Can you love the BMW E46 that you dare not buy?

I'm very busy recently, so I don't have time to shoot videos. It happens that many friends say that they have always missed the written content, so this question is presented to you in the form of words. Because you can still code words after midnight, but shooting video takes up daytime time, and now the working hours in the daytime are very tight, so it is difficult to produce high-quality video content with tight work arrangements. So the video will have to wait for a while.

Recently, I bought an E46,318i made by BMW Brilliance and spent 30,000 yuan. Strictly speaking, this car is also someone else's "Amoy", but this "customer" is my parents' sister, so this car is almost mine. After all, my sister is an ordinary woman who doesn't know how to repair cars. What about renovation and maintenance? -? The most interesting part of playing E46 is still for me.

You can experience the happiness of being a BMW owner without spending a penny. I really get a good deal.

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E46 was first produced in 1997 and stopped production in 2006. Let's not talk nonsense about the history of the third season. I vaguely remember talking about that in E90 or G28 articles before.

E46 is the turning point of BMW in the new century;

-? Since E46, BMW's body lines have gradually softened, and many features have continued to this day. Like that thing called the corner?

By contrast, this is the previous generation E46? -? E36. Progress can only be seen through comparison. )

-? Starting from E46, BMW began to introduce more electronic equipment and high-tech equipment leading the industry. Let's just say that E46 is the first BMW equipped with Valvetronic (the M52 engine of E36 has DISA and Vanos, but the intake side is still simple? Vanos).

-? On E46, BMW completed the transformation from M generation to N generation, and E46 witnessed the overlap of the old and new times.

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In the nine years of E46 production, BMW has completed the alternation of old and new times. As a witness, E46 will inevitably participate in various changes, and the final result is that various versions of E46 are circulating in the market.

Take 3 18i as an example. BMW once produced M43/N42/N46 cars with three engines. The 320i has M52 and M54 engines, and the 325i has M54 engines, which should be similar in China.

In fact, this car also has 1.9 displacement and low power 3 16i, as well as 323i, 328i and a bunch of displacement configurations ... Fortunately, there are not many choices in China, and it would be even more chaotic if all of them are choices.

Appearance, E46 can be roughly divided into two styles, the most obvious difference is headlights. The E46 we often see is a later version, and the headlights we can't see are often like this:

Personally, I still think the later version is better.

The E46 we can buy in China is also different from the imported ones. Before 2004, it was all imported (nonsense, because BMW Brilliance was not built at that time). In 2004 and 2005, domestic versions were more common. BMW Brilliance E46 has only 3 18i and 325i, and each displacement has only one configuration.

Fortunately, the domestic 3 18i was equipped with a brand-new N46 engine, which was later used in E90? Series 3, E84? X 1、E87？ 1 series, E85? Z4 and many other BMW cars are widely used engines that originally did not belong to E46 era.

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E46 is really an old car, there is no doubt about it. The oldest E46 is in her twenties, and my youngest E46 16 years old. But to tell the truth, although the design of E46 has a certain sense of the times now, this sense of the times is by no means the fatigue of the old times, but a classic that can last forever.

In E46, you can find the roots of modern BMW design language.

Looking at an E46, it's hard for you to have other ideas about its appearance, such as beauty and ugliness, just think:

This is what BMW looks like, and BMW should look like this.

After 20 years on the market, it can still be praised as "the most beautiful 3 Series" by BMW fans. E46 is simply a walking work of art ... There must be seats for E46 in the museum in the future.

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When I first entered this cockpit, I was puzzled: I haven't been driving this generation of BMW for a long time, so I can borrow a friend's car to run for a few kilometers at most to have a simple experience. I am completely unfamiliar with so many operations in the car. It took me about tens of seconds to get familiar with the location of these buttons.

Although it is a 3 18i, after some research, it is found that the configuration of this car is quite high:

-? There is a cruise at a fixed speed (say nothing, I don't take the Odyssey that I bought for more than 200,000 yuan in the first two years at home, and I don't take the overbearing 27 ...)

-? Electric seat with heating and memory, thieves burn.

-? Automatic air conditioning (don't think this is a routine operation, and later many BMWs didn't even have automatic air conditioning)

-? Automatic headlight

It doesn't sound like much, but guys, what if it's all based on a used car that I spent 30 thousand yuan on?

(I accidentally exposed a wave of color. Look at this seat wing. )

This car is running ... the current state is not very ideal. The main problem is that the feet and bushings are aging and have not been checked and replaced. Therefore, there are still problems such as idling jitter in D gear and abnormal noise hanging in the pit. But I am very satisfied with the state of the power system of this car-

You can feel it with your feet. Valvetronic is easy to use. Because the throttle response of this car is extremely sensitive, if Valvetronic is broken and the throttle is activated, there is no way to get such an agile response.

