E46 M3 Good example?

[TROOPER88]

Hi Guys
I hope someone can help.

Part time, I am a Porsche enthusiast and know the 986 Boxster's very well.

I have never owned an M3 and tbh do not know much about them but have seen this one on eBay and to me at least, it looks very clean.

What are the key points that I should be looking for?

The advert says this is the auto but surely that is a manual gear shift?

Does this one look a good example?

I know the seller very well so please ignore who is selling it.

Cheers

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2003-BMW-M3-3-2-SMG-CON...

[V1nce Fox]

It's an auto.

Main killer of these is cracks forming in the rear boot floor area corresponding to stress loading from power delivery. Specialist repair only and a lot of labour involved. Some specialists are offering this as a drive in service now due to how common it's become.
Anyone who tells you it's been done should be able to provide you with photographic evidence. If they can't, assume it hasn't and walk. You can't see the cracks without removing a lot of stuff so a ramp inspection while assembled doesn't cut it. TADTS, so if it hasn't yet, it probably will.

Source: I run an e36 evo and looked at moving to the 46 but this alone was enough to put me off after seeing the process involved first hand on a couple. It can be done but it's a bloody big job.

[TROOPER88]

V1nce Fox said:

It's an auto.

Main killer of these is cracks forming in the rear boot floor area corresponding to stress loading from power delivery. Specialist repair only and a lot of labour involved. Some specialists are offering this as a drive in service now due to how common it's become.
Anyone who tells you it's been done should be able to provide you with photographic evidence. If they can't, assume it hasn't and walk. You can't see the cracks without removing a lot of stuff so a ramp inspection while assembled doesn't cut it. TADTS, so if it hasn't yet, it probably will.

Source: I run an e36 evo and looked at moving to the 46 but this alone was enough to put me off after seeing the process involved first hand on a couple. It can be done but it's a bloody big job.

Very valuable reply, many thanks

[Herr Schnell]

The BMW term for the gearbox is SMG, semi manual gearbox. In the e46 it's known to be problematic and expensive to fix when it goes wrong.

The car is about the least desirable spec there could be, a titan silver convertible with grey interior and SMG box.

It has cosmetic mods which reduce value and the wheels have been powder coated in a grim looking colour.

Absolutley no mention of service history other than 5 stamps in a book. At that age / mileage I would expect more like 10 services as they are based on time passed or litres of fuel used.

No mention of the 1200 mile running in service which replaces a specific running in spec oil with the 10w/60 these engines need. Not a massive problem in the medium term but as the car gets to this kind of mileage / age it may be if the service wasn't done.

Common major faults are cracks in the rear axle carrier panel (subframe) which are pretty much inevitable, SMG pump failure, headgasket spilts between cylinders 5 & 6, rod shell bearing wear, VANOS timing unit rebuilds and rust in rear arches and front wings. Nothing mentioned about any of those issues nor the cheaper common issues such as faulty headlight ballasts or failing dim/dip rear view mirror which goes on to leak plastic eating fluid over the interior.

These are great cars if you get a good one but one with so many unknowns and in such a spec wouldn't be on my list if I were looking for one. If you're still tempted though I'd say it's not worth much more than the auction is currently sitting on.

[TROOPER88]

Herr Schnell said:

The BMW term for the gearbox is SMG, semi manual gearbox. In the e46 it's known to be problematic and expensive to fix when it goes wrong.

The car is about the least desirable spec there could be, a titan silver convertible with grey interior and SMG box.

It has cosmetic mods which reduce value and the wheels have been powder coated in a grim looking colour.

Absolutley no mention of service history other than 5 stamps in a book. At that age / mileage I would expect more like 10 services as they are based on time passed or litres of fuel used.

No mention of the 1200 mile running in service which replaces a specific running in spec oil with the 10w/60 these engines need. Not a massive problem in the medium term but as the car gets to this kind of mileage / age it may be if the service wasn't done.

Common major faults are cracks in the rear axle carrier panel (subframe) which are pretty much inevitable, SMG pump failure, headgasket spilts between cylinders 5 & 6, rod shell bearing wear, VANOS timing unit rebuilds and rust in rear arches and front wings. Nothing mentioned about any of those issues nor the cheaper common issues such as faulty headlight ballasts or failing dim/dip rear view mirror which goes on to leak plastic eating fluid over the interior.

These are great cars if you get a good one but one with so many unknowns and in such a spec wouldn't be on my list if I were looking for one. If you're still tempted though I'd say it's not worth much more than the auction is currently sitting on.

This is why the internet and forums like this are invaluable.

Thank you so much.

I have already decided against the M3 for all of the reasons above.

I am going to stick with Porsche for the time being; I am trading in 986's part time and it is going really well; stick at what you know!

[Herr Schnell]

TROOPER88 said:

This is why the internet and forums like this are invaluable.

Thank you so much.

I have already decided against the M3 for all of the reasons above.

I am going to stick with Porsche for the time being; I am trading in 986's part time and it is going really well; stick at what you know!

