Discussion
Bit of a PH lurker so though it was high time I contributed something constructive.
I’ve always had a softspot for E46s, this comes from my early days as a young salesman, working for Xerox I had a good run of deals that allowed me to opt out of the company car scheme and buy my car of choice. I was covering around 25k per year so this still had to be a slightly sensible choice. I purchaed my Seat Leon Cupra Diesel from the company for a good price and put that down as a deposit on a 53 plate Silver grey e46 320d msport coupe. I loved this car and for some reason it felt like such a significant leap in all ways. While it wasn’t the quickest it felt so much better to drive and spend time in than any previous cars I owned. It was faultless through my ownership and I eventually traded it in with around 90k on the clock for a 56 plate e90 325d. The 325 was more comfortable, quicker and had better technology but just lacked something that that E46 seemed to have.
15 years on and I have some money put by to treat myself. I wanted to spend around 10k with 5k put aside to tidy the car and as a contingency. I had narrowed search down to 3 models of car that I have always wanted to own and began scanning autotrader, eBay, car and classic and of course Pistonheads to see if I could find something that caught my eye. The 3 cars were the e46 m3, 996 911 and Lotus Elise.
I eventually decided it was the M3 that I wanted to own the most ideally manual, ideally less than 100k, definitely coupe.
I though I had found the one, it was listed on Car and classic, 85k and manual and listed at 8k only in Essex so just 1.5 hours away. I arranged a viewing and went the next day. It was tatty but was the correct spec, the diamond cut wheels had been overpainted and the paintwork had several scuffs, the bonnet paintwork was very flat compared to the rest but at 8k it was sortable. The owner was a nice guy but between me organising the visit and me getting there he had decided he wanted 12k for it instead of the listed 8k. I left an offer of 9 on the table.
This had dampened my enthusiasm a little and I began to wonder if buying a 15 year old car was going to be an underwhelming experience. I stopped looking at the adds so frequently but just happend to hop on to eBay as the auction for a very tidy looking m3 ended without a sale. It was quite local so I contacted the seller via eBay and arranged a viewing. It was smg not manual and had just crept over the 100k mile mark at 108k but as it was local having a look wouldn’t harm.
The condition of the car was amazing, totally different to the last car I saw. The guy selling it was great, he ran a commercial vehicle servicing company. The car had been dry stored in his workshop under a cover, it had a recent clutch replacement new tyres and very comprehensive history with all receipts. It even has the original sales material with the options highlighted that the original owner had gone for proving the car was 100% original spec.
This is it in one of the sales pics.
To be continued...
I’ve always had a softspot for E46s, this comes from my early days as a young salesman, working for Xerox I had a good run of deals that allowed me to opt out of the company car scheme and buy my car of choice. I was covering around 25k per year so this still had to be a slightly sensible choice. I purchaed my Seat Leon Cupra Diesel from the company for a good price and put that down as a deposit on a 53 plate Silver grey e46 320d msport coupe. I loved this car and for some reason it felt like such a significant leap in all ways. While it wasn’t the quickest it felt so much better to drive and spend time in than any previous cars I owned. It was faultless through my ownership and I eventually traded it in with around 90k on the clock for a 56 plate e90 325d. The 325 was more comfortable, quicker and had better technology but just lacked something that that E46 seemed to have.
15 years on and I have some money put by to treat myself. I wanted to spend around 10k with 5k put aside to tidy the car and as a contingency. I had narrowed search down to 3 models of car that I have always wanted to own and began scanning autotrader, eBay, car and classic and of course Pistonheads to see if I could find something that caught my eye. The 3 cars were the e46 m3, 996 911 and Lotus Elise.
I eventually decided it was the M3 that I wanted to own the most ideally manual, ideally less than 100k, definitely coupe.
I though I had found the one, it was listed on Car and classic, 85k and manual and listed at 8k only in Essex so just 1.5 hours away. I arranged a viewing and went the next day. It was tatty but was the correct spec, the diamond cut wheels had been overpainted and the paintwork had several scuffs, the bonnet paintwork was very flat compared to the rest but at 8k it was sortable. The owner was a nice guy but between me organising the visit and me getting there he had decided he wanted 12k for it instead of the listed 8k. I left an offer of 9 on the table.
