a friend of a friend just has his 2002 M3 engine die on him after a measly 6000 mi. did a little research on this and found the links below.

http://members.roadfly.org/jason/m3engines.htm
http://www.mfailure.com/

way OT, but figured this would brighten our spirits knowing that HONDA is doing things right! i feel really bad for these M3 owners!

 

finally the all so perfect M3 has become crap. I never liked BMWs after owning my 99 M3. Will never buy or recomend BMW to anyone.

 

[garth]LIVE IN THE NOW!!!!!!![/garth]

 

Not only that, but it seems to take forever to get one of those runflat tires (which seem to shread after 5 miles), after you get a flat!

 

just watched that last night --- weird.

 

Pretty scary to think that if you own a 6 spd manual E46 M3 and your engine goes, the dealer may very well blame you for it and there is nothing you can do. You are then stuck with a $54,000 paperweight.

The new M3 is one of, if not my favorite cars currently available, but all these posts have made me think twice about ever getting one. For $20K less I'd probably just get a CL-S 6sp manual with some nice wheels and bolt on mods. And have HONDA peace of mind





[Modified by H-PIMP, 11:43 PM 9/8/2002]

 

Interesting...I have never heard anything like this.

 

Granted some of these claims may be legit, however I'm sure that some of the failures were due to driver error. I'm sure BMW is looking into this and making adjustments to the design of the engine, risk comes w/ owning a fist year run of any car model.

 

until recently the owners (and BMW, according to the owners) thought the engine problem was a design flaw that affected the 10/01-12/01 cars i believe. now some as recent as 2/02 are failing, so the problem looks quite widespread.

 

This really sucks...

 

Ironically,I drove my friends this afternoon for the first time. I had no idea so many people were suffering motor failures with these cars. The car was definitely great fun to drive,but Honda reliability has a firm hold on me. That and the fact that I hardly have $50,000+ dollars to spend on a car

 

I dont think the problem is as wide spread as its being made out to be. I mean what, 25-50 problems out of how many e46 m3s? I know of quite a few m3s with plenty of hard miles, no problems at all.


rob- who is still glad he owns a honda, though.

 

take into account maybe 10% at best of the owners are members of online forums

 

A buddy of mine that i race w/ is a mechanic at the local BMW dealership. He said there was a problem w/ some of the 1st batch of engines that were released. Something to do w/ the CAD designer getting a number wrong or something in the design of the cam. The dealership here has replaced the 2 engines that have failed, that they know about.

 

well a good friend of mine is a BMW race motor builder, and saw tear downs of the e46 M3 motor before it was on sale in the US. his words are some portions of the design "Are less than ideal" but i dont think we have another 13B on our hands....

 

An interesting thread on roadfly.org:

http://forums.roadfly.org/bmw/forums...=634966&page=1

Why are BMW forums so - em - early '90s in terms of user interface?

 

Ok gues the M3 is out of the Question. Anyone hear anything bad about the Audi S4?

 

just that its bang for the buck ratio is really low... Im not a fan of it, but then again Ive never been a German car guy...

 

When you consider it is a 100% new engine that has cylinder speeds approaching F1 levels. And one imperfection in such an over achieving engine could easily result in something not so good happening. The faults that they have found is the #3 cylinder main baring as been failing and they have changed the size of the oil journals to compensate for this. But you have to think that Honda has run in to problems with their designs, a recent example is the CL auto trans failing for no apparent reason at very low miles. Also what about Audi and the s4 and all the people blowing turbo's, bypass valves, and hoses. It is a problem that a lot of good manufacturers face it is just too bad it turn's out to be such a big deal some times. I am not saying it is OK that these failures occur but it does not mean that the M3 is any less of a car or BMW as a whole.

-Nate (just my 2 cents)

 

Does this reliabilty problem extend to other bmw models, particularly the e36 325is? I have been looking to get one of these (as a daily driver so reliability is important). I have been asking all my questions at BMW forums, but after reading this thread I'm worried I have been getting biased responses.

 

hmmm a bit harsh wouldn't you think... if you had a 99 m3 what was it about it that was so disapointing?


-nate

 

thats a shame, the e46 m3 is such a sweet looking/performing car. its not acceptable to have engine problems from a 50k+ car. i would be very very pissed off if i owned one. to bmw reliability.

 

this is an isolated problem... e36 engines (m50) are outstanding. The e36 m3 engine (s50) some people have run into the vanos unit failing when heavily tracked so they replaced it and no problems since. I know many people with very high mile bimmers and never have had a problem (including my self). If you go back to the e30 (m20) engines are just as reliable just require a little more TLC.


-nate

 

Does anyone have the numbers for the M3 cylinder (piston?) speed vs. the DC2R?

 

all i know is that the m3 has a faster piston speed than our cars...