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Thread: Danny's Oxford Green 330i Sedan Thread

  1. #1
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    Danny's Oxford Green 330i Sedan Thread

    Hey all,

    I'm in the process of purchasing a 2003 330i/5 in Oxford Green, so I figured I'd start a thread for it to log everything I do. I've done this in the past for almost every other car I've owned (2003 540i/6 M-Sport, 2000 540i/6, 2000 540it, 2004 Range Rover, 2003 Range Rover, 2003 X5 4.6is, 1995 750il, 2000 M5, 1992 525it, 1997 M3 Sedan) and this one is no exception.

    As you can see from my list of previously owned cars above, I'm a pretty big fan of the E38 and E39 platforms. However after several years of driving cars with the same M62tu V8, I wanted to change it up a bit. So I sold the 540it (Range Rover is sticking around for truck duties) and bought a 1997 M3 Sedan in Techno Violet. I bought it in Wisconsin and road-tripped it back to Phoenix with a good friend of mine, 'twas quite an adventure! Here's a pic of it:



    Anyways, I daily drove it for a little bit and ultimately decided that I wanted something a little more modern and refined, plus that particular E36 was a little rough mechanically and I didn't want to deal with a huge project (I run a BMW shop so I already work on cars almost every day of the week). My friend who helped me buy the car was in love with the color and made me a great offer on it, so I took it and went on the hunt for a nice E46 to replace it. I figured the E46 would be a good choice since it has a lot of the same styling cues that I enjoy in the E38/E39 but in a smaller package.

    It might be blasphemy to some, but I specifically wanted a sedan, I'm not a fan of coupes at all. I've always tried to stick to cars with 4 doors (or 5, in the case of the Range Rover, X5, and 540it). Something about sedans just appeals to me so much more... maybe it's the way they look a little more mature? I'm a 26 year old on the outside but on the inside I'm a 50 year old man. So I decided to look for a 330i sedan, preferably with a manual transmission.

    Lo and behold, I found one rather quickly that was exactly to my liking. It's a sedan with a 5-speed manual, it's got a cool color combo, and it's absolutely loaded. It's got heated seats, PDC, automatic headlights, the Harmon Kardon audio system, a factory M-Tech 1 body kit, xenon headlights, lumbar support, etc. I was really starting to miss some of those modern conveniences in the E36, especially steering wheel controls for the audio.

    Not only is this car equipped nicely, it's also had a ton of work done to it by the previous owner, who was a hardcore E46 enthusiast. He rebuilt the engine 30k miles ago with a new top and bottom end, including new rings to minimize the oil consumption. Here's what's been done to the car:


    • Koni Yellow sport shocks and Eibach Sportline springs
    • New front and rear shock mounts and bumpstops and other hardware on the shocks
    • New sway bar endlinks in front
    • New ATE brake booster
    • New ATE type 200 brake fluid
    • New heater core
    • New AC evaporator
    • New AC expansion valve
    • New fuel cap
    • New upper and lower intake boots
    • New final stage resistor
    • New block coolant hoses (the hard plastic ones)
    • New thermostat
    • New expansion tank
    • New jack pads
    • New fuel door lock
    • New fuel door filler pot gasket
    • New AC drier receiver
    • Freshly refilled AC
    • New front wheel bearings
    • New fuel filter and vacuum line
    • New Z4M lower control arm bushings
    • New water pump
    • New hydraulic belt tensioner
    • 2 new idler pulleys
    • 2 new rear tires (Federal SS595)
    • Front and rear shock mount support plates (BMW in front, Turner in rear)
    • Turner hex tip stud conversion
    • Rebuilt driver door lock mechanism
    • VANOS seals fixed with Beisan systems
    • Both airbag recalls done
    • New center support bearing
    • New flex disk
    • E46 M3 engine and transmission mounts
    • 600w subwoofer with amplifier
    • New Pentosin coolant
    • ZHP 5 speed shift knob
    • E46 330d short shifter
    • Shifter mechanism rebuilt completely
    • New valve cover gasket and grommets
    • New intake cam position sensor
    • New BOSCH 120amp alternator, not rebuilt
    • Transmission shift pins replaced


    A lot of those are things that I would done to the car myself, so it's a great place for me to start. I'm sure I'll still find plenty of things to fix, but it's nice to buy a car that's super well-maintained to begin with, as opposed to the neglected piles that I usually buy and nurse back to health.

