Wednesday 19th February 2025

BMW 325ti Compact (E46) | PH Fleet

Another year's MOT secured - onwards to 155,000 miles...

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It’s been a fair while since a progress update on the old BMW; partly that’s because we have to leave Ben Lowden lots of free PH Fleet slots because he changes cars like he changes pants, but also as life has been very easygoing with the Compact. In all sorts of weather, at all sorts of times and for all sorts of journeys, it’s been absolutely wonderful company. It has needed some coolant, some oil (it’s an old BMW; of course there’s a leak) and a new screenwash pump. Long may trouble-free ownership continue. 

The biggest modification since last year has been the fitment of four new Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres. I knew the fronts were on their way, but it was a conversation with the good folk of TyreSafe that really bucked my ideas up. As diligent PHers, you’ll no doubt be checking your rubber on a regular basis - and spending plenty on good quality tyres - but plenty of drivers don’t. It’s TyreSafe’s aim to reduce the amount of incidents relating to illegal and poorly maintained tyres. It estimates that there are around 6,000,000 illegal tyres currently in use in the UK, and there are more than 150 people killed or seriously injured in incidents every year where defective tyres are to blame. And we spend enough time on PH talking about Cup 2s, P Zero Corsas, Eagle Supersport F1s and the like - tyres are important. So we’ve partnered up with TyreSafe to get the message out there and implore everyone to speak to friends and family, and make sure their tyres have good tread and pressure. 

With four new Michelins on (two via BlackCircles at £115 each - long live small wheels!) plus the fitment of some new Powerflex wishbone bushes up front, the Compact feels fantastic: keener, comfier and quieter. It never fails to amaze what a difference fresh rubber can make, especially this time around as reduced tyre roar seems to mean more straight six coming in - win-win. Replacing the PS4s like-for-like means it’s not a total transformation, though a useful improvement nonetheless. And don’t forget there’s money off Michelins to be claimed through PH right now…

For a car I never really intended to buy and was only ever moderately curious about, the 325ti has totally won me over. Like so much of this era, it’s the simplicity that’s so appealing, with pretty much everything that you need - a heated front screen would be nice in winter - and none of the irritating distractions that have become all too commonplace. Nothing must be configured, set or disabled; while lots of new cars are very good indeed, the old BMW is a lovely palette cleanser when required. I love that the steering requires some effort, that the engine wants some revs, and that the HVAC make obvious sense. 

There will be some rear bushes going on soon to match the front and deal with an MOT advisory item. I bought a 325ti badge from BMW’s eBay store because a few people had asked what engine was in it - as if the twin pipes didn’t give it away! And it means there’s something else to look at on that funny rear end. I saw a facelifted car the other day - we even exchanged waves as members of the weird E46 club - and must confess to some jealousy at its slightly smarter look courtesy of the curvier bumpers. It seems like everyone got over all of the 1 Series looking weird, so perhaps its time will come. Damn those BMW designers who made all but one of the E46s look so good.

Nevertheless, I remain hugely enamoured with the ti as 155,000 miles looms. It sounds great, it drives great, it looks… unique. Getting my son in the back is no drama thanks to big doors and seats with a generous range of movement, and there’s something very pleasing about doing the nursery run among the cookie-cutter SUVs with a silly old BMW. And I have a rust-free, Japan Red, six-cylinder, manual E46 for not much money at all. Which feels very good. Even if it doesn’t necessarily look it…

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FACT SHEET 

Car: 2003 BMW 325ti Compact
Run by: Matt Bird
On fleet since: July 2024
Bought for: £2,999
Mileage: 154,397
Last month at a glance: Classic Compact charmer

Previous reports
Fortune favours the brave, doesn’t it?
1,000 miles driven, £1,000 spent

[stavr0ss]

It’s good to see some high mileage hero’s on the front page. It’s been said often but the ‘95-2015 era of cars might well end up being the most durable since the pre-war era.

[g3org3y]

Shame BMW never made the E36 Compact 323ti in RHD.

[GreatScott2016]

Great things. When I first met my wife to be, she drove a compact. Fond memories.

[Liamjrhodes]

Can't believe how rare an E46 is nowadays, they used to be absolutely everywhere!
The compact was always much rarer in the first place but they have become something of a niche with the very marmite styling.
I have got to say I do keep looking at them on the classified

[Donovfarm]

These are absolutely brilliant cars, rear wheel drive fun in a short wheelbase hatch.

If you go on a European car search website you will find that many of these cars (316i to 325i Compact) were highly specced; I had a 316i Compact as a company car and it had literally everything on the options list (leather, roof, xenon’s, HiFi, electric memory seats etc.etc).

Even now, twenty years later, I miss it.

