Soon part of the M3 family (if all goes well!)

[herwawan]

Hi!

As this is my first post, I'll also introduce myself: I'm in my thirties and BMW driver for the last 10+ years. After many cars from 1 series to 7 series, from 1981 to 2016, in different countries and a wide variety of colors, I'm finally getting close to a teenage dream: M3 e46.

I was looking for a combo that isn't really special: Black Metallic on black leather, convertible and SMG. There's a story behind all of those choices:

- My favorite BMW I've ever owned was Carbonschwarz Metallic and that'd be and homage to that car
- Since I moved to California, I'd rather have convertibles (gotta enjoy that weather!)
- I was obsessed with the SMG transmission as a teenager and I've had enough stick shift cars for now (I'm European so that's pretty much been all I've had most of my life)

I am well aware of the struggles the SMG can bring, but at the same time, it's an M3. Most important components are expensive when they go really bad and hopefully things won't go that bad. I've spent a tremendous amount of time reading this and other forums trying to figure out as much information as possible and help me assessing the cars I've been seeing. And if comes the worst, manual swap exists for a reason.

Now, after a lot of research and a few cars seen and tested, I might have settled on one. It's not perfect but considering the horrible things I've seen with other M3s on the market, it's the one that gives me the best feeling considering my budget. Also, I should mention that I love to wrench on my cars so it helps.

Here is the deal: 2004, one owner (he was proud to show me the original BMW document, that's cool), roughly 100k miles, black on black, SMG. Fits the research! Don't have to worry about the rod bearing. The owner doesn't have ALL the maintenance receipts but he has most of them. Carfax doesn't report all of them either, he used different shops throughout the years.

All in all, it's a 15 years old car that has been daily driven. Not a pristine car, but definitely an honest car with a couple small hit here and there on around the car showing it's been used but nothing that shows abuse. Also, the owner has a pretty mellow driving style as being an older gentleman which is a plus. The paint is decent for the age and the location and all mechanical component worked during my test (except for a couple mentioned below). The top works flawlessly and there's even the original wind protection in the trunk.

Things that will need attention very soon:

- The crankcase vent hose on the intake side has a small leak. Couldn't find much information about that unfortunately, but it's just a vacuum hose. Replacement part is cheap ($15 on RealOEM).
- I noticed a bit of dry oil near the Vanos. The Vanos itself doesn't make any funky noise, but I am planning on doing the full Beisan upgrade anyways.
- The water pump just got replaced but for a reason I can't explain, they didn't replace the thermostat. So yeah, of course now the temp needle is going up and down sometimes.

The things that aren't a big deal:

- The SMG paddles on the wheel are intermittently working, which from my research on this very forum is a switch that simply needs to be replaced. The shifter works perfectly.
- The SMG plastic cover isn't very stable, I also read here it's a common problem.
- The armrest mechanism is broken on one end (the half-circle plastic sliding part). Needs to be manipulated with care when moving down, I can probably fix that.
- One cover for the roll-over protection on the rear headrest is missing. The system itself is intact (good to know the car didn't roll over already lol) but I can't find that part on RealOEM though.
- The nav system has some dead pixel. I couldn't care less since I'd replace it anyways.
- The dimming function of the rear view mirror stopped working (classic).
- The classic windshield cowl dry and tired, need replacement.

And apart from that whole list, that's pretty much all I can say about it. No Vanos noise, no weird vibration running or breaking, no smell, no SMG kicking to neutral out of nowhere, no light on the dash. Brakes are strong, direction is smooth, engine is healthy. The SMG is a bit clunky and slippy indeed in traffic and sometimes slow shifting but I've read the TTFS software solves most of those issues.

I have a PPI scheduled this week and if nothing absolutely major (cracks on the rear frame or else) shows up, that should be my next baby. It will definitely need a bit of work, but that's also what I'm looking for: a fun and safe project car. It a second car so I won't depend on it and I have all my time to work on each item, little by little. My goal is to make it as clean as possible while keeping it "as it is". I love "stock" cars and apart from the nav system for obvious reason, everything else will be OEM. That's what I did on all of my previous cars, expect none of them were M so I expect the budget for that one to be significantly higher.

Feel free to share your thoughts on those points and I hope to share some pictures very soon!

[dworthy]

Welcome to the Forum!

Yes it can be a bit of an obsession that car.

So for the mirror, I would recommend these guys: http://radar-mirror.com/ I have used them in the past several times for mine as well as my customer cars, great work for the price.

