Intro/Learn me: E46 325XI Touring

Good evening all, long time lurker here. I had been looking for a manual BMW wagon for 3-4 months when this little jem popped up Saturday evening. I emailed about it 38 minutes after it had posted, and I was already 3rd in line to see it. 38 minutes! My buddy and I shot over to Seattle to check it out Sunday morning, and I came home with my first BMW. After watching pristine examples go for high teens/low 20's on the auction sites, I'm just happy to have found this one on the cheap. 92k miles, 5 speed, silver with black leather, 16" wheels.

I have a couple questions.  
1. The shifter is pretty terrible. It's vague and needlessly long. I've been looking at shifter rebuild kits and short shifters. Am I correct in assuming I'll need to drop the exhaust and xfer case to get to the underside? I also plan on swapping out the shift knob as well. 
 

2. I'm not loving the clutch pedal feel, but I understand I can remove the cdv to get a better feeling pedal. I'm sure someone here has done this. Is the pedal feel really night and day?

My end goal is to have a fun family car that I can toss around when I'm cruising solo. To that extent, I do wish I had found a RWD model, but I'm not going to complain about the car I got for the money I paid. My buddy that drove me to get it has an E90 M3 that he's going to square the wheel/tire setup on. I'll probably wind up with 4 E90 M3 front wheels on it. 
 

Anyway, by all means, take me to school! 
 

I've never had a newer BMW than an e30 318is. My son has had a few- 540i, 335ix, another e30 318is. All turned out to be total disasters except the 318is, well it needs a motor but it was planned to get a K24 swap anyway.
A friend just bought an ix & it was eating front cv's - 1 per month, so he bought a tuner & turned off power going to the front. I didn't know that was doable.
With BMW's it's all about prior maintenance. 
The 335ix was a '13. The dash caught on fire & melted. There is/was a recall for this. BMW had it for about 3 weeks & finally just paid him for it because they would have had to dis-assemble the car to replace the ecu's & harnesses that it melted. 
The 540i needed chain tensioners & he was in no position to replace them at that point in his life many years ago.
That's my experience with BMW's. At 92k miles is about where the big $$$ fun really starts with them. 

Well berk. 

Previous maintenance is important, yes, but a few problematic examples do not necessarily mean your car is going to randomly explode. The E46 generation is pretty easy to work on. Get the maintenance up to date and drive it. I ran my E39 out to 200k miles without it melting, eating CVs, or otherwise failing catastrophically, and a buddy kept it going for another 40k before he sold it along.

As to the shifter, yeah, it's probably a combination of wear and design. You will have to drop some things to get at it, as you suspected. The CDV is the tool of the devil, designed for people who have no idea how to properly drive a manual. Yank it out and throw it as far as you can. Then you'll have a normal-feeling clutch.

A friend I worked with would always yell out "run" when anyone would even mention BMW. He has 5 kids & some of them ventured into BMW ownership. The entire family are good mechanics & could afford to fix them also but after some bad experiences,  the family has learned. His motto is "the Japanese have mastered performance & reliability, the Germans mastered performance but haven't figured out the reliability part." 
I hope your experience is different. Keep an eye on the plastic coolant parts also. Any little coolant leak will turn into a gusher when the plastic breaks. I forgot that our daughter had a 318ti. One of the coolant bits broke. Fortunately she noticed the big puddle under it at work & didn't drive it. Towed it home & we replaced the coolant housings. 
I really want to like BMW's they are awesome cars when new & I like their commitment to rwd. But when it comes to a daily driven car, a high mileage BMW is a love/hate relationship.  
I'll stick to my Acura's. Picked up a really nice TSX that skipped a tooth on the chain which is a common issue when starting cold on a high mileage K24. We put in a JDM motor & transmission for all of $1,000. Added some TL sway bars, brakes, wheel bearings, radiator & condenser. We now have a great driving, ultra reliable car for all of $3000, which would probably be the cost to repair the awd & clutch in a BMW ix.  
My wife wanted a car to replace allroad since we sold it when we moved to Idaho. That car was reliable & had 200k on it. It leaked oil but all the 2.7TT's do. It was reliable because of the prior maintenance done. The PO bought it for his wife & took it the Audi dealer & said fix everything. The receipts were $7,000. His wife then told him she wanted an suv with 3 row seating.  As he's showing me the receipts, he showed me $6,000 more receipts from the PO he got it from.  
 