    Really the only con is the gray interior, which has been halfway converted to black by the previous owner. He did the whole dashboard and front carpet when he did the heater core replacement, so all the hard stuff is already done. I would just need to source door panels, seats, and a rear carpet, which shouldn't be too bad given the abundance of E46's in junkyards nowadays. I also plan to throw in some black E46 M3 seats for the front so it works out nicely.

    The car is in decent cosmetic shape, with the only blemishes being on the hood, the poorly repainted front bumper, and the primer gray mirror on the driver's side. The headlights could use a polish too. All easy fixes, really.

    I'm flying out on Sunday morning to pick up the car and drive it back to Phoenix from NorCal. I'm pretty stoked on it! Here are some pics from the ad in the meantime:









    And here's a better quality picture of the car from a little while back when it still had its stock wheels:

    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  2. #2
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    Today’s the day! I’m at the airport now, waiting to board my flight.

    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  3. #3
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    I arrived in Sacramento around 9:30am, after a fairly uneventful flight (which is good). On the way to the Uber pickup area, I saw this intriguing sculpture in the baggage claim area:



    A 20 minute Uber ride later, I arrived at the seller's house. I felt like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air for a moment, the house was pretty rad!



    The car itself looked exactly as described, no surprises thankfully. I'm used to sellers lying or not disclosing things, but this guy was super honest and didn't hide anything, which I respect.





    The paint really pops nicely in the sunlight, can't wait to detail it!



    I had already worked out the price with the seller over the phone a week prior, so the transaction happened pretty quickly. After the seller threw in a few extra parts, I was on my way. I headed down to Fresno to pick up a set of seats for a friend, and I got my first impressions of the E46. Compared to the E36 that I had been daily driving prior, it was much quieter at 80mph on the highway and much more refined overall. Having brand new suspension helped too!

    Really the only complaint I had was the alignment being iffy and the front tires being pretty worn which made for some sketchy handling and shaking at speed. Once I got to Fresno I picked up the E36 M3 Vader seats from a fellow enthusiast, it's rad to meet cool people all around the country! I wasn't sure how I'd fit the seats since this E46 doesn't have folding back seats, but that turned out to be a non-issue. By 69'ing the seats together, they fit into the back seat perfectly:



    While I was in Fresno, I called around and got an appointment for an alignment + front wheel balancing at Firestone. They had a good deal going for the lifetime alignment so that's what I got. While the alignment was being done, I walked around and found a good burger place for a tasty lunch.



    On a side note, I love the wheels. Usually I'm not a fan of cross-generational wheel swaps, but these E90 wheels look awesome on the E46, and the ride quality doesn't suffer as much as I thought it would, given that they're 18's. Part of why they look good is because they kinda look like chunkier CSL wheels, haha.

    After the alignment the 330i drove a whole lot better, and the shake was greatly minimized. It'll still need new front tires very soon, but at least I was able to drive home much more comfortably. The only nuisance at that point was the short shifter, which was from some 330d and was way too low so it scraped the driveshaft when shifting. I'll have to replace that soon.



    The sound system sounded pretty darn good, especially with the aftermarket subwoofer in the trunk. My drive home was just an endless medley of pop punk and metal, good times. I averaged 28mpg (calculated at the pump), not bad at all considering I was doing 80-85mph the whole time with no real overdrive gear.

    I snapped another pic of the 330i at a gas station close to the Arizona border. You can see the main visual flaws of the car— the foggy headlights and the primer gray mirror cap. Both are easy fixes though, so I'm not too concerned.



    One awesome thing about the E46 is the headlight output. Coming from a whole bunch of E39's and an E36, the stock headlight output is just fantastic. I could actually see ahead without needing to use my high-beams nonstop, which was definitely a novelty for me.



    I made it back to Phoenix around 1:30am with no issues. The car was just a champ, eating up mile after mile with no qualms. It reminds me of the good parts of my E39 (ride quality, insulation, creature comforts) without most of the negatives (poor gas mileage, heavy weight, heavy steering). In total, I drove 12+ hours from Sacramento to Phoenix on 5 hours of sleep the night before... and I did it all without a single drop of caffeine.