This had dampened my enthusiasm a little and I began to wonder if buying a 15 year old car was going to be an underwhelming experience. I stopped looking at the adds so frequently but just happend to hop on to eBay as the auction for a very tidy looking m3 ended without a sale. It was quite local so I contacted the seller via eBay and arranged a viewing. It was smg not manual and had just crept over the 100k mile mark at 108k but as it was local having a look wouldn’t harm.
The condition of the car was amazing, totally different to the last car I saw. The guy selling it was great, he ran a commercial vehicle servicing company. The car had been dry stored in his workshop under a cover, it had a recent clutch replacement new tyres and very comprehensive history with all receipts. It even has the original sales material with the options highlighted that the original owner had gone for proving the car was 100% original spec.
This is it in one of the sales pics.
To be continued...
Edited by RSVR101 on Sunday 17th February 13:05
So on first impressions the car looked almost too good to be true for its age and milage, from the DVLA MOT checker I could see it had covered the majority of its milage (70k) in the first 4 years so i assume this could mean it had been mainly used for motorway milage, it also meant that the majority of its milage had been while was covered by a BMW manufacturers warranty. The vendor said it had been dry stored since his ownership in 2011 and had only done 12k over that period.
That only really left the big question that is always looming over the e46 m3, was it suffering from boot floor cracking. For anyone that doesn't know these particular cars are prone to the floor of the car cracking where the rear sub frame meets the underside of the boot floor. This can mean lots of extensive work to put right and a fair bit of cost. A company called Reddish manufacture plates to be welded in to the correct positions in order to prevent the cracking or stop it from getting any worse. I was prepared to pick up the right car at the right price with a not too badly cracked floor but it would make the decision much harder. Luckily the workshop had an empty set of ramps and the owner was more than happy to lift it up for us to inspect the floor. A good inspection showed it was all clear in the most prominent places that these tend to go, it also showed the car had a quite recent suspension refresh with H&R springs and shocks that I am yet to identify. There was a very slight leak from the diff seal but all in all in great condition. The brake discs had no lip and the pads have plenty of meat left. So I did a deal and am now the very happy owner of an e46 M3.
|https://thumbsnap.com/zPQr6Zlm[/url]
If only things were that simple.....
That only really left the big question that is always looming over the e46 m3, was it suffering from boot floor cracking. For anyone that doesn't know these particular cars are prone to the floor of the car cracking where the rear sub frame meets the underside of the boot floor. This can mean lots of extensive work to put right and a fair bit of cost. A company called Reddish manufacture plates to be welded in to the correct positions in order to prevent the cracking or stop it from getting any worse. I was prepared to pick up the right car at the right price with a not too badly cracked floor but it would make the decision much harder. Luckily the workshop had an empty set of ramps and the owner was more than happy to lift it up for us to inspect the floor. A good inspection showed it was all clear in the most prominent places that these tend to go, it also showed the car had a quite recent suspension refresh with H&R springs and shocks that I am yet to identify. There was a very slight leak from the diff seal but all in all in great condition. The brake discs had no lip and the pads have plenty of meat left. So I did a deal and am now the very happy owner of an e46 M3.
|https://thumbsnap.com/zPQr6Zlm[/url]If only things were that simple.....
Edited by RSVR101 on Sunday 17th February 13:07
Edited by RSVR101 on Sunday 17th February 13:07
Edited by RSVR101 on Sunday 17th February 13:08
The weather had been awful, the gritters had been out in force so I put off collecting the car for a few days while I cleared the garage and waited for the forecasts of snow to stop, after multiple trips to the tip I had cleared a perfect M3 hole in my double garage.
A dry day was forcast so I arranged an evening to go collect the car, unfortunately it was tipping it down but I bought it home anyway, much dirtier than it left its nice dry previous home.
I put it straight in to the garage.... sort of!
I tried all angles, it just wasn't going, I had to resign myself to the fact i'd be keeping it outside, maybe with a cover on?
This wasn't sitting well with me at all, after a few nights of not sleeping as well as I should i had a plan, I say a plan, plans require time and knowledge, I didn't have much of either so I got a drill, saw, a hammer and chisel instead... I only needed 4 inches.
I made a hole or two, then made it bigger...
Removed some Insulation...
Luckily one of my exploration holes just missed the pipes...
About 20 attempts of rolling it in and out and checking...
Sucess....