You're welcome, I thought it may seem a bit harsh but there's no other way to put it I'm afraid. It will also need a suspension refresh too.

For a decent M3 now you're looking at least £10k, more like £13-15k if you want a good one with the big jobs done. A £6k car might be fine for a short while to own and then shift on but you'd probably struggle to move it on as knowledge spreads about potential issues and it won't perform as it should so a false economy to my mind.

I've had mine 8 years, had an e36 328 for years before that and have a lot of BMW fanatic mates so I hear you about sticking with what you know. I keep on having sinful thoughts about 996 C4S, various Alfas and early millenial Maseratis but my M3 has had everything sorted and a stack of history almost a foot thick from my time with it and the single owner before me. With these cars it's not the car you're buying so much as the life they've had.

[TROOPER88]

Herr Schnell said:

You're welcome, I thought it may seem a bit harsh but there's no other way to put it I'm afraid. It will also need a suspension refresh too.

For a decent M3 now you're looking at least £10k, more like £13-15k if you want a good one with the big jobs done. A £6k car might be fine for a short while to own and then shift on but you'd probably struggle to move it on as knowledge spreads about potential issues and it won't perform as it should so a false economy to my mind.

I've had mine 8 years, had an e36 328 for years before that and have a lot of BMW fanatic mates so I hear you about sticking with what you know. I keep on having sinful thoughts about 996 C4S, various Alfas and early millenial Maseratis but my M3 has had everything sorted and a stack of history almost a foot thick from my time with it and the single owner before me. With these cars it's not the car you're buying so much as the life they've had.

Not harsh at all; I want to know the fact.

The 996 C4S would have been a very wise investment a few years ago!

[Herr Schnell]

TROOPER88 said:

The 996 C4S would have been a very wise investment a few years ago!

I know and that's partly why I didn't go for one last year as I remember almost buying one instead of my M3 8 years ago as the prices weren't too far apart, I got cold feet about RMS, bore scoring and things.

The cars I looked at last year had Hartech rebuilds but the prices were way more than they had been and I just couldn't get it out of my head that I'd missed the boat.

[thegermancarguy]

Subframe reinforcement or repair doesn’t cost a huge amount anymore. Some charge around £1600 whilst other well known specialists will do it for half of that. Rust- is high older car doesn’t suffer from it? HG repair isn’t a huge bill either in the grand scheme of things.
I wouldn’t be put off if the car had a small amount of corrosion on the wings. Neither would lack of subframe reinforcement put me off. Service history, overall condition for age and mileage and how the car drives is what is focus on. All cars of this age, especially performance cars will need some love.
A good coupe, say 100k miles with fsh is around 10k. £15k buy should buy one with above jobs done, in excellent nick and around 80k miles. If you want a low miles car <50k Miles then you’re looking at around 20k and it too many need a little bit of sprucing up eg alloy wheel refurb/some minor paint.
You aren’t going to find a performance car that’s 15-20ywars old without weaknesses in design or things that could need/would need doing.

[B_Tank88]

C'mon guys don't scare the s**t out the OP. If E46 M3's were as fragile as described here then there wouldn't be so many on the road.

All failure points are valid, but occurrence rates are not as high as implied here.

I have had mine for coming up to 2 years now. It has been fantastic. It's a 'high miler' too at 111k now, a 53 plate facelift.

Out of the big hitters it has had:
SMG Pump, clutch
Boot floor welded from above. Not reinforced.

Original Head gasket with no sign of issue.
VANOS is fine with no sign of issue. Provides smooth and torquey power delivery.
Original rod bearings. Although I do monitor the oil condition.

It drives absolutely fantastic and does not show the miles at all.

Personally I'd worry more about rusty arches than any of the above, as getting that rectified will cost more than any of the other problems.

The SMG pump job can be done efficiently. I also disagree that it's troublesome. If tackled properly and using the wealth of information and expertise available on M3cutters and the rest of the net, the problem can be fixed efficiently. That said, these cars will go best with owners that do some research themselves and don't let a garage work on them as they please. INPA can be had for very cheap and can be put on any laptop which will help hugely in DIY diagnostics.

Consider that it's a highly strung NA engine that revs to 8k RPM and gives ~340hp from a 3.2 with an fantastic induction noise. Plenty of cars running at 100k plus is a testament to the quality of this engine. Just don't buy one that's had an owner that didn't give a damn about maintenance, a car like this does demand some maintenance but it will pay rewards. The problem you may have is the amount of dogs available on the market currently. But not all are like that.

Mine hasn't missed a beat in 2 years and I don't nanny it either. I do nanny it in TLC though.

[BFleming]

Aside from the reversible cosmetic mods on the car the OP linked to, it's a) a SMG, and b) a cabrio. So on the bottom of the scale desirability wise, in much the same way as a 996 Tiptronic Cabrio. If you need convincing, open the classifieds and look for the cheapest variants of either car.
I'd stick with the Boxster for now until you establish what it is you're looking for. Good E46 M3's are out there, but this isn't necessarily one. In the nicest possible way, learn more about them - or whatever car you choose - and learn what to look for.

