E46 320d tourer - Buying guide please!

After nearly 17yrs ownership of Honda cars (current one being 14yrs), I've decided that my next car is gonna be German. So for practical and economical reasons, I've chosen an e46 320d tourer, 2001-2002.

I've test driven one and definitely felt at home. Mountain bike in the back + gear no problem. W/E Trips to the lakes no problem. Family outing to Scotland and the south west of England easy peasey, so this is the one.

Sooo... besides the obvious things to look out for when purchasing vehicles. Is there anything else I should be looking out for? Any recalls or common faults with the engines or electrics?

Any links to other motor forums are welcome!

thanks again

:)

The only thing I know that may be of interest, there were 3 different diesels fitted to the 2.0 e46. Earliest was 136 bhp, late ones were 150 bhp, and the last I think were 173. I don't know when the switches were but that is defintely something I would be looking at.

54 brought the 150bhp with six speed box, then 177 were are 2 years later if i remember right, also why go for diesel how many miles a tear are you doing ??

Might be different between the body styles but my old man's got a 53 with the 150bhp engine / 6 speed box.

you may well be right bud thinking about it

Loads of info in these forums.

http://www.bimmerforums.co.uk/

http://www.bmwland.co.uk/talker/index.php



Other stuff if you get one.

http://www.openbmw.org/downloads/

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/select.do

http://www.tmk.com/bmw/index.shtml

http://bmwmods.co.uk/

Cheers Guys

I test drove 150bhp 6spd beemer

Mobileman - The miles I drive probably doesn't' warrant diesel, but it's the torque factor that I'm interested in for tourer

Brock - Cheers man! Plenty reading there me thinks

thanks again
:)

something you should look out for I was looking at getting a coupe the swirl flaps can break off and be ingested by the engine, wrecking it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by New Art Riot

something you should look out for I was looking at getting a coupe the swirl flaps can break off and be ingested by the engine, wrecking it.

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I had one of these and heard of the swirl flap problem. Theres a guide on bmwland to remove said flaps which I followed and done. If you dont mind a few hours work its not too difficult to do, it also did seem to improve the performance a little too.

was looking at 320d myself a while ago. allegedly the turbos are not very reliable on them up until the 03/04 models. just something to consider....

this was discovered from the bmwland forum

Funny this should be mentioned!

I looked at an Audi avant and the bloke was warning me about the turbos not being reliable. Now I took this with a pinch of salt due to the fact that he wanted me to buy his Audi. I shall look further for this on the forums now.


cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aloogobee

was looking at 320d myself a while ago. allegedly the turbos are not very reliable on them up until the 03/04 models. just something to consider....

this was discovered from the bmwland forum

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I think a lot of turbo issues on diesel engines seem to be related to how the car has been driven.

IE - If the car hasn't had enough throttle the turbo doesen't fully engage and the soot sticks to the turbo veins and causes them to stick giving different performance issues, even simple issues like juddering etc.

If the car has had a lot of throttle and the turbo has been properly excercised then it normally tends to remain pretty healthy - a lot of people complained about this on the Non-PD TDI 110 VW engine and it was found this was more often than not the cause of the problem.