I am sure there are junk/scrap yards around L.A. that will have plenty of E-46 verts, you can grab some parts from them like the missing covers.

There are plenty of Double DIN options out there for a new radio with bluetooth, ect. if you are looking to swap into something more modern.



The vent hose is very easy to replace, and if the car has over 100k, would be worth replacing the CCV inside the valve cover too.

[herwawan]

Thanks, man! Excellent for the radar-mirror guys. Only $99 for the refurbishing, great deal.

For the double din, Avin Avant 4 seems to be a pretty good bet. The Alpine iLX-W650 also seems interesting but for the purpose of staying as close to OEM as possible, the Avant seems to be best.

I agree about the CCV, the leak is only on the intake side but might as well take care of that part too. Another couple days

[dworthy]

Yes Alpine with be the closest to OEM, you will also have the stick price to pay. I have just kept my BMW Business CD, for it can read MP3's, and I can stuff a lot of music on a CD.

I also have the CD changer in the trunk, that one is only for "original" CD's as it don't like MP3's, and I just use my phone as a GPS if I need to.

Also make sure you get a second key if you don't have one already. If you have one that is beat up pretty bad, send it off to this guy: www.bmwgm5.com

[herwawan]

The M3 is now sleeping in my garage! Yay!
You are full of great links dworthy! Thanks for sharing. I have 3 keys (2 diamond-shaped + 1 valet) so I should be good for now, but GM5 is now bookmarked.

The PPI came out okay so I pulled the trigger. The most important items:

- Front wheel might be out of alignement or geometry, the inside edges show slightly more wear and I also have a vibration in the wheel over 65. I'll start with the road force balancing of the 4 wheels and we’ll see from there
- There's an oil leak which they believe is the oil pan gasket. They told me it's not dripping but should be monitored. The challenge is replacing it anyways since you have to remove A LOT of things. I'll have to carefully plan other maintenance item while at it to optimize the time and spendings.
- Last item would be oil seeping from power steering pressure hose but not dripping, which could also be just the oil pan leak.

For the rest, it’s fairly normal wear and tear (hood struts need to be changed ASAP just to ensure the safety of whoever will be under it, motor mounts slightly cracked, front shock boots torn, things like that). On thing I want to explore though, is cooling. The PO got stuck on the side of the road with a steaming engine and no more power steering. Turns out the belts snapped and the faulty water pump was replaced by a local shop. Now, I still can’t explain why they didn’t change the thermostat (it was last changed in 2014 FFS, it's damn time), but at this point it's irrelevant. We discussed a trace of rust which could come from the belt pulley or tensioner. I just don't trust what the garage did when fixing this.

For the rest, I'm starting my project sheet to plan and budget. I'm so stocked but I'm not going to touch it much until a full Inspection 2 service. While going through some of the previous maintenance bills (not all are available but some), I noticed a couple random oil change with 5W30 (from different shops, I wonder how they didn't get the memo to switch to TWS). Being a 2004, I'm not too worried about the rod bearing, but it's the kind of small details that make me want to go thoroughly through all the maintenance item and make sure everything is safe and sound.

On a cool note, I have the original catalogs with the notes from the original owner I bought the car from, with the options and colors he was exploring. I also have the original bill with all the discounts applied by the sales guy etc. Very, very cool blast to the past. The sticker price with all the options he took was almost $67,000, crazy. Here is the list:

Carbon Black Metallic
Black Leather
Cold Weather Package
Black Softtop
Lumbar Support
Park Distance Control
Rain Sensor
Xenon Headlights
Navigation System
Harman-Kardon Sound System
Aluminium Interior Trim
19" Allow Wheels
Sequential M Gearbox

He also added before delivery:

Wheel Locks
CD Changer
Black Wind Deflector (which is so cool for long distance trips!)
Universal Transceiver
Alarm

It's fun to imagine how happy the guy must have been when he took delivery of that 15 years ago.

[Obioban]

Nice pickup!

M3forum.net has far more e46 M3 action going on than this ghost town :P

[herwawan]

Nice pickup!

M3forum.net has far more e46 M3 action going on than this ghost town :P

Thanks!

Yes, I figured haha so I’m also there now

[dworthy]

Yeah, it can be a bit quite around here, but I do pop in now and again to see if there are any new posts. I live mostly on the General BMW Mechanical help forum, as some sub-forums are like this one.