E46s are pretty reliable.  Cooling system parts are wear items (and must be treated as such) and there are a couple of other things to watch for, but otherwise, most things should just be maintenance, not repairs. 

I don't have any experience with the E46, but I know on the E90's, there aren't any good aftermarket CV axles.  The OEM ones will last 150-200k if you keep after the boots, but the aftermarket ones fail really fast.  If you have to replace an axle, do a rebuilt OEM axle, not an aftermarket.  

As far as using a tuner to "turn off" the front wheel drive, that isn't a thing on the E46s. IIRC, its a mechanical differential, not a transfer case.  

The transmission mount on the AWD bmws is weird, and I think it contributes to poor shifter feel.  Basically, the transmission is sandwiched between the engine and the transfer case and doesn't have any mounts, so you rely on the engine mounts and the super hole-y transfer case mount to locate the shifter.  If you put the car in gear, you can wiggle the shifter fairly significantly due to the flex of the mount.

With all of that said, I'll bet you can still have a pretty fun manual wagon with the vehicle you just bought, don't let a few BMW scaredy-cats piss in your cornflakes.  E46s drive nicely and I don't think the AWD aspect of it ruins the car.  It probably won't be as trouble free as a TSX, but I'll take a manual AWD BMW wagon over a TSX any day of the week.  Well, most days of the week.  

I'll second not being able to tune out AWD on an E46 xi.  They're a biased open center diff, something like a 40/60 (F/R) split, no ability to adjust that bias based on wheelslip.  It's honestly a pretty primitive AWD system. 

ArmednHammerd said:

Well berk. 

The previous post was anecdotal.  I have an anecdotal post too:

I had a 2003 325i manual.  It wasn't an iX.  I bought it in 2006 with about 25,000 on it and drove it to a total of 130,000 miles with only typical maintenance.  The original clutch was still tight as a drum despite at least 5 seasons of autocross use.  During that time I put 2 window regulators and a window switch in it, other than pads and rotors, oil, and gas.  I had the transmission and diff fluids replaced, axle seals, and maybe 1 wheel bearing at the same time.  I replaced the battery ONCE.  Parts were extremely reasonably priced and it was very easy to work on.

I don't consider any of that excessive.  Other than those items it ran like a top every day for 11 years.  Some people have bad experiences but I think the "hello BMW goodbye money" thing is really overblown.

At 130,000 miles it was about due for a preventative maintenance cooling system refresh, though it had not developed any problems yet.  You can buy a kit to do that for $700-$1000 depending on options and it's a weekend's unhurried work in your garage.  I only sold the BMW because we bought a new car for my wife and her old car was a year newer and had half the mileage, so I switched to driving it and sold the BMW.

I did disable the CDV and I replaced the clutch pedal stop with a taller piece, because the clutch throw was unnecessarily long.  Both helped the drivability a bit.  But you will see that the pedal placement is ideal for easy heel/toe work.  I rev-matched every downshift without even thinking about it.

Prior E46 owner here (also current/prior E28, E34, E36, E39 owner). They can be needy but I would not be afraid due to the more alarmist posts in this thread. The E46 is arguably the "last of the good ones."

You will need to plan on full cooling system replacement at 100k (and every 100k after) if you do not already have receipts for it. It's just something these cars need.

The E90 M3 wheels will look a bit silly (E46s with wheels bigger than 18" look downright comical, IMO) and are large/wide enough to probably have a negative performance benefit on a lowly 325i, but if that floats your boat...

1: correct, you will need to get the transfer case out of the way. Fresh bushings will go a LONG way, be wary of aftermarket "short shifters." I upgraded to an E60 sport shift lever in my E46 which felt just right, improvement in throws but still felt "factory."

2: definitely ditch the CDV, it's awful and really does make a difference. Another easy thing to do is to replace the clutch pedal pivot bushings with self-lubricating bronze bushings (available from many aftermarket manufacturers). 

If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask.

A friend of mine had an e46 325xi manual touring, and his was very reliable.  I don't know the exact number but he put a ton of miles on it.   If my e30 325iX were to die tomorrow that's the car I'd be looking for to replace it.

It wasn't on an e46 but I helped another friend remove the CDV valve on an e39 540 and it made a big difference in how the clutch felt.  Removal was pretty simple - just take the thing out, rebend the pipe a little so it will reach the master cylinder, reconnect it, and bleed the system.

