do 500, but not a huge amount more.

[JakeT]

We did it over a few days as a part of a wider trip, but our route took us on the overnight ferry from Harwich to Hook van Holland, which is very recommended. Cuts a lot of driving, and you can have a bed for the night.

From there it’s easy to cross The Netherlands, and have a stop in northern Germany (Hamburg is nice). Then it’s head north, a bit of Island hopping and enter Sweden through the Oresund bridge.

Our route was a little different it was a part of a larger trip. We had a couple of nights in Amsterdam, then Hamburg. Then we went further north in Denmark to Aarhus, as my brother used to live there and it was nice to revisit. Following that we crossed Denmark, and into Sweden. We visited Gothenburg and Malmö and bits on the southern peninsula before departing back to Copenhagen, and onwards on the trip.

I’d very much recommend this, as it’s not hard driving, and you could be in Sweden 2 nights after leaving home with a couple of easy days travel.

[JakeT]

Well, we came back from Italy on Sunday. Car was fine, albeit has a mild rattle from somewhere (maybe heat shield) so I’ll need to sort that.

We had an overnight in Reims. After an excellent steak tartare and champagne, having had a good snooze we opted to swing by the old Reims-Gueux circuit. Done it a few times now and it’s always cool.



Saw some cool Panda 4x4s in Italy, this green one standing out…




Did some some skiing, saw some great sights, and went as high as we could by Gondola.



And the results on arriving home. Half a litre of oil used, which is about par for the course for this now.



210k miles and still rolling on. For how much longer, I don’t know. We have a house move coming up and I’d like to save the pennies, so hopefully it gives another year of good motoring.

Looking forward to a summer trip now. We’re either thinking of Portugal, or Croatia. We’ll have to see what’s what…

[JakeT]

Court_S said:

Looks like a good trip.

If it’s not a rust bucket, I’m sure it’ll go on for a while yet. My mates old 125i was still going strong at 250-odd K.

That’s the issue, it’s getting there. Rear subframe is getting badly, and the floors around it like the mounts and the rear floor pans are looking ripe. Rust will be what finishes this off. Honestly, it’s 19 in August and hasn’t faired badly compared to the E46 of similar age I owned before it. On that one the nearside front subframe mount pulled through the boot floor.

Mr Tidy said:

That sounds like a great trip - these cars are so relaxed on a long trip.

My 2005 330i (E90) uses oil at that sort of rate too - it seems to be par for the course.

Good to know my 124K miler probably has many years more left in it!

Having been all over in it, I agree. Rust will see most of these cars off, same as past 3 series also.

Edited by JakeT on Friday 15th March 10:39

[JakeT]

Swervin_Mervin said:

When I had mine in for pulleys on Wed the chap was telling me that they see a few of these still, and they just seem to keep going. Said another customer had a 325 (not sure if i or d) and that he'd just had his in for a refurbed rear subframe to be fitted as the other had got to being an MOT failure. Think he said the chap paid £500 for a refurbed one from somewhere that came with new bushes fitted. Apparently the guy uses it every day up and down the motorway and it's on north of 250k and has no plans to change it.

I had a look on howmanyleft recently and the numbers that were still taxed was incredible - something like 230 out of 280 originally registered (330i that is)

If you could get on top of any body rust then it should keep trucking for a long time yet.

I'd like to get my sill covers off this year and have a see what's going on. Hopefully won't regret looking

You’re right, survival numbers are good. There’s plenty of E90s that look like weighbridge dodgers but they seem to go on, there’s 20 year old ones out there now. What I need to find is a good specialist that will swap the subframe and sort the floor rust for me. Even if it’s £2,000, it’s cheaper than anything else.

Court_S said:

Mine had a subframe fitted by the previous owner because it was so crusty (he decided it was easier to just replace than try and refurb the old one).

I found some surface rust under the arch liners which I treated, unfortunately there is also a slight hole in the drivers side rear arch that needs attending to this year. It didn’t look too bad when it was in the ramps for its last MOT.

Makes sense, I wouldn’t refurbish mine, especially as there will be corrosion on the inside of the voids.

I think that will be a classic rot trap on three cars. Moreso as they have fabric liners which stay wet forever.

[JakeT]

During the Italy trip, sitting at the ET checkin I noticed a rattle from the car, underneath in the middle. Gearbox area. I thought it was a loose heat shield as it wasn’t constant, but then it became more frequent. Under load at low revs, like driving up parking ramps it was a meaty rattle. More than a heatshield, so I did what any good car owner would do. Left it alone. I changed over to my summer wheels today, so had a look. It didn’t take long to find it.



That nut doesn’t look like one anymore…



The bolt came out by hand, impressive it wasn’t blowing in fairness. The E36 was my chariot to go and fetch a suitable nut and bolt from our friends at Halfords.



Better for now. Speaking of the winter wheels. I usually pick the stones out of the tread and give them a look over before storing them, three were fine, but the last one…



Hmmm…





Well, seems luck was on my side with that one, and I need a pair of tyres come winter time.