Used M3 residuals....falling fast?

[FrankC]

Last couple of days been looking at various M3,s here and there,was offered a lovely looking carbon black number 9k 2002 on a 52 plate and fully loaded from a local bmw dealer for £35k.

So i launched on to various forums/sites to check if i could do better with my money.

It didnt take long to uncover similar cars with round about the same spec/mileage etc for.........£27k

The sheer number of M3s for sale is staggering,why are there so many of these without good homes?
Cheers fc

[DuncS3]

Popular (read that as pretty common) car and I assume the dodgy engines make some people nervous?

Dunc

[DavidT]

I read somewhere that the engine rebuild takes £ 5k off the value, is that true ?

[DuncS3]

I dont think 5k is true tbh

under warranty I would imagine the cars are fine but out of warranty it may be a different story.

For example, I used to have a E36 328 Sport and it was a great car but when I came to sell it (it was 5 years old so out of warranty), I found that 75% of the people who called me about the advert asked "has it had the big ends replaced" (or something major like that) - apparently it was a known fault and without the work being done people weren't interested. I reckon that as it was a known issue, if the fault appeared BMW would have honoured something but it was still a shock to me.

Dunc

[TimJMS]

To be honest the engine issue put me off from buying the M3. That and the fact there are a lot around.

They need to be cheap now. The oldest ones are the same age nearly as RS4's, and the engine on a non - SMG car would still worry me.

It would seem it is rare for an SMG car to lunch its engine, since they cannot be over revved, on a downshift.

[Brooner]

Whats all this then frank are you thinking of going to the dark side say it an't so you'll have to buy a trailer for the twins might get a bit trick up your dive in the winter (ooh err misses)

[FrankC]

Whats all this then frank are you thinking of going to the dark side say it an't so you'll have to buy a trailer for the twins might get a bit trick up your dive in the winter (ooh err misses)

Fancy an M3 for a year or so till the jury comes back in regarding the new RS4,not sure if SMG cars are affected but the dealer told me they are recalling M3s from 2001-present.....bit of a worry but if the cars got a long warrranty i should be ok.
Driven an SMG on dry roads and it was impressive,not to sure about present road conditions though

As for the "twins"....both are complete ....i have a job getting through my own door!
Cheers fc

[scillyisles]

To be honest the engine issue put me off from buying the M3. That and the fact there are a lot around.

They need to be cheap now. The oldest ones are the same age nearly as RS4's, and the engine on a non - SMG car would still worry me.

It would seem it is rare for an SMG car to lunch its engine, since they cannot be over revved, on a downshift.

Couple of points here
- engine failures on SMG equipped cars are just as common as on cars with manual gearboxes.
- engine failure is nothing to do with overevving engines but relates to failure of the rod bearings - generally due to oil starvation.
- in reality there are conditions under which you can overrev an SMG car albeit more difficult than a manual car.

[Thorney]

.....and they've all been recalled for bottom end re-builds so everyone is affected.

[DavidT]

.....and they've all been recalled for bottom end re-builds so everyone is affected.

They took their time to do that, Didn't the engine failures start in 2002 ?

[scillyisles]

.....and they've all been recalled for bottom end re-builds so everyone is affected.

All M3s built from start of production until June 2003 have been recalled to have the rod bearings replaced with new redesigned bearings.

All M3s built since June 2003 and all M3 CSLs are not affected by this recall as they already had the new redesigned bearings in them.

The whole process has'nt been handled too well by BMW partly because they were'nt really sure what the problem was as they first suspected the oil pump. The issue that still remains is that BMW in some countries (US, Canada and Aus) has extended the engine warranty to 6 years or 100K miles whereas in the UK the warranty remains at 3 years 60K miles.

[FrankC]

According to the chaps on the BM3W forum,M3s are dropping approx £1000 a month at present.

Some of the bids people are putting in on cars are a bit cheeky to say the least.
Nice sounding car 2004 5000 miles with a few nice toys and a lads away to try the owner with a £30k bid

That car 9 months ago would have been the guts of £42k IIRC?
You have to be wide awake if you are thinking of buying one of these cars.
Cheers fc

[DuncS3]

Autocar in the last week or so had a very small piece about M3 engine failures too...so its starting to get press exposure too..

Dunc

[Ryan_s3]

I thought it was the early pre 2001 models that were affected??

[Riz_RS4]

I think one of the main causes was oversupply!

BMW has increased the prices a few times now to reduce this problem but its too late now, too many on the 2nd market place.

Riz