330ci spec check

[twoblacklines]

Hi all. I thought its time to upgrade from a family man passat to a proper car for a bit.

Ive just come back from an hours test drive of a 2004 330Ci Sport, this one

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/3317480.htm

As you can see it only has 24k and felt like new!

But im wondering if its worth £10k even with that mileage?

I dont have a clue what im looking for spec wise but I notice it hasnt got Satnav, just a tape player with cd changer in the boot, does this mean no harmon/kardon too?

I like that its local (5 miles away) and i cant be bothered looking at cars in scotland when i live in cornwall.

I like the low mileage and it seemed to be in mint condition.

I dont want/need/cant insure (sensibly) an M3.

I loved the steptronic. Never driven an auto before, ever, with the exception of a T5R volvo that blue up 20 miles down the road, and I didnt like the automatic in that.

I dont see myself buying a manual ever again if im honest. Driving my passat home was like driving a tank!

Can you suggest any other 330ci's that might be worth looking at?

Also I noticed at low speeds the exhaust gave a lovely boom, this disappeared at high speeds and even when accelerating, is there a modification to make it there all the time?

Cheers.

[E30M3SE]

HK was available without satnav, but that car does not have HK, nice miles fairly standard spec from the advert.

[dooosuk]

You can disconnect a vacuum pipe from the exhaust to permanently change the tone. I think you need to google 'golf tee mod'.

£10k is a lot of money when you could get one for a lot less(obviously with more miles - but more miles aren't bad as long as it's been serviced properly). I personally prefer the aluminium cubed dash inlays to wood too.

Did it have heated seats? Xenon lights?

Looks to me like a big premium due to the mileage.

[Maxus]

Very nice car but at c£10k you do risk losing a good few grand on that if you only keep it for a couple of years.
Sat nav and Harman Kardon are nice to haves but I would be more concerned about getting the best car condition wise.
As for exhaust mods, there is one called the golf tee mod which keeps the flap in the second exhaust pipe open all the time making it more boomy. I would leave it as it is though, you don't pay top dollar for a minter to then mess it up.

[RESSE]

4 weeks ago I bought a 55,000 mile 330Ci Sport Convertible for £6,500 (pre facelift model).

A lovely car with great specification:
Upgraded BMW stereo to JVC/MP3 unit.
Park distance control
Heated front seats.
Electric folding mirrors £190.00
Grad tint screen £69.99
Front seats heating £320.00
H-Fi Harman Kardon £650.00.
Grey leather £800.00
Bi-Xenon headlamps £545.00
CD 6 changer £250.00

10/2003 SMG or Sequential Manual Gearbox available in conjunction with the sport package (not available in conjunction with the Performance Package or all-wheel drive models).

Does the one you looked at have any more "options".

PS Lovely colour.

[twoblacklines]

I asked about heated seats, they said it doesnt have them. Didnt ask about xenons though, it does have a autodim rear mirror according to them, though I couldnt see a sensor on the mirror. The drivers mirror was angled down and using the control to move it out and upwards, it did nothing at all, which put me off tbh...24k car and already something broken!

I love the colour and would definetly want that colour, or possibly black.

Looking on PH it seems low on spec and isnt even a 2005 so is it worth £9950?? It appears not...

[Phunk]

Auto Dim mirror is standard.

It doesn't move, the Glass tints itself.

£10k is mental for this car.

I sold my 01 330Ci Auto for £4,500 and It was mint.

You can get E92's for £8k now

[philmots]

I'd pay 8k for that all day long, probably a good buy at 8.5k...

Very standard spec, but at least it has leather in the right colour.

One thing you will miss is the armrest (specially with an auto), i belive this was an option but pretty much all had it.. Should be able to retro-fit it, though.

No HK in that, tape player makes the dash look a bit dated IMO. It's a straight swap for a cd unit, though.

Lovely colour.