A dry day was forcast so I arranged an evening to go collect the car, unfortunately it was tipping it down but I bought it home anyway, much dirtier than it left its nice dry previous home.
I put it straight in to the garage.... sort of!
I tried all angles, it just wasn't going, I had to resign myself to the fact i'd be keeping it outside, maybe with a cover on?
This wasn't sitting well with me at all, after a few nights of not sleeping as well as I should i had a plan, I say a plan, plans require time and knowledge, I didn't have much of either so I got a drill, saw, a hammer and chisel instead... I only needed 4 inches.
I made a hole or two, then made it bigger...
Removed some Insulation...
Luckily one of my exploration holes just missed the pipes...
About 20 attempts of rolling it in and out and checking...
Sucess....
Great choice of car and top marks for getting it in the garage, definitely worth the effort!
If you are looking at getting the reinforcing plates fitting then ETA Motorsport near Swanley in Kent are good and do it relatively cheaply (looked into it for my 330 Touring, ISTR about £800). They are a bit gruff but the quality of their work seems well thought of.
Yesterday I had the car booked in for an Oil change and a thorough inspection at a specialist to double check the boot floor and see if he could find anything else that need to be done. I was a little worried when I dropped it off as i'm just an amateur enthusiast after all, when I got the call to say he was very impressed with the car I was delighted. Other than the slight leak from the diff seal there were no other negatives to note.
The car feels much quicker than I was expecting, my daily is a disco 4 and I haven't driven much other than this and vans for a good few years, being lower down again certainly gives a different feeling of speed, that and the fact the car pulls really hard when it gets to around 4.5 to 5k revs makes it a very quick feeling car. The steering feels great, very connected with lots of old school feedback. My reservation over the SMG were unfounded, it can be a little jerky in the lower slower setting but when cranked up to 4 and driven the changes are amazingly slick and smooth, a lovely blip on the downshift too. I am wondering if this was a standard SMG map or not?
All in all im a very happy e46 M3 owner, I gave it a good clean and wax then tucked it away with its stablemate last night. I slept much better...
The car feels much quicker than I was expecting, my daily is a disco 4 and I haven't driven much other than this and vans for a good few years, being lower down again certainly gives a different feeling of speed, that and the fact the car pulls really hard when it gets to around 4.5 to 5k revs makes it a very quick feeling car. The steering feels great, very connected with lots of old school feedback. My reservation over the SMG were unfounded, it can be a little jerky in the lower slower setting but when cranked up to 4 and driven the changes are amazingly slick and smooth, a lovely blip on the downshift too. I am wondering if this was a standard SMG map or not?
All in all im a very happy e46 M3 owner, I gave it a good clean and wax then tucked it away with its stablemate last night. I slept much better...
NiceCupOfTea said:
Great choice of car and top marks for getting it in the garage, definitely worth the effort!
If you are looking at getting the reinforcing plates fitting then ETA Motorsport near Swanley in Kent are good and do it relatively cheaply (looked into it for my 330 Touring, ISTR about £800). They are a bit gruff but the quality of their work seems well thought of.
I’d do the plating, and do it in conjunction with a whole lot of other jobs since the rear is being stripped to do the plates. You could get it all poly bushed to help tighten up the handling (helped with some axle tramp, though that was reduced further still with new diff bushes), and you won’t need to get it inspected every service and hold your breath as you await a report.
If it rev-matches on downshift it will likely have a CSL remap for the SMG; a few settings are adjusted but as I don’t own an SMG I can’t be sure of the extent, other than it is a big improvement.
Steel Grey is a great colour, I’ve got no idea why they dropped it as I think it’s far nicer than Silver Grey. So as long as it’s not an Individual car this will be pre-facelift (-3/2003) but it’s had the LED taillights retrofitted if you didn’t realise already.
Any big plans for the car? It’s a slippery slope!
If it rev-matches on downshift it will likely have a CSL remap for the SMG; a few settings are adjusted but as I don’t own an SMG I can’t be sure of the extent, other than it is a big improvement.
Steel Grey is a great colour, I’ve got no idea why they dropped it as I think it’s far nicer than Silver Grey. So as long as it’s not an Individual car this will be pre-facelift (-3/2003) but it’s had the LED taillights retrofitted if you didn’t realise already.
Any big plans for the car? It’s a slippery slope!
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