After turning my E39 BMW 540i back over to my aunt, I still had an itch for another modern BMW, but something smaller, with a stick shift. I turned my attention to the E46, which to my eye is the best-looking of the 3 Series line. The E36’s styling always seemed a little underdeveloped to me, as if BMW was still trying to figure out the transition from boxy to sleek. But the E46 is the perfect modern distillation of the 3-Series.
After test driving several 4-doors, my search ended with a silver 2000 323Ci (American-speak for a two-door coupe with the 2.5-L straight six, and not to be confused with a 323iC, which would be a convertible).
Ordinarily, the M52TÜB25 inline six was good for about 169 HP, but this particular car came with a bonus: an aftermarket supercharger and intercooler, which boosted output to the neighborhood of 300.
All seemed well during the test drive, except for the A/C, which didn’t blow cold. The car was quick and handled well. The rear subframe, which is known for being prone to cracking, especially on higher-powered cars, had been reinforced with an aftermarket kit. I felt safe making the deal, so I bought the car.
Typical E46 rear subframe damage. Photo credit: Rares Vasc
But this a BMW story, so you know there’s trouble ahead.
Under the hood, the car was a bit of a mess. The supercharger and intake plumbing consisted of those big silicone elbows that 20-somethings love to buy in bright colors. Then there was the air filter. With the blower installed, the OEM airbox was long gone. In its place was one of those K&N-type cone filters that you soak in oil. This one was jammed down low, behind the headlight, in the only spot where someone could get it to fit. Even then, they had to crush the filter to get it in there. So it partially crushed and absolutely black and disgusting with road dirt. It was also mounted low enough to ingest water if I were to drive through a deep puddle. I couldn’t find a part number on it so finding a new replacement was a trial-and-error affair.
Besides the stupid mounting location of the air filter, the problem with all this was that it was kludged together, with none of the structural support a stock intake would have. The silicone hoses just barely fit over the metal pipes and elbows and had a habit of working loose while driving. Tightening the worm clamps down tighter just caused the silicone hoses to squirm their way off the plumbing. I owned the car a few months before I finally figured out the correct sequence in which to reassemble the intake to ensure that the oversized worm clamps would bite and hold properly. This is the basic stuff OEM engineers are paid to get right; with the aftermarket, who knows?
Then I worked on getting the A/C working again. It was none of the usual suspects; I eventually traced the problem to a wonky sensor connection under the hood. It wasn’t expensive, but it was very time consuming to diagnose and eventually track down a replacement part.
But I’m just getting started, because then the real problems began. The car would display the EML (elektronische motorleistungsregelung) light, BMW’s version of the check engine light, at random intervals. Sometimes I could trace it to the intake plumbing coming loose, but as I got the hang of putting that back together, that was no longer the case. I performed all the usual maintenance: plugs, coil packs, oxygen sensors, intake seals. Nothing solved the EML light, and if anything, it got worse, to the point where it would come on during freeway drives and send the car into limp mode, when it would make probably less than 100 HP. I’d be in the left lane doing 70 MPH when the EML light would pop on and suddenly I couldn’t exceed 50. That was obviously dangerous, so I was forced to do my daily commute on surface streets, which could take over an hour. Then the EML light even started coming on while on surface streets. I had to fix this.
Photo credit: MotoIQ
But how to fix it? A BMW dealer obviously wouldn’t touch the car with all that aftermarket crap under the hood. I bought my own OBD-II to USB cable and some BMW-specific software so I could communicate with the ECU through my laptop. I commiserated with another guy on a BMW forum who had a similar problem. I rebuilt the VANOS unit, built my own smoke-testing rig to check for intake leaks, and everything else I could think of. I finally took the car to a local BMW indy mechanic who was highly regarded amongst tuners; even he was left scratching his head.
Assuming the root of the problem was the aftermarket mods, I considered returning the car to stock. But I’d need to source all the missing OEM intake parts and injectors and find someone to reflash the ECU back to stock. That would probably run close to a thousand bucks and it wasn’t guaranteed to fix the issue. I had already been spending close to $500 per month chasing this problem and was no closer to a solution. In all my life, I’ve never spent anywhere near that on a car payment; why the hell was I spending it on attempted repairs? The car had to go.
But how to get rid of it? I couldn’t in good conscience sell it to an individual without coming clean about its problems. It was time to invoke the nuclear option, that shining beacon of don’t ask, don’t tell car sales: a certain national chain that’s known for having retailified the car-shopping experience. I drove the BMW to their lot, crossing my fingers that it would behave during the tech’s test drive. Apparently it did, or at least it behaved well enough for them to make me an offer of $3500, which was half what I paid for the damned thing, not counting what I had put into repairs and attempted repairs. But I jumped at that offer like a bum on a bologna sandwich. When it was time to do the paperwork, the customer rep asked a few questions. It went something like this:
Rep: So, would you like to look at another car?
Me: No, I’m good.
