E46 320D, buying advice.

[A.J.M]

Hi all, my brother is looking to move from his Civic Type R, to a bmw 320d as his commute has doubled due to being moved to new place. He now does about 50 miles a day mostly on motorway hense the civic has to go as it's costing a bit on fuel.

He is looking to spend about £6-7k on a 320D coupe and has found a 65k mileage example in grey with black interior with M sport kit on it. It's a manual and has full bmw history.

Am i right in thinking that is the M47 engine shared with my freelander?
If so, can you fit an EGR blanking kit.

Anything to look for with interior/exterior/drivetrain etc?

Any known problems with them to look out for.

[Patrick Bateman]

£6-7k on a 320d? Good grief!

I had a 320Td and while a 'good' engine I couldn't imagine spunking that on one. Anyway...

Turbo is a weak point, or rather, the old style oil breather would get clogged and lead to turbo problems. A new style breather was released in 2004 I think but I'm not 100% on whether there are turbo issues with the newer cars.

Swirl flaps- Easy to remove and blank off, plenty on google for you to read.

Suspension bushes.

[A.J.M]

It will be slower than the CTR but he wants the better fuel economy and fancies a change.

Anyway i cant say anything about wasting cash on cars..

So they are generally well built with no real issues to worry about.

Im asking as i know very little of bmw's, so want other peoples opinion on them.

[steebo888]

6-7k is alot for them.
I picked one up this week for 3.5k - 02 SE 107k miles, FSH, new mot, full leather. Good condition.

Been reading up on issues myself and first thing im going to do is check if the swirl flaps have been removed and if not will sort it straight away as the damage for it breaking is thousands.
other than that a full service history with lots of reciepts is good. Also go for SE rather then ES as it has cruise control, streering controls for stereo, parking sensors, rear elecy windows, climate control and so on.