Fad
Member
Registered: 1st Feb 01
Location: Dartford Kent Drives: 330cd
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by kz
Yo...
So my Impreza will hopefully be heading off this weekend. I need a new car quickly, and I won't really have means of travelling far to get another car afterwards. Just looking around local, and literally up my road there's a 330 Ci for sale but it has 150k miles on the clock, it's a very good price though. Do you think this could be worth a punt or am I completely mad? If I don't deserve to be in a straight jacket, what kinda things should I be looking out for?
By the way I've never driven more than 5k miles in a year myself so it wouldn't be increasing too much...
Base your purchase on condition like anything if it has a full service history it is likely it has been maintained well to that mileage.
Things to look out for are:
Leaking water pumps
Judder under hard braking will be Track control arms
If the rear end feels loose and a bit lively likely to be rear trailing arm bushes.
Dampers leaking and feeling past it are the main things I noted when looking at e46's usually can tell by a harsh ride
Check the usual stuff like discs & pad and assess whether they need replacing soon etc
Also manuals are generally 500-700 cheaper than the autos
pre 2001 (51 plate) 330ci's had slightly over assited steering hence why they go quite cheap
Mechanically the stright 6's are quite robust hence why you see quite a few old BMW's still going on moon miles. As long as its looked after it'll be fine which applies to most modern cars. just apply common sense when considering it.
If it were me i'd probably look at a M sport saloon which can be picked up fully loaded with under 80k miles for around the 3.5k mark on a 02/52 plate. Also the makret is flooded with them as people now tend to buy the diesel varitants so there are plenty to choose from.
[Edited on 13-10-2011 by Fad]
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cavmad
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Registered: 25th Feb 06
Location: Fucking annoying, unfunny, twatbag cavmad *racist
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Don't forget most (not all) cars with 15,000 miles on them will have already had most of the major bits replaced such as clutch, suspension components, brakes etc as well as stuff like alternators.
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Jambo
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Registered: 8th Sep 01
Location: Maidenhead, Drives: VXR Arctic
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Only if it's it been properly maintained. I wouldn't assumed it's been done
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Robin
Premium Member
Registered: 7th Jan 04
Location: Northants Drives: Clio 182 Cup
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The 325Ci we had came with full main dealer service history, every service was done on time no expense spared.
I wouldn't have considered it if it didn't have that.
Even so, it still felt like a ten year old car when it came to bushes, it had it's fair share of little clunks and knocks but nothing which wasn't easy to sort.
I would say, as long as it's straight, true, comes with decent service history and looks well maintained, it's probably a good shout if the price is right.
Get someone who knows E46s to check it out though. I took an ex BMW master tech with me, there's lots of little things to check which I wouldn't have thought about like the rear subframe mounting points, rear springs, doing a test on the coolant to see if the HG had gone, he even checked the fault codes....
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