FS: 2004 BMW 330i Sedan, blue/nb, AT, $8,500, Trumbull, CT

[ELCID86]

Thanks Botond.

[az3579]

Thanks Botond.

[az3579]

Alright, after quite a lengthy meeting with the owner, I have all the juicy details about this car!

I was pleasantly surprised that the owner is also a track junkie. This car hasn’t been tracked since he has a M3 for that, but appears to be a BMW purist based on his fine stable of BMWs!

But anyway, on to the car. The owner is the original owner, and ordered the car custom in Orient Blue with Natural Brown. It has the Cold Weather (ZCW) and Performance (ZHP) packages, but does not appear to have the premium package, apparent by the missing lumbar support and autodim rearview mirror. This is a no moonroof car. It is obviously an automatic as well.

Up until 100k miles, it was serviced at BMW of Bridgeport (literally right down the street from me; I could walk there). After that, it was serviced at an independent shop also in Bridgeport (I know the place). The owner doesn’t have the records with him, but he says he should be able to obtain them, printed out, from the dealership and the indy shop. His mentality with maintenance was “if there’s something that needs to be fixed, just fix it”, so apparently the shop(s) complied with his request. The cooling system was done recently, though I don’t know if it was all done at the same time and just how recent that was. He says the water pump, radiator, hoses, expansion tank, and pullies were replaced. I did not see mustard underneath the oil filler cap. I did, however, see a couple of wet areas underneath the VANOS on the side of the engine, as well as some wet lines down near the expansion tank, though it looks like those lines aren’t for the cooling system. They might be for the A/C system? Not sure. Otherwise, it looked dry elsewhere. I couldn’t see the oil filter housing area well enough to judge whether that was a problem area. He did say the Valve Cover Gasket was replaced recently as well, and these wet areas may as well just be residual from when there were issues. It was dirty in the engine bay, but I didn’t see anything that jumped out at me as an issue otherwise. Oil changes are done every 3k, and says it uses no oil in that timeframe, so a top-up isn’t necessary. The ECU at one point was also replaced because it pooped the bed, and was done under goodwill out-of-warranty service from BMW of North Haven.

The body has miscellaneous fine scratches all over the place because of the kids that rode in this car, mainly around the rear door areas. I’m not a bodyshop expert, but I estimate that they can be taken out with a really good detail or wetsanding. A small few of these are rather long and obvious. I found a scratch that I could feel with my finger, so I’m not sure if that could be saved without sanding/repainting that section. It doesn’t look too bad from a few feet away, and because of the dark color of the car, it’s more obvious. The sidemarkers were purchased as clears and then painted to match Orient Blue. He says he still has the original amber sidemarkers somewhere at home. The hood has a small section near the roundel that someone backed into at some point, and despite the owner’s best efforts to park on an end spot well over the line, he still managed to pick up that and the dent on the driver’s side fender. The one on the hood he touched up with touchup paint, and you can see the section he taped off to do that. The fender damage was left untouched as there is no metal exposed.

The front of the car is sandblasted a bit from 137k of use, mostly highway. The foglights and headlight lenses will either need wetsanding or replacement since they’re all pretty foggy. The headlights are halogen, so they are unaffected by burnt bowls, and light up decently to see the road. All lowbeams and highbeams work as designed, as do the foglights. The passenger-side foglight trim is missing and the foglight is slightly bent outwards towards the passenger side of the car, but it also lights up fine. The rear lights all work as well; running lights, turn signals front and back, brake lights including top mount, and reverse lights all work. There are no lights out errors on the instrument cluster. One taillight was replaced quite a while ago, and the other had the ground fix performed at the dealer.

The exhaust pipes could use some serious love if you want them to shine again; there is a little bit of rusty-looking dirt on them, but you should be able to save them with some really good cleaning and metal polish. The wheels all need refinishing; at least a couple of them had some curbing on them, significant curbing. I didn’t check all of them, but I don’t imagine them to be any different than those that need work. I unfortunately did forget to check the tires (sorry!), though they looked good at a quick glance when I was standing a few feet away staring at the car while the owner talked to me. I will follow up with him via email and ask him the condition of the tires. The trunk button works, though note that the keyhole on the trunk is all black from all the oily stuff that likes to leak out from there. I did not test it as a result of this, as I didn’t want to stick the key into the ignition with gunk on it.