Edited by Donovfarm on Wednesday 19th February 09:03

[Adamwilliam]

I had two e46 compacts years ago- a poverty spec 318ti with no options and a 320td which had sports seats etc. Both were great steers, and I even liked the dumpy looks, always wanted a 325m sport with the sports bumpers etc

[cerb4.5lee]

It is great to see how much you're enjoying this Matt, and it is a lovely bit of old school I reckon.

I've always been a bit obsessed with tyres for some strange reason, and I really like the MPS4 that are on the 370Z too. Plus I'm quite used to changing tyres a lot as well, because the GLE400d is on it's 7th set of rears now(that is on P Zero's), and it isn't quite 3 years old yet!

It is only on the 3rd set of fronts though in comparison, so not all bad!

[s m]

Donovfarm said:

These are absolutely brilliant cars, rear wheel drive fun in a short wheelbase hatch.

If you go on a European car search website you will find that many of these cars (316i to 325i Compact) were highly specced; I had a 316i Compact as a company car and it had literally everything on the options list (leather, roof, xenon’s, HiFi, electric memory seats etc.etc).

Even now, twenty years later, I miss it.

Edited by Donovfarm on Wednesday 19th February 09:03

Although worth noting the saloon/coupe/touring are the same wheelbase

[Firebobby]

I agree with the tyre comments but not everyone is in a position to afford top quality boots! There are some good budget tyres available. There's a lot of mentions about "ditchfinders" on PH but they're only that when driven to the extreme. Most people who buy that sort of tyre aren't trying to set a new lap time at the nurbergring and so are perfectly acceptable for day to day driving and far superior to any part worns. Personally I think the big issue is tread depth. The legal limit needs to upped by at least 1mm, I'm not a particularly wealthy man but 3mm is my personal limit for any make of tyre. If you're prepared to shop around good deals are available, I've just had 4 F1 assy 6 on the 140 and I paid less than £500 fitted balanced, and environmental removal.
Can I just say the ride quality between these and my old potenza run flats is night and day! I thought I'd gone deaf they're so quiet.

[cerb4.5lee]

Firebobby said:

I agree with the tyre comments but not everyone is in a position to afford top quality boots! There are some good budget tyres available. There's a lot of mentions about "ditchfinders" on PH but they're only that when driven to the extreme. Most people who buy that sort of tyre aren't trying to set a new lap time at the nurbergring and so are perfectly acceptable for day to day driving and far superior to any part worns. Personally I think the big issue is tread depth. The legal limit needs to upped by at least 1mm, I'm not a particularly wealthy man but 3mm is my personal limit for any make of tyre. If you're prepared to shop around good deals are available, I've just had 4 F1 assy 6 on the 140 and I paid less than £500 fitted balanced, and environmental removal.
Can I just say the ride quality between these and my old potenza run flats is night and day! I thought I'd gone deaf they're so quiet.

My mechanic suggested to me that I should actually spend less on the tyres on the 370Z funnily enough, because he said I don't use it much, so my relatively expensive tyres will be knackered in age and not miles for example. Whereas cheaper tyres would work out cheaper to actually throw away and replace he said.

[RiccardoG]

Nice update, really like the E46 ti cars, the one here is possibly my favourite spec of red with the leather-cloth interior, very classy IMO.

Thanks for the mention of the TyreSafe site, a useful reference. Just had a good read through all of it but couldn't find anything around age of tyres. As above, I don't do many miles so my cars tend to need new tyres based on age. Manufacturers tend to err on the side of caution. Porsche say 6 years max, BMW I believe say 8yrs. It would be good to have a more balanced view on this, I was hoping that the TyreSafe site might provide a view on this.

[Jon_S_Rally]

An interesting curio for sure. A friend had a black one a few years ago and I really liked it.

This is crying out for a wheel change in my view though. Nothing crazy, but the current ones really don't do it justice.

[ChocolateFrog]

cerb4.5lee said:

Firebobby said:

I agree with the tyre comments but not everyone is in a position to afford top quality boots! There are some good budget tyres available. There's a lot of mentions about "ditchfinders" on PH but they're only that when driven to the extreme. Most people who buy that sort of tyre aren't trying to set a new lap time at the nurbergring and so are perfectly acceptable for day to day driving and far superior to any part worns. Personally I think the big issue is tread depth. The legal limit needs to upped by at least 1mm, I'm not a particularly wealthy man but 3mm is my personal limit for any make of tyre. If you're prepared to shop around good deals are available, I've just had 4 F1 assy 6 on the 140 and I paid less than £500 fitted balanced, and environmental removal.
Can I just say the ride quality between these and my old potenza run flats is night and day! I thought I'd gone deaf they're so quiet.