    Now that the car's back home, I can begin my favorite stage of car ownership— cleaning it and making it my own. Stay tuned!
    Last edited by dannyzabolotny; 02-03-2019 at 10:57 PM.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  4. #4
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    The first thing that needed to happen was installing an armrest... the previous owner had removed it so there was a big hole in the center console where it used to be. I happened to find an excellent condition one at the local junkyard for under $20 total, score! Installing it was relatively straightforward- I'm used to taking apart the interior from my experience with owning and parting out multiple E39's, and this E46 was no different.



    The next order of business was replacing the shifter with one that wouldn't scrape the driveshaft while shifting. I bought a Z3 shifter from a local enthusiast, it made the shifting feel pretty awesome. The old shifter was a 330d shifter, and it was way too long below the pivot point, hence the scraping issues. This is what it looked like:



    With the Z3 shifter installed, the shift knob sat nicely:



    I really need to clean the interior now, that's the next order of business.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  5. #5
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    The other day I finally go to do my favorite thing after buying a car: giving it a thorough detail. With the help of a friend, I detailed the interior, vacuuming everything carefully and going over all the leather/vinyl surfaces with Ammo Lather (cleaner) and Ammo Mousse. It was nice to get all the dust and dirt out, as the car had sat outside for a bit. With the interior all cleaned and conditioned, it looked and smelled nice. The seats are still a bit of a mess but they'll get replaced the minute I find a nice set of black sport seats with heating, power, and lumbar support— I don't want to lose any features! In the meantime, it looks like this:





    After the interior was sorted, we moved to the exterior. The wheels and paint were given a thorough cleaning with Ammo Plum + Ammo Brute on the wheels and Dawn dish soap on the paint (to strip any old wax). I used the two bucket method with the Grit Guard and a microfiber wash mitt, along with a power washer. After the car was clean, we went over it with a set of Meguiar's clay bars, which removed a surprising amount of dirt. The paint was quite rough when we started, and we got it to be pretty darn smooth.

    With the paint perfectly clean, we turned our attention to the hood, which was looking quite faded and dull from all the UV exposure (the car wasn't garaged from what I can tell). I did a quick test on the hood, doing one area with just Meguiar's M205 polishing compound and a microfiber finishing pad, and the other area with Meguiar's M105 cutting compound and a microfiber cutting pad. The polishing worked okay, but compounding gave the desired result, so that was the strategy we chose to go with.

    The next day, we pulled the car into the shop and got to work with the DA orbital polisher. Here's a few shots of what the hood looked like before:





    After an hour of hard labor, I had half of the hood compounded + polished, and pulled off the masking tape for the ever-so-popular 50/50 shot. It was quite the difference!





    After some more work, the rest of the hood was completed. It looked amazing, especially considering that it cost nothing to do this (I had the polisher and all the materials from a previous detailing session).





    My friend compounded and polished the trunk as well, and it was quite the improvement. It wasn't faded or cloudy, but it had a lot of surface scratches from objects being placed on the trunk lid. I'm happy to report that 75% of those came out, and I'm confident that the rest would come out after some more cutting. I wasn't aiming for perfection though, since this is a daily driver with 191k miles.



    By the time we were done, it was sunset, so I quickly cleaned up at the shop and went to a nearby culdesac for some beauty shots. Yes, I know the headlights really need polishing, and I'll address that soon enough— I was pretty tired after a long day of customer work and polishing the car.





    I love this angle on the E46, it just looks so handsome:



    The next order of business will be to restore all of the black trims. I'm waiting on new clips for the trims since I'm sure they'll all shatter the minute I touch them. The rear diffuser has a bit too much sun damage to just restore, so I'll probably remove it and hit it with a few coats of SEM trim paint. The driver's side mirror cover is still primer gray and ugly, so sometime next week I'll get a can of paint-matched spray paint + a can of clear. With some wet sanding and polishing, I should be able to get it looking nice.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  6. #6
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    Earlier today I had some time after work so I headed out to the junkyard that's at the far west side of town. It took about an hour to get there, thanks to stop-and-go traffic. What's surprising is how easy it was to deal with the traffic— the clutch is nice and light, the M54's got plenty of torque, and the AC works great. I've daily driven manual cars before but none were as easy to live with; the last manual daily driver that I had was an E39 M5 which just felt like overkill in every way.

