E46 Daydreams

[Mehowski]

Car is for sale - advertising it here before I chuck it up on FB and eBay etc.

2003 BMW 318ci
117,500 miles - will go up due to daily use
FSH up until 90k, serviced at home since. Last service around 10k miles ago, needs service after purchase.

Car has been driven daily for over 20,000 miles. Has crossed the UK countless times and attended over a dozen car shows - will be sad to see it go.

Only two faults:

- Leaks oil. Rocker cover gasket replacement should fix it, I've not done it because I'm lazy.
- Top part of chain tensioner has snapped and has been removed from the engine - no damage was caused. Tensioner still works fine and I've had no issue since removing it

+ look at it
+ never run on cheap fuel, cheap oil or anything else that might deteriorate it
+ engine is really clean inside, plenty of life left
+ usual BMW goodies, climate control, cruise control, leather seats

£1100 ono without wheels
£1500 ono with wheels

Plate not included. Thanks!

[emfxur]

Awesome build!

[Miroteknik]

lol can you ship this to Tacoma WA

[Mehowski]

Are you sure you want a 4cyl BMW?

If the answer is yes, then you can have it as long as you pay the shipping fees lol

[Miroteknik]

Are you sure you want a 4cyl BMW?

If the answer is yes, then you can have it as long as you pay the shipping fees lol

honestly i just want to park it in front of my house and look at it...



right hand drive JDM manual 3 series coupe with euro twisty-uppy mirrors?! this would have every eurotrash fboi bending backwards

[YesOuiSi]

DAMNIT.

Y U NOT SALE NEXT MONTH

Seriously, hope it gets a good home and you get on with the e39 wagon love.

[Deaky97]

Still sore that this is for sale tbh. Real shame you can't keep hold of it and put it aside for later work! Ah well, we all know you'll kill a 39 Wagon with ease, so not all is lost yet

[Mehowski]

Still sore that this is for sale tbh. Real shame you can't keep hold of it and put it aside for later work! Ah well, we all know you'll kill a 39 Wagon with ease, so not all is lost yet

Cant get insured on a 39 so going 46 touring. Kinda glad as they're prettier anyway and I can get a m47 in it which is a lovely engine

[Mehowski]

Oh wow, it's been a while!

Pretty big update this one. Long story put short, I was saving up for a new car as I knew my coupe was very ill. It developed a vacuum leak which was getting progressively worse, it wasn't idling well, it was drinking about a litre of oil every 250 miles, and frankly, I was getting bored of it. As well as more and more anxious knowing I was driving a time bomb.

Then I decided to impulse purchase a new camera set up for 2019. Of course then, the day I pick up my camera the coupe decides to shit itself en route to the photoshoot location. Annoyingly the fuel pump gave in and it wouldn't budge anywhere.

This was the final straw for me, after being excited to come home to my new toy, I was then stranded for 5 hours following a stressful day at work. Eventually it got towed home and I went to bed at 2 in the morning. I developed a mild hatred for the car knowing very well that it's left me in a bit of a sticky financial situation as I just spent 3 months of savings on a new camera expecting the coupe to survive another few months. I was put off the car and didn't want to touch it and you could say I somewhat fell out of love with it. It sat outside my flat, broken, for a good 3 weeks until I decided I should probably fix it. I installed a fuel pump one evening and after a lot of fucking about with a flat battery it fired up. I've never seen so much smoke come from one car in my life. Somehow, during the 3 weeks of it sitting about the idle situation got even worse and the engine was generally even unhealthier. The vacuum leak got even worse, I managed to do 10 miles in it to the pub and back (stalling every time the car came to a halt) and then I parked it up outside my flat for yet another 3 weeks.

There were things that we fixable, sure the idle could have been a dodgy sensor and the vacuum leak could have been a simple split in the pipes somewhere but the fact of the matter was fixing the oil burn would involve more money than the car was worth (head off job etc.) The N42s were simple rushed engines and not designed to do more than 100k. The coupe had regular maintenance and after 120k it was on its last legs. There was no way it was going to pass an MOT on emissions and being someone who works for Defra I did have a slight conflict of interest here...