The interior is Natural Brown leather. The driver’s seat is in average shape; there are no tears or major cracks in the leather, just some slight wrinkling on the left bolster and normal wear on the rest of the seat and upper bolster. The passenger seat is pretty much mint. Rear seats are in good condition. The split-fold seats both work, and there is a ski pass-through bag in there as well. There is a small section on the driver’s side upper seat portion on the back seat that has a weird lighter colored scuff on it, as well as some slightly discolored small scuff marks on the passenger side lower portion of the rear seat. Otherwise they’re in good shape, and these aren’t obvious; you have to look for them. The rear parcel shelf isn’t nearly as purple as mine, in fact mostly black with a slight tinge of purple, which corroborates his statement that the car has been garaged when at home. The front seat controls all work as intended. Unfortunately I didn’t pay attention to the A, B, and C pillars, but nothing stood out to me as loose so I believe they’re fine. Instrument cluster yielded no errors or indicators that anything is wrong. The radio is the unfortunate victim of the non-functional power button, so it is stuck in the on position. The volume control feels loose as well, so this may need the common repair for this issue. All buttons on the radio, steering wheel, and climate control units work. The heated seats work, as does the stereo and all speakers, with no crackling or distortion that I could tell. I didn’t blast the sound, however, so with normal listening at least it’s fine. OBC stalk and all functions of it work. Mirror controls work for both passenger mirrors, as well as the mirror motors for both. The driver’s side mirror has some delamination starting on the outside edges. The passenger side looked ok from the driver’s seat. Window switches all work, front and back. Light switches in every position works, as well as hazard lights and door lock button from the center console section. I asked the owner if he had any issues with the door locks and he says every once in a rare while, when you unlock the car with the remote, the passenger door doesn’t want to unlock, so he has to lock it and unlock it again for it to unlock. Most of the time it’s fine. The steering wheel will need a rewrap if you want it to be alcantara again; it’s completely smooth at this point, though there didn’t appear to be any tears or missing chunks anywhere.

Starting the car was uneventful. It started right up and ran smooth, with a normal idle. The engine pulled cleanly throughout the rev range, without the typical hesitation between 3-4,000 RPM. There were no judders, hesitation, or anything unusual, and it revved right to redline. I tried the transmission in regular mode, sport mode, and in manual modes; all modes operated fine and it shifted nice a smoothly. The pedal kickdown button works, though to me felt a little bit loose. Since I don’t know what a normal one is supposed to feel like in an E46, take that with a grain of salt. Reverse works fine! The handbrake is nice and tight, and only requires three or so clicks to hold the car while in Drive. The brakes are nice, sensitive, and firm. I forgot to check pad life, and forgot to ask about rotors… this all falls under the “drop the car off and fix whatever it needs” category. The ABS works (I tested it). The suspension is all original, and has the same mileage as the car itself. Despite this, it was actually pretty tight for being original. It wasn’t nearly as tight as mine (mine has 20k on the suspension), but it really wasn’t bad at all! It did not clunk going over bumps, steering response with good, and did not bounce. Perhaps the steering response is a tiny bit lacking compared to mine, but once again, mine is fresher. There was no dead zone in the steering. I’ve driven E46’s with half the mileage of this with far worse suspension!

Overall, this car is in great shape. I don’t really have anything else to say about it; it’s a solid buy for the price IMO.

Pics:



1 by botond.pal, on Flickr


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[ELCID86]

You my friend are amazing. Thanks so much for taking the time and providing such a thorough review of the car. I'll have to go back and re-read this at least once more. Let me sleep on this...

[E_Rak]

Your "PDIs" are incredible, nice work!

[az3579]

Thanks guys. I am even more anal than this, but you know what they say...



I would have clearly stayed for a few more hours nitpicking. lol



EDIT: I forgot to mention! This car comes with an extra set of wheels for use with snow tires. They do NOT currently have tires on them, and I don't think the wheels actually work with the car since they're from an E39 540i, so the offsets are all wrong. Just thought I should mention it.

[az3579]

So is anyone interested in this car??? I'd like to get rid of the photos from my Flickr account if this car isn't going to a Mafia member.

[ELCID86]

I think there are at least one or two. I'm still waiting to see about the one in Ga. Can you just upload them to the forum?


Shawn in VA.
Via thumbs and Tapatalk.

[az3579]

Honestly I'd rather not have to deal with resizing and re-uploading them. I don't have a problem leaving them on Flickr for now, I just wanted to make sure someone was still interested so the photos don't stay stuck on my account forever.

I've subscribed to this thread so I'll check in from time to time to see if anyone has bought it yet, at which point I'll take it down if sold.

[ELCID86]

Thanks. I'll try to save a copy when I get home tonight. If you'd give me a day or so I'd greatly appreciate it.


Shawn in VA.
Via thumbs and Tapatalk.