Hi everyone! So my pal is looking to purchase a car. I tried to persuade him into a MINI of course, but he has his heart on a 3 series (Non-Turbo). It's looking at either the I or XI. We're shopping around for a used one, and we see a lot of them with low mileage but most of them are 2007 models. Their reasonably priced and we looked at a couple review sites and consumer report sites to check out their reliability. The main concern is that the warranty will expire within a year.

So to all your 3 series owners with high mileage, how is the reliability of the 3 series? Would a extended warranty from BMW or 3rd party be worth it?

 

certified preowned bmws are an extra 2 years, and up to 100000 miles on top of the existing 4 year 50000 that a new car already comes with.

are we talkin about a late model 328i or something here? if so, those straight six n/a bmw motors are pretty stout from my experience. silky smooth bmw engineering!

any reason why he doesnt want to go with a turbo one like 335i?

 

if i were you i wouldnt expect many more replies..... this has to be one of the most dead sections of the forum. the last post was mine on the mustang thread below this one.......... on 4-11! today is the 27th!

 

see what i mean this forum has no life.

 

Sorry, I'm not down in this section often.

Having the CPO is key...but since I do most of the work myself, I'm not overly concerned. Unfortunately, I've only owned the BMW for about a month now...so I can't really say anything but speculate on reliability. My brother had a 5 series that he put well over 100K on...and when all the little stuff started breaking, he just complained about it. I'm sure like anything, there are good cars and bad. If the car is taken care of...I'm sure things would be fine.

 

I've owned 5 BMWs, 3 of them 3-series cars. I put over 100K on 2 of them and never bought the extended warranty. For me at least, the issue wasn't that they had problems, they didn't but the inevitable repairs...rotors, pumps, and other parts that wear out were incredibly expensive to replace. But I never had to replace a clutch, or any drivetrain component. So in my book, if you take care of them, you can expect a long life...just expect to pay a lot for parts when things do break.

 

I've owned an E36 up to 150,000 miles and an E46 up to 115,000 miles. Extended warranty isn't worth it. This is BMW maintenance in a nutshell:

Inspections every 15,000 miles with what they entail plus oil every 7,500 miles

Every 40,000 miles you'll want to change out the control arm bushings and transmission and diff fluid.

Every 80,000 miles you'll want to do a cooling system overhall and replace the timing belt tentioner. Suspension also gets soft about that time.

Vanos seal and spark plugs around 100,000 miles with another look at the rubber bits.

That's about it. The 328 will be much more reliable than the 335 with the lack of turbos, I would get a warranty on a 335, but not so much on the 328.

 

Our 2003 E46 330i has been flawless except for occassional squeeky sound from the pulley belt tensioner during cold weather that started after 5 years since new. The E90 is more reliable.