[sonnyb]

Couple months ago I sold my 2005 330Ci auto M Sport for £8250.
It had 42,000 miles and it had :-

full gray leather
sat nav/dig tv with 2011 disc
Harman/Kardon
power fold mirrors
elec sunroof
cd changer
BMW Xenon
PDC

[4rephill]

twoblacklines said:

...Also I noticed at low speeds the exhaust gave a lovely boom, this disappeared at high speeds and even when accelerating, is there a modification to make it there all the time?

Here is BMW's official explanation of how the standard exhaust system works:


So if the exhaust is working correctly then it should be quieter at low engine speeds and noisy at higher engine speeds (the opposite way round to the way you've described ).

dooosuk said:

You can disconnect a vacuum pipe from the exhaust to permanently change the tone. I think you need to google 'golf tee mod'.

The "golf tee" works by opening the flap at all engine speeds so the car becomes noisier at low engine speeds as well as high engine speeds.
As the OP has said that the car is already noisier at low speeds than high speeds (which is opposite to how it should be), I'd suspect that the golf tee mod has already been done and that the car is not actually quieter at higher speeds, it's just harder to hear the noise from inside the car.

[twoblacklines]

When he started the car it made me smile, lovely loud deep burble from the car, and could hear it at idle, obviously this was a cold start so no idea what effect this had.

When i came back and was manuevering it whilst parking that noise was there.

When driving it normally say 40mph it was silent, except the engine sounded a bit like a hair dryer at all times, i didnt know if this was just loud aircon or whatever though, it sounded like it needed an induction kit however my passat has an airbox mod so thats boomyish (nice noise) and the only other cars i can compare it to is mums tt which burbles away and dads a3 2.0tfsi which also burbles. All three turbocharged so different noise.

I didnt really rev the car high, i used the kickdown a few times and didnt get that lovely burble from the exhaust.

Maybe when i buy it/one i should just put a catback on it or something?

I loved the car and am umming and arring, I have the cash for the car ( i can afford an e46 m3, but i dont want or need that performance) and its a case of mint low mileage car vs fully specced higher mileage car.

Not found any auto 330ci's in that colour for sale either!

[Fox-]

Phunk said:

You can get E92's for £8k now

Not 330i M Sport's you cant, so comparing apples with oranges isn't really useful to the OP. I've just sold a 2008 E92 M Sport and I got £20k for it, so £8k ones are going to be seriously horrible.

It's expensive but it's a facelift low mileage car from a particularly reputable dealer in Cornwall so it's hardly the end of the world.

According to this months Glass's it retails at 8200 with 70k miles on it. Assuming you can haggle 500 quid off the price is a grand premium for hugely less miles really that big a deal?

Sure you can buy an 01 with 100k and 5 previous owners for half the price but then its twice the age?

Don't confuse what a car is worth on the market with whether you think its worth spending that much on that particular car. I don't think its worth spending, say, £10k on a 61 plate Focus but thats what they are worth, for example.

This is the least hassle way of getting into a tidy E46 - many of the cheaper ones have numerous less than careful knuckledragger owners these days complete with super shiney steering wheels, shiney seats and Linglong tyres.

You can buy the comprehensive warranty for this car from BMW for circa £40 a month as well.

Edited by Fox- on Monday 17th October 19:17

[AOK]

Hold out 2 weeks until my company car arrives and buy mine

Probably the best facelift E46 sport coupe around..
(53) 325Ci M Sport, Manual, 47,000miles
Black Sapphire, Individual Code Exclusive Blackberry Nappa Leather
TV, NAV, iPod, 6CD, Bluetooth, Armrest, Harmann Kardon.
12 months Tax, 12 months MOT, Inspection II service 100 miles ago!

[Fox-]

325 It's so nice other than that.

[AOK]

Fox- said:

325 It's so nice other than that.

Meh... Although I know where you're coming from (and deliberated long and hard when making my own purchase!), as a profession I sell BMW's so have driven both quite a bit and I just can't justify the extra expenses of the 3.0 over the 2.5 for just plodding around London. In an E9X, totally agree with you as both 325i and 330i's were effectively fitted with the same N52 3l engine (so why not), but the ownership costs difference is more obvious on the E46 because of the change in displacement.