    I didn't regret the drive at all though, because this junkyard yielded quite a few goodies. My main goal was to find a set of the OE Harman Kardon subs with their amp, since those were missing from my car. Literally two minutes into walking through the yard I spotted a red E46 with a black interior and a fully intact HK system, score! I also nabbed a black glovebox cover (mine is still gray), and a set of A-pillar trims. I plan on going back tomorrow with a friend to pull the door panels from that car, since they looked to be in pretty good shape.

    I installed the HK subs + amp in the parking lot of the junkyard since I was super excited and didn't want to wait. They worked perfectly and were plug and play since my car had the factory HK system. For stock little subs, they put out a good amount of low end, especially for the music I listen to (rock/metal) which doesn't require insane amounts of bass.





    This car is turning into a very lovely daily driver with each bit of work I do to it, which is just super rewarding.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  7. #7
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    Keep up the good work, your car looks great! These cars look so good in green, my 328i is ferngreen

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Raddee View Post
    Keep up the good work, your car looks great! These cars look so good in green, my 328i is ferngreen
    Fern green is awesome! Any pics of your car?

    I'm loving the Oxford Green so far, it's a pretty unique color and it really pops in the sunlight. Plus it's fairly uncommon on the E46 since most of them are silver/black/white/blue/gray. I like having unique colors on my cars— I had a 2000 540it in Japan Red and a 1997 M3 sedan in Techno Violet.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  9. #9
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    Two pictures here (Ill link them, this is your thread ): https://i.imgur.com/M16kb9H.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4wSYHH4.jpg

    Techno violet is also one of my favorite colors on the E36, quite rare here and it suits it very well.

  10. #10
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    Great find and what a score on that E46.

    It's amazing how a little tlc can turn these into fun dailys.

    I have a 04 330i Mtech1 that I try my best to keep in mint condition at all times. Really rewarding I must say.

    Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk
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    ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) by Brandon Smith, on Flickr

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Raddee View Post
    Two pictures here (Ill link them, this is your thread ): https://i.imgur.com/M16kb9H.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4wSYHH4.jpg

    Techno violet is also one of my favorite colors on the E36, quite rare here and it suits it very well.
    Love it! Fern Green is seriously underrated, it's such a rad color. I remember seeing an E36 M3 in Fern Green and it was just love at first sight.

    Quote Originally Posted by MBCO View Post
    Great find and what a score on that E46.

    It's amazing how a little tlc can turn these into fun dailys.

    I have a 04 330i Mtech1 that I try my best to keep in mint condition at all times. Really rewarding I must say.
    Thanks! I'm really happy with how this 330i is turning out, it's been a great ride so far. I have a ton of fun with it and still get gas mileage in the 20+ mpg range, which is crazy for me— I'm used to getting 15mpg in a 540i or 12mpg in my Range Rover.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  12. #12
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    I got oxford driver's side mirror cap, 2 tab are broken but 2 are ok. LMK if you want it.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mless5 View Post
    I got oxford driver's side mirror cap, 2 tab are broken but 2 are ok. LMK if you want it.
    Is the paint okay on it? If so, I'll take it! PM me what you want for it and we'll get something worked out.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  14. #14
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    Nice score. The cross-gen wheels do look good.

    Fern and Oxford green are so similar. Looks great.
    99 540iT - Merlot Truckster (TCG done 134k, might sell...)
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  15. #15
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    Great thread and congratulations on the new to you 330i!

    It is amazing to see the difference before and after polish!

  16. #16
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    Danny, I was looking at your before pics above of the plastic center console and noticed there was an almost dark finish on the plastic that was coming off. I just bought an Oxford Green 2001 330Ci convertible with beige interior. Mine has the same discoloration on much of the center console and door panels. It doesn't look like peeling paint, but perhaps more of a old finish or coating that started to turn dark, as the color underneath looks more like the correct color. In your after photos post-detailing, there's no close-up but it does look better. Did you find that it is a grimy film or coating that you could scrub off? Whatever it is, it doesn't come off very easily so was looking to see what your remedy was. Thanks!

  17. #17
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    There is a beautiful green Cabriolet about 200 miles away and if it didn't have a hideous green top, I'd consider parking it next to me Steel Grey Metallic Cabriolet.
    Last edited by All2kool; 03-11-2019 at 04:46 PM.

  18. #18
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    Unbelievable you found an armrest that looks that new! Mine needs replacement, badly, trying to figure out best way to do it.

  19. #19
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    Just commenting so I can see the new posts
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