Rep: Really? You don’t need another car to drive?
Me: No, I, uh, I bought one already.
Rep: You should have bought it here. What kind of car did you buy?
Me: What is this, an interrogation? Can I have my check?
Worried she’d change her mind and rescind the offer, I took my check and hightailed it out of there. I used the $3500 towards a ’99 Miata, which was every bit as reliable as the BMW was temperamental. They say the answer is always Miata. It sure was in this case.
My ’99 Miata. After the E46 debacle, I nicknamed it the Savior.
The tragic irony is that I didn’t even buy the BMW for the mods; I bought it for the chassis and its perfect size. I rarely even whomped on the throttle that hard. I could have been just as happy with a stock 323; the blower just seemed (at the time) like a free bonus. Stupid me.
The lesson, of course, is to stay away from modified cars, especially for a daily driver, double-especially if those mods don’t involve parts that can be easily swapped for original equipment. You can end up very much on your own when things go wrong. The other lesson is to avoid falling into the sunk cost trap and know when to cut your losses.
Sometimes I wonder if some unlucky soul out there ended up with that 323Ci. The best possible outcome is that the car couldn’t even get through a buyer’s test drive without misbehaving so that the dealer was forced to pull it from inventory and either fix it – if they could – or eventually unload it wholesale. In fact, given how poorly it performed, I think this was the most likely outcome. In cars as in politics, the nuclear option is never pretty.
Could it be that the MAF didn’t like the oil-soaked intake air?
That was one of many things I checked. I cleaned the MAF repeatedly and even replaced it at one point.
I have a 2013 Cadillac ATS that is just as problematic! The constant repairs are outrageous! What costs $50 on a Chevrolet is $500 on a Cadillac! I should have known better! Next car? Beige Camry!
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1963-cadillac-fleetwood-sixty-special-chapter-2-never-buy-an-old-luxury-car/
I see that Mark called his Miata the Savior. I once had a troublesome car that I called the Antichrist.
LOL 🙂
I saw a 73 Mark 4 two days ago in chocolate brown. Looked very nice. Then the little birdie in the back of my head said beware of these luxury cars especially a Mark. Car still for sale and birdie still talking to me.
This reminds me of my money pit, my 245 Volvo wagon. Full IPD suspension, handled like a slot car. When it ran. Which wasn’t all that often.
My e36 stick shift 325i sedan, even stock, always needed some type of repair. Regular maintenance items were cheap and easy, but things were always breaking. This was daily driver, not a weekend car. Ultimate driving machine, yes, but now I drive a Honda.
Oh my… 🙁
While I wouldn’t touch any modern car with an aftermarket supercharger, I was still a bit befuddled at what the issue with your car would have been until I got to this line in your story:
The number of people who vandalize their own cars by “flashing tunes” astounds me. Maybe it goes well for all of the people who I don’t read desperate, confused, posts from on the BMW forums…but I read enough of those to know that it very often does not go well. I am guessing that your issues lay in whatever tune that poor engine was burdened with. Plus the sloppy workmanship on the intake (I had one of those K&N intakes on my MINI, and it worked very well…for what it did, which wasn’t much. But I knew how to install the darn thing.). And the 1000 things that can go wrong by adding a supercharger to that engine.
It would have been a fun project to put the car mechanically back to stock, and not very expensive. Whether or not you could have ever restored the ECU and associated modules without breaking the bank and driving yourself crazy is unknown
So yeah, Miata would be the most cost-effective solution for that.
Here in California with our strict biennial emissions testing, which includes visual and not just tail-pipe or OBD test, aftermarket engine mods are much rarer and/or presumably smog-legal quality conversions. Maybe. I’ve only owned two BMW’s. A K100 motorcycle, bought new, which was basically reliable but had more niggles than any Japanese bike I’ve had, and far more than my Ducati. And an E12 528i which was quite troublesome by my standards. My experience has been that VW is a much cheaper and more reliable way to get that indisputable German car feel.
One look under that hood would have had me running away fast.
That said, I would consider adding an offical Toyota TRD supercharger to my xB if I could find a low-mileage one (not likely). They only added a modest amount of boost and pretty much everything else stayed stock.
A longtime rule of mine is that a messed-with car is a hard no. The guy who does the messing understands what he has, but nobody else in the entire world does. And I have yet to hear about a messer-with-seller who agrees to provide lifetime consulting services.
I am genuinely sorry for your painful learning experience. Made worse because the car should have been so wonderful to drive.
The only BMW is would have considered owning would have been a 2002 manual and a 320i manual. The last BMW’s I ever rode in were the long ago 528, 633, 733 in the 70’s. In short they are one of a handful of car makes I simply never trusted. There was a saying long ago “live fast, die young” as to them. To me that meant woe to the second owner and third for sure. I also could never quite understand why they had to make them so complicated as time went on.
