Been looking around at possible replacement cars and after driving an e46 330d last year I quite fancy one and they seem to get good write ups by owners on here.. I'd be after an estate for a little more practicality so I fired up the auto trader expecting to find a good number of examples and nationally there are a dozen available and all well north of 100k miles..

Are they really that rare a car ? I was expecting a nice selection not 12 in the country.. I did put max of £8000 initially but when I put it up to £10K the only additions to my search were the later model which Im not so keen on the looks...

I have not tried Piston Heads or any other sites yet, just a bit shocked I suppose there are so few available on Autotrader..

 

I haven't see too many about! I have a 53 plate 330d sport saloon and I have only seen about half a dozen other in the last 6 months!

They are on the whole fantastic cars, reliable and a joy to drive (especially for a daily), they rarely go wrong, and are quite economical, I think I have averaged over 37 mpg over the last 100,000 miles! They have enough torque to accelerate very well indeed for a oil burner when the turbo is spun up (above 1800 rpm), and make amazing motorway cruisers. If you get one with the m sport suspension the handling is really good too! If you driver them hard lots or have lots of pot holes near you will get through lower suspension arms! Only the M sport ones come as separate parts so it can actually cost more for a non sport suspension!

At about 100,000 they will need a new fuel pump, at 140,000 I needed a new front pulley, at 144k one front shock started to leak so replaced front pair with bilsteins as they are better than oem and half the price of BMW's!

If you get them serviced worked on at a main dealer expect to be spanked in the pocket! Go to a specialist! ask around on the bbs / web scene and they will point you in the right direction for a sensible priced service or other job!

The very early ones do not all have DSC this is a very nice safely feature to have! so try to get one with it.

 

Is it a sport you're after?

I've been looking for a 330d sport saloon myself recently. At first I thought they're cheap now and I'll get one easily.. Then when you narrow it down to what you actually want, in my case, saloon, auto, black leather, 2003, no more than 100k.. Suddenly there's hardly any and they are very expensive. They all seem to have mega mileage on.

 

Mate I was looking for one of these not so long ago and I just gave up, they hold value really well at the moment. You will pay a premium for it if you do end up getting one.

 

Sport would be the ideal spec but that narrows it down even more....

also has to be manual...

at this rate I'm gonna be scouring the country and driving miles to see the first one that pops up, racing against everyone else who's after one too.. LOL...

 

Not surprising when there's so few available...

 

Great cars!! I have a 51 plate 330d touring in factory Estoril Blue. I am actually thinking of selling it though, as i planned to bring it out here to France as a daily driver. But the car is too good, to have some french cunt wreck it on me!!

Edit: mine is 101k, silver leather and a 184PS 5speed manual model!!! And also doesnt have the swirl flaps (bought a set of blanks to do them and its a non swirl flap inlet). Also got brand new discs and pads all round, new turbo filter and btm arms for mot just before xmas!! And its only mods is lowered on FK highsport coilovers and recently refurbed 19" X5 "Snowflake" Alloys all round with new tyres!!

 

they are harder to get hold of with low miles.
manuals are rare as hens teeth, bmw hard sell at it's best for a £1500 option.
i have an e46 330ci, cracking motor, bloody thirstly, whereas the diesels as much better and very torquey.
just keep looking, piston heads tend to have a few, then classified on ebay always has a smattering, but mileage will be the issue, they seem to do moon miles from my findings, so maybe open up max mileage a little, say to 120k ish.

 

The only worrying thing about high miles is the diesels seem to suffer with turbo and gearbox faults. I've been looking for a while and there's been a lot of non runner or spares and repair 330d's on ebay with gearbox problems. I've also seen a lot of them wih over 120k that have had turbos replaced and or gearbox repairs. I think from what I've seen it's safe to say you could well get problems around the early 100k mark. Might even be as well looking for one that's got even more miles that's been through those repairs if you're after a higher mileage one.

 

i bet if you got a higher mileage one and got the box and turbo off and had them reconditioned before anything broke you could save some money long term. the problem is that this initially may cost more money than a lower mileage one but will have the work done in advance.

 

i brought a 02 330d 86k full service , 3.5k .

it ran like a dream for a month was getting great fuel milage .

now the bloody thing hasn`t moved in a month as i cant get it to start .

i think it has air in the fuel lines or the filter is blocked , i`m not what you would call mechanically minded and am worried ill make it worse if i have a fiddle lol

would haqve gone to a garage ,but my acc got ripped and work has dried up :-(

once its fixed it will be going and im going back to a ford

 

looking at these myself for the missus sometime this year maybe

 

One thing I have noticed with All BMW's I have been in is that the A/C pumps get noisy(er) with age - normally related to a loss of A/C fluid, this sounds like a whining gear box but the sound stops if you turn of the A/C!

Apparently the A/C pump will leak a bit if not used regularly!

 

I have a 51 plate E46 330d auto estate,138k miles and mechanically it's been spot on. It's got Full BMW SH from new until I bought it then my usual garage took over servicing.

Had it four years now and my only problem was an intermittent starting problem that turned out to be camshaft sensor. 80 quid to replace.

I have other little problems though e.g. Remote key fob has stopped working, door lock has collapsed twice (easy repair though) and rear wiper has seized up.

Driving wise its been the most reliable car I've owned, fairly quick and a great cruiser.

 

hmmm, mine has a big of a noise, quite high pitched, car has climate control so never really turns off i guess.

 

Dunno why you're struggling to find one there's 40 330d tourings on ebay right now!

Don't be put off by mileage, I'd go for one with up to 150k with full history quite happily

Manual ones are rare though

 

I think he was searching gumtree!!! I was searching on there earlier and across the entire uk, there is only like 20 E46 330d's on gumtree!!!

And manuals are rare ya say? hmmm