Also (and I know you'll thrust this back in my face no doubt!)... call me pedantic, but the 325Ci compliments a manual box much better than the 330Ci, which pretty much had to be ordered as an auto for it to be user-friendly.

[Fox-]

AOK said:

I just can't justify the extra expenses of the 3.0 over the 2.5 for just plodding around London. In an E9X, totally agree with you as both 325i and 330i's were effectively fitted with the same N52 3l engine (so why not), but the ownership costs difference is more obvious on the E46 because of the change in displacement.

There are no extra ownership expenses with the possible exception of insurance. The change in displacement does not result in a noticeable increase in fuel consumption - there is less than 1mpg between them on the combined cycle. All other costs - ie servicing, tax, repair costs - are the same.

AOK said:

call me pedantic, but the 325Ci compliments a manual box much better than the 330Ci

I don't see how. The 330i is a 325i with... more power and torque. I mean there is nothing about it that would change how a manual box complements it!

[H_Kan]

That is a poor spec. Imo, if you are going to spend what is top whack for an e46 then you should ensure it has all the toys as well. The usp is the mileage, you'll add to that and then it'll end up just being a poorly specced motor with less then average miles as opposed to very low miles which is what you are paying the premium for.

HK sound package is well worth seeking out, I genuinely enjoy listening to music on it more then I do at home.

[4rephill]

Fox- said:

There are no extra ownership expenses with the possible exception of insurance. The change in displacement does not result in a noticeable increase in fuel consumption - there is less than 1mpg between them on the combined cycle. All other costs - ie servicing, tax, repair costs - are the same.

Fox- SSsshhhhhHHH!!, Don't spoil the market for those of us who are weighing up a 330i!.

At the moment people are avoiding the 330's due to the perception that they are more expensive to run than the 325's due being a bigger engine and so 330 prices are nice and low at the moment.

The last thing we need is for people to be made aware that the real difference between the two is negligible!.

Fox- said:

AOK said:

call me pedantic, but the 325Ci compliments a manual box much better than the 330Ci

I don't see how. The 330i is a 325i with... more power and torque. I mean there is nothing about it that would change how a manual box complements it!

+1, Out of all the posts in BMW threads on this topic that I have ever read, I think this is the first one ever that tries to declare that the 325i is a better car than the 330i. (Mind you, he is trying to sell his car )

As for:

AOK said:

....but the 325Ci compliments a manual box much better than the 330Ci, which pretty much had to be ordered as an auto for it to be user-friendly.

I can't say that I've ever read from owners that the manual 330i is some sort of hard to live with, unmanageable, nightmare of a car to drive.
Why should it not be user friendly? Can't be too much power or torque, M3's develop a lot more power and their manual gearboxes cope okay.

If anything, I'd say the extra torque of the 3.0 litre engine would make the manual it easier to live with as you don't need to keep swapping cogs all the time to make good progress.

[RESSE]

4rephill said:

I can't say that I've ever read from owners that the manual 330i is some sort of hard to live with, unmanageable, nightmare of a car to drive.
Why should it not be user friendly? Can't be too much power or torque, M3's develop a lot more power and their manual gearboxes cope okay.

If anything, I'd say the extra torque of the 3.0 litre engine would make the manual it easier to live with as you don't need to keep swapping cogs all the time to make good progress.

Agree with the above - I went for a manual gearbox and love it.

[Fox-]

H_Kan said:

That is a poor spec. Imo, if you are going to spend what is top whack for an e46 then you should ensure it has all the toys as well. The usp is the mileage, you'll add to that and then it'll end up just being a poorly specced motor with less then average miles as opposed to very low miles which is what you are paying the premium for.

HK sound package is well worth seeking out, I genuinely enjoy listening to music on it more then I do at home.

Spec like what, a 10 year old premium speaker system? Heated seats or a navigation computer from the 90s?

Not as important as condition and history. The standard spec is very generous anyway.