I’m surprised you bought it. Whenever I look at cars, and ones I look at aren’t usually modded, but if they are I walk. Get the engine back to original condition. Get the original rims and tires back. Get the original exhaust back. Why the holes in the door panels for speakers? I could go on but the bottom line is walk away.
Ouch, that’s quite a story, especially when I do some rough math and figure how much money went down the drain on that. Break My Wallet indeed…
Buying a car with aftermarket “goodies” is always a dubious proposition. If it’s a Mustang or Camaro, it’s a much more promising proposition than a BMW; those usually have enough of a modding community to work out the kinks. Even on those, however, you have the cut-rate ebay kits – which is what this sounds like – that take an already-difficult proposition of making a modern engine behave with a bunch more air and fuel shoved down its throat, and mix in a bunch of cheap, failure-prone bits. I can’t say I’ve ever bought a souped-up car, but if I were to, it’d need to satisfy the following conditions: the kit or parts have to be from a company I’ve heard of (or pieced together by a very knowledgeable owner or shop), it has to be a clean install without obvious red flags (like a mashed-up air filter), and I have to be able to test drive the car, flog it, and not be able to make it misbehave. Incidentally, one thing I snicker at is when I see “big air” kits with shiny big tubes and colorful silicone couplings that terminate in a massive K&N filter… that’s sucking air from under the hood instead of a proper cold air inlet. You might gain a HP or two over a clean stock air cleaner, only to lose ten or more because you’re drawing hot air in.
On the E46, I do like the look of them. BMW had a pretty good look going in the late-90s through mid-00s. By comparison, their more recent stuff looks like it’s inspired by a slack-jawed, buck-tooth face. I’d be tempted if I found a good deal on one, but unlike the older MBs and Porsche I’m playing with, I’d absolutely avoid anything that wasn’t impeccably maintained, and (not to rub salt in the wound) most aftermarket “upgrades.” I haven’t worked on one, but I hear they use a lot of plastic parts that aren’t easily disassembled – so one that’s been unprofessionally maintained or “upgraded” is likely to have lots of broken bits and cobbled-together pieces. I hadn’t heard about the subframe issues. It looks like a reasonably easy fix, if dropping a subframe and doing some welding isn’t too scary a proposition, but it adds to my impression that it’s kind of a fragile car.
Anyway, at least you got a good story out of it; thanks for sharing! Unlike you, I never learn. I bought a cheap Mercedes 560SEC – actually not a bad buy, but I had no idea how to work on them – and probably spent similar money in the first six months of ownership. I’ve learned that almost anything is fixable, even by an amateur, but it’s basically an avocation that’ll suck up a lot of time and money before it even reaches “break-even” territory. A Miata isn’t a car I’d truly fall in love with, but sometimes, even with boxes of tools and more workspace, I think maybe it’s time for one… I’d have to sell as soon as something went wrong though, or the cycle would just start again!
I have a flashback to my second car. I had a 1981 VW Scirocco that the previous owner had engine swapped with a 16V engine. On a good day it was a potent sleeper for 1989, on a bad day I had to re-engineer parts of the work. Like you I lost patience and sold it to a high school kid and bought a bone stock 84 Jetta.
At least you made it through your debacle without a blown engine that would resulted in a total loss. You’re smarter than most and didn’t fall blindly in love with a losing proposition. Learning to keep ones emotions in check a cut your losses early is hard lesson to learn (don’t ask me how I know) but an important one. BMW and customized are two words that make me pause whenever I hear them said.
Well you and I have some stuff in common LOL-
https://photos.smugmug.com/Misc-12/i-8BJ6fPW/0/KtDRRfdBq7TNMMwz2FgJPqkHtSRbHttw37WK2njSk/X2/IMG_9226bb-X2.jpg
……That is a Sport pkg stick ‘323’ 2.5L with about 100k miles. The a/c works hehe. The seats that come with the Sport pkg are fantastic with the extendable thigh supports just like my old Fox body GT convt, and I have never experienced such a ROCK SOLID ride in a convt, but Dear Lord the thing is slow! Smooth like nothing else and nearly silent, but just a pooch. My lawnmower can probably beat it to 15 MPH. So Supercharging sounds mighty appealing, aside from the related hassles. Or an LS swap 🙂
…..but yeah the Miatas of course are great – greatest cars on this planet or any other IMHO.
Agreed that the e36 was a bit awkward in rounding the square, whereas the e46 got it very right. However, for me, time has done one of its many tricks and left the 46 looking a wee bit TOO neat and the 36 still a bit odd but now a bit interesting. Bit more muscle under the suit, or something.
I had an e36: every cliche about BM’s being superbly-balanced drivers was true, and I loved it, when it was good. But alas, like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, when it was bad, it was bloody awful. And just too expensive in becoming good again, and too regular at doing so. The thought of a modded one makes sweat prickles appear, and your story proves them to be in a good cause as cautionary reminders.
Realistically, as second-handers, the wondrous Bavarians are either Bulk Money Wasters, or friends of the gnomes – lovely lawn adornments.