My mechanic suggested to me that I should actually spend less on the tyres on the 370Z funnily enough, because he said I don't use it much, so my relatively expensive tyres will be knackered in age and not miles for example. Whereas cheaper tyres would work out cheaper to actually throw away and replace he said.

Call it £200 difference between a decent set of tyres and an acceptable set budget tyres.

Tyre life typically 8 years.

Are you that poor that you can't stump up the £6 per tyre per year for something that might actually save you from an incident.

[The Pistonsdead]

Where we live in the Sierra Nevadas there's a couple of these compacts that are regularly rallied in race events. Ones a coke burner the other petrol. They both provide great entertainment with their tail out power slides !! The diesel in particular leaves a vast trail of tyre and diesel smoke that fills the air.

[cerb4.5lee]

ChocolateFrog said:

cerb4.5lee said:

Firebobby said:

I agree with the tyre comments but not everyone is in a position to afford top quality boots! There are some good budget tyres available. There's a lot of mentions about "ditchfinders" on PH but they're only that when driven to the extreme. Most people who buy that sort of tyre aren't trying to set a new lap time at the nurbergring and so are perfectly acceptable for day to day driving and far superior to any part worns. Personally I think the big issue is tread depth. The legal limit needs to upped by at least 1mm, I'm not a particularly wealthy man but 3mm is my personal limit for any make of tyre. If you're prepared to shop around good deals are available, I've just had 4 F1 assy 6 on the 140 and I paid less than £500 fitted balanced, and environmental removal.
Can I just say the ride quality between these and my old potenza run flats is night and day! I thought I'd gone deaf they're so quiet.

My mechanic suggested to me that I should actually spend less on the tyres on the 370Z funnily enough, because he said I don't use it much, so my relatively expensive tyres will be knackered in age and not miles for example. Whereas cheaper tyres would work out cheaper to actually throw away and replace he said.

Call it £200 difference between a decent set of tyres and an acceptable set budget tyres.

Tyre life typically 8 years.

Are you that poor that you can't stump up the £6 per tyre per year for something that might actually save you from an incident.

I'm not saying that I'd actually do it, but that was just "his" suggestion though.

[Wardy78]

cerb4.5lee said:

It is great to see how much you're enjoying this Matt, and it is a lovely bit of old school I reckon.

I've always been a bit obsessed with tyres for some strange reason, and I really like the MPS4 that are on the 370Z too. Plus I'm quite used to changing tyres a lot as well, because the GLE400d is on it's 7th set of rears now(that is on P Zero's), and it isn't quite 3 years old yet!

It is only on the 3rd set of fronts though in comparison, so not all bad!

That sound really unusual? Rear wearing down twice as quickly as front? Despite AWD? Any SUV I've had is pretty even front/Rear, and I know it's different, but my M135 has identical front/rear tyre wear over it's first 8 months?

[gruppeb86]

cerb4.5lee said:

It is great to see how much you're enjoying this Matt, and it is a lovely bit of old school I reckon.

I've always been a bit obsessed with tyres for some strange reason, and I really like the MPS4 that are on the 370Z too. Plus I'm quite used to changing tyres a lot as well, because the GLE400d is on it's 7th set of rears now(that is on P Zero's), and it isn't quite 3 years old yet!

It is only on the 3rd set of fronts though in comparison, so not all bad!

Regarding the GLE., 3 more letters; OMG

That's outrageous!

How many miles on the clock?

[s m]

Jon_S_Rally said:

An interesting curio for sure. A friend had a black one a few years ago and I really liked it.

This is crying out for a wheel change in my view though. Nothing crazy, but the current ones really don't do it justice.

They do handle nicely on 205s and 16s

I have a set of those Style 42s as well

[Muzzman]

I bought a cheapy 325ti to use on track days, which tbh i thought i would use loads but turns out i don't. Annual trip to Nurburgring and not much else.

However i did buy a 3.0 engine for it, put some GAZ Golds on, NS2R's, bigger brakes, etc and it is huge fun for not much money.

[cerb4.5lee]

gruppeb86 said:

cerb4.5lee said:

It is great to see how much you're enjoying this Matt, and it is a lovely bit of old school I reckon.

I've always been a bit obsessed with tyres for some strange reason, and I really like the MPS4 that are on the 370Z too. Plus I'm quite used to changing tyres a lot as well, because the GLE400d is on it's 7th set of rears now(that is on P Zero's), and it isn't quite 3 years old yet!

It is only on the 3rd set of fronts though in comparison, so not all bad!

Regarding the GLE., 3 more letters; OMG

That's outrageous!

How many miles on the clock?

80k miles.