Another point is that the cooling system of this car is very good. I have heard that the design of E46' s water temperature meter is unscientific before, but whenever the pointer is slightly to the right, it can be seen by the naked eye, so the water temperature of this car is actually too high. To this end, Mr. Chen, a BMW expert who did not want to be named, also wrote a tutorial to teach you how to reprogram the E46 water temperature meter with a laptop.

Knowing the seriousness and consequences of E46' s common faults, I paid special attention to observing the water temperature all the way home (200 kilometers) after buying a car. Fortunately, my thermometer has been in the center line and does not move.

Many common faults of E46 equipped with M-series engine are actually caused by high engine temperature. E46 has a pain point, that is, its silicone oil fan is too weak in heat dissipation. Therefore, the first thing many riders do after buying E46 is to replace the silicone oil fan with an electronic fan, so as to fundamentally solve the problem of high engine temperature first, and then deal with the derivative problems that have appeared step by step.

On the night I got back to the car, I asked Mr. Chen, a BMW expert, whether to program the water thermometer or replace the electronic fan. As a result, the expert told me: no need? & amp？ No, because N46' s 3 18i is already equipped with an electronic fan.

N46' s 3 18i can be said to have advantages and disadvantages, and the absence of bugs in the cooling system is its greatest advantage. As for its biggest shortcoming ... it is dynamic, of course. Although the reaction is fast, it is not only 140 horsepower. It's hard to say whether you can outrun GK5.

In addition, I suddenly thought of one thing, which is worth spitting:

E46' s sheet metal gluing is really not so good, just like a little apprentice who has just been doing sheet metal for two days. If you find that the sheet metal adhesive is particularly rough when you buy E46, don't panic. If the board is straight, there may be a problem. ...

And why buy 3 18i instead of 325i? Actually, it's because playing with old cars depends on a certain fate. For example, it turns out that my least favorite color is red, but I accidentally bought the best red Altezza, so I can only accept it. And this E46 was accidentally found in the circle of friends of a car dealer friend. Before that, I never thought about buying an E46.

But since fate has come, how can we not continue? After all, this is the color that many BMW friends dream of. Although it is 3 18i, after all, my requirements for power are not so high. Women just walk instead of walking, and 60 horsepower is enough.

So it is natural to win it.

The next day, I drove it to my "Royal" repair shop for a physical examination. Our self-operated cars and amoy cars are prepared and maintained here. Although the overall condition of the car is good, there is still room to spend money to drive an old BMW home.

The engine room is in good condition. It seems that the predecessor cleaned it up, and the problem of oil leakage basically does not exist. The only oil leak is the Vanos oil seal. )

(The oil pan of the wave box has never been removed, which means that the filter screen inside has never been changed. This car is now 1.3 million kilometers, so it's really too late to change it. )

The aluminum upper swing arm is also a spring seat, and the design is quite interesting. The rear shock absorber is still the original car, all four shock absorbers have failed, and the dust cover has flown)

(The overall state of the chassis can be said to be a fat sausage stick, a vegan car, without any modification and no traces of the bottom, indicating that the previous working conditions were not bad. )

After some investigation, I probably made a list. It feels ideal, and it should not cost a few dollars:

-? Belt, idler, tensioner

-? Wave box filter

-? Shock absorber, shock absorber top glue, buffer block, dust cover

-? Vanos solenoid valve oil seal

-? Wave box foot

-? Air tank, air conditioning tank, oil tank

-? Vehicle oil and water

-? Spark plug

-? Mirror switch

-? Balance bar rubber sleeve

-? Li Zichuan

-? Brake disc

-? Dynamically balanced tire

-? Modified suspension positioning value

Compared with other E46s, the scale of this modification is simply too small.

Of course, if you want to do it, you must do it in a good direction. Good parts will eventually repair the car, and bad parts will eventually repair the broken car.

If you like to watch it, I will send out the running account after finishing it, so that you can see how much trouble it takes to play an old BMW, and also make you joke about how much I charged for this car.

As for today's article, let's stop here. After all, this car is still just a used car that has not been trimmed. Perhaps its actual performance is 20% to 30% of the new E46 car. It is absolutely biased to evaluate E46 in the state of a car.

But when I deal with its problems one by one, I may return to the level of 70% to 80% of the new car, and then we can really experience what the control benchmark was like 20 years ago.

Ok, that's all for today. Anyone who wants to see the maintenance process can check 1

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"Dongge Automobile Research Institute" was first published in the official account of WeChat.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.