WANTED: Petrol E46 Touring (or buying advice)

The place to talk about BMs

Moderators: neil, D4, msw

Post Reply
User avatar
Jamie23
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Nov 05, 2019 11:05 pm

WANTED: Petrol E46 Touring (or buying advice)

Post by Jamie23 » Mon Dec 21, 2020 10:21 am

Hi forum members, hope you can help.

The Alpina is going away for the winter as it feels too special to be out, and if I'm honest, too special in general! I'm after a replacement, not sure if it will be permanent yet, but something I don't need to be so precious with.

Ideally a 325i, 328i or 330i touring, pre or post facelift, with decent history and minimal rust. Features and equipment not important.

Budget £2-3k but may stretch for the right car. There are a few nice examples on eBay but a lot of rotters! Unfortunately missed a Sienna red one last week on eBay that was lovely and dirt cheap at £1,650.

Also, buying advice for these cars would be greatly appreciated. I've seen the same MOT advisories coming up when looking at cars for sale and they seem to be brake lines/hoses, ball joints, bushes etc. Rust seems to be the biggest problem.

Thanks in advance.

J
2007 E91 D3 #190

Best of previous cars:
EG Civic Hatch (great car, a real companion)
E36 318is (long-term test drive from my brother :lol: )
Alfa 155 1.8 T.Spark (at 19yo I didn't know what a head gasket was until..)

AG
ALPINA
ALPINA
Posts: 1144
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:51 pm
Location: Cambs

Re: WANTED: Petrol E46 Touring (or buying advice)

Post by AG » Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:36 am

e46, rust in the front arches is common now in many, it means a new wing when it appears.Rust in the rears, normally bubbled but I've seen many that are not too bad.
Rear hatch window can start to pop open when it feels like it, wiring issue where it passes through the body into the hatch.
Manual gear levers go floppy, only repairable from underneath.
Interior, hard wearing normally but leather suffers if not looked after.
Xenon lights, ballasts and ignitors fail and the headlight wash can leak.

But on mine, a 3.0i, facelift. I now have the following that are being sorted early Jan. over 100k, look for oil leaks, rear main seal can go at 90-100k, rocker cover gaskets fail as do the sump gaskets.
Lower suspension arms and bushes fail as do rear bushes.
Window regulator giving up, easy to do, just needs doing.
Cooling system, common issue on some.

But have a read here https://www.e46fanatics.com/threads/com ... s.1089555/

However I'd go for as best a spec and as best you can get with whatever your budget is. but these are all old cars now so suffer with old car problems.
Former BMW CC 7 register chairman

2000 e39 B10 V8 Touring
1985 e23 B10 (sold)
1995 B3 saloon switchtronic (sold)

Post Reply