I stand corrected about the xdrive disabling. His is a 2013 528xi & it's an app called Xdelete.  No corrections on the other stories.

pointofdeparture said:

Prior E46 owner here (also current/prior E28, E34, E36, E39 owner). They can be needy but I would not be afraid due to the more alarmist posts in this thread. The E46 is arguably the "last of the good ones."

You will need to plan on full cooling system replacement at 100k (and every 100k after) if you do not already have receipts for it. It's just something these cars need.

The E90 M3 wheels will look a bit silly (E46s with wheels bigger than 18" look downright comical, IMO) and are large/wide enough to probably have a negative performance benefit on a lowly 325i, but if that floats your boat...

1: correct, you will need to get the transfer case out of the way. Fresh bushings will go a LONG way, be wary of aftermarket "short shifters." I upgraded to an E60 sport shift lever in my E46 which felt just right, improvement in throws but still felt "factory."

2: definitely ditch the CDV, it's awful and really does make a difference. Another easy thing to do is to replace the clutch pedal pivot bushings with self-lubricating bronze bushings (available from many aftermarket manufacturers). 

If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask.

I heard about the cooling systems. 100k miles for the cooling system seems reasonable to me. Gives me a reason to get back in the garage 

The e90 wheels are an option. The fronts are 18x8.5, which would be my all around setup. Does anyone know what the width is on my OEM 16" wheels? I believe they are 205's. I originally wasn't planning on anything bigger than 17" for the car. I may test fit them when we change wheel hardware this coming week. 
 

I also heard about the e60 short shifter, but my understanding is it doesn't work on the XI model. If it does, I'm all over it. I love OEM interchangeability and speed parts. 
 

I thought the clutch pedal pivot bushing was inside the bell housing? Is there an access hatch or does the trans need to come out? 

I appreciate all the help, gentlemen. 

ArmednHammerd said:

I thought the clutch pedal pivot bushing was inside the bell housing? Is there an access hatch or does the trans need to come out? 
 

He's talking about the bushing on the pedal itself, underneath the dash.

rothwem said:

I don't have any experience with the E46, but I know on the E90's, there aren't any good aftermarket CV axles.  The OEM ones will last 150-200k if you keep after the boots, but the aftermarket ones fail really fast.  If you have to replace an axle, do a rebuilt OEM axle, not an aftermarket.  

As far as using a tuner to "turn off" the front wheel drive, that isn't a thing on the E46s. IIRC, its a mechanical differential, not a transfer case.  

The transmission mount on the AWD bmws is weird, and I think it contributes to poor shifter feel.  Basically, the transmission is sandwiched between the engine and the transfer case and doesn't have any mounts, so you rely on the engine mounts and the super hole-y transfer case mount to locate the shifter.  If you put the car in gear, you can wiggle the shifter fairly significantly due to the flex of the mount.

With all of that said, I'll bet you can still have a pretty fun manual wagon with the vehicle you just bought, don't let a few BMW scaredy-cats piss in your cornflakes.  E46s drive nicely and I don't think the AWD aspect of it ruins the car.  It probably won't be as trouble free as a TSX, but I'll take a manual AWD BMW wagon over a TSX any day of the week.  Well, most days of the week.  

Funny you mention it, the previous owner had one of the front cv axles replaced recently. I'll keep an eye on it. 
 

Is there a way to stiffen up the shifter? Transfer case mount? Shifter mount? There have been a couple time coming up on slower traffic, where it was difficult to find 3rd. I'd put it down in 4th, then have to push up and slightly to the left. Otherwise it would go into 5th. 
 

The way I see it, the AWD can't ruin the driving experience if I've never had a RWD BMW! 

stuart in mn said:

ArmednHammerd said:

I thought the clutch pedal pivot bushing was inside the bell housing? Is there an access hatch or does the trans need to come out? 
 

He's talking about the bushing on the pedal itself, underneath the dash.

Yep, the pedal itself has plastic bushings from the factory that wear down and introduce slop into the pedal travel.

https://www.iemotorsport.com/product/oilite-bronze-clutch-pedal-bushings-e30-late-e36-e46-z3-z4/

As far as the "xi" differences I am not particularly well-versed as I've only ever owned RWD models. But even the stock shifters are normally pretty good from the E36 forward. Fresh bushings and a weighted ZHP knob are a great place to start.

I wonder if you could make a poly insert for the stock AWD trans mount bushing (or if someone somewhere in the aftermarket has made one). I tend to like stock or "HD" rubber engine mounts but with stiffer or uprated trans mounts in BMWs for an OE+ experience that doesn't add too much harshness.