Midnight Koop

...whole lotta "thats what she said" going on

JDM_love

I had Service B done in January, i think they should've replaced it. In the service B list it indicates that they 'Check and replenish' all fluids. I just got this car last september, so not sure if previous owners replaced the clutch but I'm pretty sure its still on OEM clutch, the car has 89,000 miles right now. I'm familiar with replacing clutches with other vehicles, never tried it on MB's though. Did you replace the clutch yourself? And im actually in South FL lol.

Since I've had the car the only servicing done has been Service B. There were 2 previous owners, not sure if they did anything

JDM_love

I saw that coming, was too lazy to change it ... haha

tommy

Oops, have you confused with another "JDM" owner here. My bad.

Service B wouldn't do the tranny (be careful of that Adam's apple!); by fluids, they mean the cheaper ones. Didn't do the clutch myself. Very low mileage 02 you have there!

amanonfire

Abarth is still slow, and very pricey for what you get. e46 M3s OTOH can be found used for a good deal and surprisingly are not that expensive to mod, plus they don't need much modding.

tommy

It's $22k. You try to find something comparable that's brand new with full warranty at that price. I think the free day's driving school for the Abarth is a cool feature as well (not sure if that's available in Canuck territory) Minis are all more expensive and ergonomics are a joke. Only comparable new hatch to me is the C30 (especially with the Polestar tuning option), but that's also a good deal more, even with Euro delivery.

I agree that you can get more for the money used, but when is that not the case?

LILBENZ230

An E46 M3 would likely cost a Fiat Abarth in upkeep for you to keep it for any significant period of time. They're all 7 years old at best now and are pretty much guaranteed not to have had an easy life.

tommy

Really? 'cause if I were to go down the used car avenue, my contenders have been:

RSX Type S
1st Gen Z4, any
E46 M3
S2000, if I can ever fit in one
Honda Si (EP3)

1970s 3.0 CSi (ok, had to throw it in there; either that or a tii would be a dream car for me)

I'll have to go through e46fanatics to see the horror stories

amanonfire

Not true. BMW has made their flagship car very reliable. There's 2 gotchas, torn subframes and broken exhaust cam tabs. The exhaust tab could grenade the engine, yet there's only a handful of documented cases. The subframe may have been fixed if the owner was aware of the service campaign (or just get an 06 or vert, subframe issues are almost unheard of). Even if both occur you're still < $3K to fix both and be good for another 10 years. Maintenance is a little more as the valves need adjusting every 2-4 years depending on driving style.

Most actually have easy lives, low mileage weekend cars that never hit the track. That's why unmodified ones go for a premium over even the slightly modified ones.

JDM_love

I wouldn't go for an Ep3, it has the same power as a base rsx! lol s2000's are nice, shifting is so easy and smooth, you wont feel any jerk at all. Not bad for space either. If i were you thats what id go with

JDM_love

I'm not surprised, $600 for that service and the only improvement I noticed was the wipers. Im gonna start by changing the transmission fluid to see if thats the problem.

And yea i was lucky to find this! I went to this dealer in search of an mx5 they were advertising but it wouldn't even start when i got there lol, so i noticed they had this and got interested in it

LILBENZ230

Edmunds.com InsideLine owned an E46 M3 from 49,000 to 74,000 miles and spent nearly $6,000 in repairs and upkeep. It was a pristine example about the same age as they all are now and they paid $30k for it. I don't know about Tommy, but I drive way too much for that kind of crap.

tommy

There's something about the Bread Van look to the car that I've always loved. I believe it weighs less than the comparable ladies' base RSX, no? Drop it, get slightly bigger rims, and it's a nice-looking package to me. Kind of like the Z3/Z4 coupes and French bulldogs - so ugly they're cute.