B_Tank88 said:

The SMG pump job can be done efficiently. I also disagree that it's troublesome. If tackled properly and using the wealth of information and expertise available on M3cutters and the rest of the net, the problem can be fixed efficiently.

I think this needs some elaboration. You'd like to think any competent independent can do it efficiently (even if the E36 M3 went out of production 20 years ago), but does that mean £3k instead of £5k? Are there even more savings to be had by DIYing it? If so, what costs are you looking at there? I'm genuinely curious about this.

Edited by BFleming on Tuesday 15th October 15:18

[B_Tank88]

BFleming said:

I think this needs some elaboration. You'd like to think any competent independent can do it efficiently (even if the E36 M3 went out of production 20 years ago), but does that mean £3k instead of £5k? Are there even more savings to be had by DIYing it? If so, what costs are you looking at there? I'm genuinely curious about this.

Edited by BFleming on Tuesday 15th October 15:18

The SMG system can fail in a number of ways, no argument there. Take the invoice I have for my previous owner repair. Went to BMW who replaced the whole SMG pump, and invoiced him 3k for the pleasure.

A cheaper way to have done that job is to first check codes to see where the issue is lying. The code may say something like 'SMG pump takes too long to attain desired PSI'. Listen out for your motor, it whirrs on every ignition ON and you hear it every time. Does it sound poorly? Does it stay on for ages? This most likely will point to the motor being weakened, but it can also be other things which will prompt you to look at other areas. This point is important as there are threads titled something like 'SMG NIGHTMARES' after they have replaced various bits and the system still doesn't work. IMO this is most likely because they started chopping and changing things without putting effort into where the issue actually lies.

In this above issue, parts wise the only thing that needs to be bought is the motor which can be bought for 500 pounds from Hack Engineering, as far as I'm aware no other parts are required.This also tends to be the most common failure, the hot mounting location of the motor and it's high work rate will burn it out after several years. Mine went at 80k for the previous owner. Now it is a big job to get to the SMG motor in order to replace, but there is a post on M3cutters which actually talks you through it without even having to bleed the system. So you can use the same fluid and no need to mess around with the gearbox.

This is one example, but the point I'm making is there is SO much information available on the E46 M3 that doing a bit of research you can save a lot of money. Even on a car with many weak points such as the E46 M3, it gave me so much confidence knowing all the information that's available that I bought a 100k+ high miler and don't regret it one bit.

If you don't want to do the labor, fine. Anaylse the symptoms you are having on your car carefully and advise the specialist to just do the job and supply the parts. In this instance I would say to my specialist 'here is an SMG motor please replace it it for me'. I would also ask are you comfortable/familiar with the job, if not, I take it elsewhere. Forget BMW unless you are an anorak - although they seem to have done a fine job to the previous owner motor replacement as the SMG is working brilliantly - but I don't want to spend 3k on the whole pump.

Of course this doesn't apply to everything, I paid 1k for my specialist to do a drivetrain refresh on my car and a couple of other things, not because anything was broken but more of preventative maintenance and the diff was slightly weeping. There is no chance I can take the driveshaft off on axle stands without killing myself. Having said that if I didn't have any of that work done I'm sure my car would have driven just the same.

I did a full belt refresh (aux/alternator), water pump/coolant refresh DIY. Excellent guides available, and actually the front end of the car isn't too bad to work with. Saved probably well over 1.5k there, but the belts were in very bad shape.

These are well built cars but they do IMO reward owners who try to understand them and doing some research and doing repairs smartly, rather than letting a specialist charge you big bucks for anything.

Rod bearings are scary, but I do an oil analysis every 5k miles to monitor the deposits and I will change bearings if copper gets excessive but please remember there are so many cars 100k plus and on M3cutters there are many many pictures of peoples bearings changed at ~100k that still look excellent. I'm not saying this is not an issue, it absolutely is, but let's not blow it out of proportion.

VANOS - so much information on this I can't stress enough. Videos all over Youtube and DIY topics everywhere. Mine is running fine, but if it starts to play odd I will definitely be DIY'ing this. Improved aftermarket parts available from Beisan Systems. Don't need to spend fortunes at BMW.

Head gasket - no easy way around this one to be honest. Suck it up and pay or do a big DIY job yourself. I wonder if I would tackle this one myself. But an excellent DIY guide is there on m3cutters. But mine is on 111k and engine sounds great, nothing to worry about until it happens. *IF* it happens.

RUST - Personally I'd be more wary of rust than all the above. One thing that is NOT blown out of proportion rust. New front wings are expensive. If you don't want to buy new metal then still resprays aren't cheap and you want someone who is confident with sanding down and properly rust proofing. I can't do any DIY related to point and I'm sure most cant, so please check for rust. I bought mine knowing it had rusting on one front wing, one rear arch, and a couple of other small bits. I had never dealt with rust before and didn't realise how much of a pain it is. I ended up getting the whole car resprayed.

Edited by B_Tank88 on Tuesday 15th October 17:47

Edited by B_Tank88 on Tuesday 15th October 17:51

[B_Tank88]