As I was running short on cash I cancelled my gym membership as my gym is a 10 minute drive from my house and I had no car. So I was pretty skint, no gym, no car, and I got pretty ill for a good month. I was by no means down but as you can imagine, I wasn't at my peak performance for a good while lol!

A month came and went, so I restarted my search for an estate car. Being 9 months into my insurance year I did not want to cancel my insurance and waste 9 months of a no claims bonus. Being young my insurance is pretty expensive, so I could do with this extra year's no claims on my record. This meant my insurance company a firm, cold grip on my bollocks here and I couldn't get anything bigger than a 2 litre. I came to the conclusion that I need to get myself back on the road and did what most people would do.

I bought a £500 daily.





Yup, I got a geography teacher's car. It's a 1.9 8v M43 engine with a manual box. Silver. My first car was quicker than this thing. Pretty much every single sensor on it is broken, the wheels were unbalanced, the hood has no clear coat, the secondary air pump sounded like a fucking jet turbine on cold start and the rear arch is crustier than ghandi's flip flops. It had covered 153,200 miles and it had literally no service history. I didn't even know how many owners its had, but the bloke I bought it from seemed friendly and showed my some photos of the car during his two year's of ownership. He's done loads of adventures in it and it even looked pretty smart on his MV1s. This however doesn't excuse his dreadful behavior of installing that hideous M stripped kidney grill and angel light headlights.

It does however have a strong engine with no leaks, electric everything and a full leather interior with a black carpet. The tempting price of £500 mixed with a little bit (a lot) of persuasion from my friends meant I didn't have too much to lose and bought it. Although I'm not joking here, the depression really kicked in when I had to drive this thing on my own. I went from a sexy, colourful coupe to this shopping trolley. I ***** it, and worst of all, even my mum didn't like it because she liked my coupe so much.

Maintenance is a must though, so the next day I did a full service on it (apart from the fuel filter, which I will do.)



It then needed some life putting into it quickly, so naturally I thought the coupe could be somewhat useful for the last time and sacrifice its coilovers and wheels. So one week after purchase (yesterday) I asked my friend for help and we stripped the coupe on the side of my busy street. We took the goods off it, packed up my touring, drove to a big open park and cracked on with it!







Safe to say, it's incredible what a set of wheels and coilovers can do. And it's safe to say for £500 this is one fucking brilliant daily. Even my mum likes it now! The whole point of this car is to be as cheap as possible as I want to save up for a Lamborghini, so I probably won't be putting anything else into it other than Shadow Line kidney grill's and a plate delete strip. At first I didn't think I'd bother putting my private plate, but on second thoughts...

Also I need to tick off the big chrome Jap wheels look.

Best of all, it even brings up sparks from the rear diff guard (which isn't necessary and hangs 50mm below so it won't damage the diff.) I do want the rear to tuck and sill to be perfectly level, so there's still some fine tuning to do.

We're back in business! The more space will help me carry around boxes of merch for my business that the coupe previously couldn't. It'll seat 4 of my friends in total comfort, which the coupe previously couldn't and hopefully it'll run sweet for as long as I need it and maintain it. E46 daydreams can finally continue...



Thanks for reading! See you soon.

[Fila]

Congrats on new purchase

[19birel]

Low-key very jealous over here haha, I've wanted a wagon of some kind for so long but here in the states finding one with a manual gearbox is next to impossible. Congrats!

A good paint corrections and restoration of those black trim pieces and she'll be looking top form for a cheap runabout. You're off to a pretty great start tho!

[hinrichs]

Gonna miss the coupe, but love the wagon. Looks good after the wheel/coil swap.

[Kenz]

Dang that wagon just about made me fall out of my chair at work! Love love love.

[DawsonLiri]

Wagon > Coupe, even if they come in silver!

Congrats on the new car, looks great.

[Fruttolo]

I think you should pull an Aidan and tuck wheels super hard, wagons look super duper cool slammed and tucked