The best things about the E46 M3s are the optional colors; love the Laguna Seca Blue and the puke yellow/green, ie,

An older BMW would probably be as much of a PITA as my Benz has been.

amanonfire

http://www.insideline.com/bmw/m3/200...02-bmw-m3.html

$4500 in repairs, yet they used the stealership which is just dumb. That $4500 should easily be < $2K with the most expensive thing being the 60/60/90/120/... mile service that is really for adjusting the valves.

http://blogs.insideline.com/roadtest...er-wallet.html

$1200 to replace rear training arm bushings (RTAB) and an alignment? I just replaced mine, it took 3 hours including doing springs, shocks and shock mounts - and that's with jack stands and no air tools. Total cost: $60 including $20 to rent the RTAB tool.

I would expect a shop to charge < $400 including an alignment or < $300 since you don't need an alignment if you mark the outline of the RTAB bracket and line up during reinstall.

amanonfire

I hope not I went from a 2003 C230 to a 2003 M3 after doing a LOT of research on reliability as my Mercedes took a long time to sort out all the issues.

tommy

Well, despite you naysayers, I took some time after work last night and put in the Sprint Booster I bought several months ago. Install took more time than I expected, as the old connector's push-in tabs are about as worn out as Lindsay Lohan these days. The switch feature is interesting, I guess; just now have to find out how to install it properly in the center console (no, Matt - not in the trash can!! ) Yes, all it does is accelerate the gas peddle, but I still like the feel of driving the car much better than before - it removes the driving through jello feeling that I have when it's not equipped.

So there.

LILBENZ230

This whole little pissing contest you turn everything into is getting pretty old. The sentence after the one where he said "$4500 in repairs" he adds that they then spent $1,000 more on a service at an independent shop. The dealer was double that. That made it $5500 and didn't include the two sets of tires it needed. So actually all told it was more like $7,500.

The whole point is that unless Tommy wanted to jump from the frying pan into the old German car fire, he should do like the rest of us and fondly remember the E46 M3 as a great car we would have liked to own.

Tommy if you were going to buy an older car but wanted something reliable, have you considered a NSX? Mostly though I think you'd be well served by the Abarth.

amanonfire

Of course it gets old when you're wrong so often. I understand why you're pissed, I'd be upset too if I was constantly proven wrong cause I didn't do my homework.

LOL now who's making it a pissing match? Cars need tires, and they drove the ****, pun intended, out this car so it needed tires faster than most. They even state the tire expense was voluntary.

Since you want to nit pick you'll notice my sentence I state the $4500 in repairs could be < $2K with the 60K mile service - ie since you need clarification, the repair bill should be ~$1000 total and the $60K service < $1000 depending on the shop and what needs to be done (valve check < valve adjustment).

No, the point is you're wrong and now you're mad. Tommy has the e46 M3 on his list of cars, so its important he gets good info about it. Do your research and it won't seem like a pissing contest - not every older German car is a potential money pit.

LILBENZ230

You don't seem to get it.. at all. But this is Tommy's thread and I'm done with the nonsense.

tommy

Girls, girls, girls!! Separate corners right now!

Since I know you both as well as one can on these silly forum thingies, I'll chalk it up to too many beers/Jaeger in both camps, even if it's not so.

Back on topic, my baby handled a round-trip drive to Atlantic City for a conference at the Borgata (I'm guido-ed out ). Almost at 154k!!

The car felt most bumps on the road, but I still like the firmness of the Konis anyway. Will be focusing on the crx for a while; goes in tomorrow for inspection/new front Chargespeed lip/VIS hood w/Aerocatch pins, and still have to try to shoehorn my new rollbar in there sometime - it's a tight fit, which usually is a good thing, but not in this case.

tommy

154,200 today.

Almost there!

Jerkin

Tommy you need instagram!!! But I finally installed my boost gauge like you did.. I'm running more than 10psi when I hit 6,000 rpm. And I still have to get a ecu tune...

tommy

That's good! I wonder how much boost these cars can safely handle without further modification.

Jerkin

I'm still upping the boost too... So I'm curious to find out that same thing... Except... I am a little scared that my supercharger is 150k miles old and getting pushed to new lengths now :/ lol.

tommy

This morning, threw a crx hood, 4 15x7 rims (all for sales this evening, more $$ for my next fix on the Benz ) in their original boxes, my laptop, and gym bag in the car without any real problems.

Try doing that with your girlyman sedans.