F_Throttle

We broke the cardinal rule, 'Never respond to the troll.' I don't want to spend anymore time on this and I suggest the rest of you guy drop it.

OP, if you are handy with a wrench and have the time to fix your own repairs - the M3Forums has tons of resources and DIY write-ups (including the throttle actuator).

Weapon F

Great feed back this is type of information the OP was looking for. This information is useful for anyone in general that may be considering owning and E9xx M3. Thank you this exactly the type of information that is truly helpful its greatly appreciated.

Now I'm pretty sure there are M3 that have not encountered as many issues as yours and there are some that have had more issues than yours but based on my 2 friends and 1 neighbor that currently own M3's they pretty much mirror your experience in regards to having similar Issues and expenses.

Thank goodness you know how to wrench I could imagine how much that bill would have been$$$$.

In 7 years of ownership 85k miles my expenses have not been as extensive as yours but there have been some.

14 Oil & filters changes $1480.00
1 set of spark plugs at 60k mi $130.00
1 set of New Rotors & new lugs$ 647.00
Valley plate leak $ 1500 covered under warranty
Brake pads Project Mu $462.00
Wiper blades $100
My biggest expense Tires $3400 this includes 1 set of Continental extreme DWS didnt like them,1set of PSS $1200 my current set of summer tires and 1 set of Blizzak ws80 Snow Tires $700 and new 18in rims $500 for snow tire rims total $1200
Total cost $ 7719.00
Out of pocket $ 6219.00

Adziu

Holy ***** thats insane. Now it got me thinking real good after comparing this to Weapon F’s list of his maintenance costs over the years. I get the tires, oil changes, brakes and spark plugs part is gonna be a lot of V8 powered cars but M3 needing more than that just blew my mind away. How many miles did you get the M3 with and how many did you sell or trade it in with? Any mods done to it or was it all stock?

Cwalk25

I bought the car as a CPO with a little under 60K miles and traded for my IS-F with around 105K miles.

Mods were the following:
AFE Intake
Agency Power Axle back exhaust
Macht Schnell Test pipes
BPM ECU Tune
Dinan DCT Tune
APEX EC-7 Wheels - 18 x 9.5 +22 - 275/35/18 Tires all four corners
Hawk HPS pads
Schroth Quick Fit Harness
Bilstein B6 Dampers

Adziu

And the winner is the ISF. Had sat down and thought it through and figured it’s not worth the hassle to get a car that will be throwing surprises at me left and right. I also spoke to a friend who works in the warranty claims department for a company and said he’s dealt with more E9X M3’s than he can count on his hands. Also had asked him about ISF warranty claims and he said he’s dealt with a few but they were mainly the water pump issue or the exhaust manifold cracking. But that to me is nothing because it can be fixed on my own compared to tearing down a whole motor to do things a car manufacturer had messed up on and fix it hoping it will not happen again. Thanks everyone who had gave their input on this thread and hopefully anyone who will be in the market for either one will get a good idea of what they are trying to get into. Long live the reliability of Japan lol

mikersoft

iTrader: (1)

I bought my 2012 with 8K on the odo, and I've added almost 60K miles of near daily driving + 17 track days over the past 3.5 years. It's been rock solid

However, it has cost me a ***** load of $$$ for consumables (tires, brake pads, etc) and mods!!

-Mike

jdmSW20

iTrader: (12)

Haha that's about where I was to piggyback on what Cwalk25 said. I had my E92 M3 for 16 months and I spent as follows:

Water pump, thermostat, new coolant res = $3000
Low pressure fuel sensor = $500
New throttle pedal and reprogram = $1500
New headlight housings, HID, and ballast = $1500
New footwell control module = $1000

those were all done at the dealership here. this is the stuff my buddy that worked at BMW did for me on the side for cheap cheap, about $200 for everything:

New spark plugs
Driver side window readjust
New AC blower motor
New HID(again)

Keep in mind I bought the car with one owner and 60k miles, it was still dam near a new car. I only put 25k miles on it, needless to say I was over the car and came back to Lexus and got an ISF. Severely more reliable and similar performance, that's win win. Sure the things on the ISF aren't always cheap to fix but ill take an occasional expensive over EVERYTHING is expensive

Fsport416

Reliability! Nuff said...

Weapon F

Here's the thing some say that the rod bearing issue might be overblown its internet Hysteria which may or may not be true. Someone suggested that the Rod bearing issues might be cause by owners over revving their engine when cold etc but to this day there is no actual data of what is causing these failures other than knowing that rod bearing tolerances are close. The actuator problem is definitely there, but for some reason these are the only two issues typically talked about when in fact there are so many other things going wrong everything.

All sorts of things are failing and failing on cars with relatively low miles to me that's the bigger issue. Hey if the E90 M3 only had the rod bearing issue or the actuator problems and everything else was good ok then it has one or two potential major issues thats bad but can be dealt with. Look ISF has got Valley plate leak and now a few cracked manifold issue no car is perfect but ISF issue are no were near as high as m3 not even close. The fact that so many other additional parts on M3 are failing is a major concern.

When you add all these failure together they can total up to several thousand dollars, and it's just not 1 or 2 thing. Consider JDMSW20 M3 so many things going wrong in 16 months of ownership with only 60,000 miles with previous 1 owner. If you look at parts that failed on both cars they cannot be attributed to hard driving or bad driving it's just parts that are failing such as HID's going out twice, thermostats, foot control modules, AC blowers, alternators, wheel hub bearings, actuators, fuel pressure senors etc all these things have nothing to do with how the car was driven but yet failure rate on such a wide variety of parts is disconcerting to say the least.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

Rod bearings don't fail from revving on cold cycle. There's plenty of oil under pressure on cold cycle. Rod bearings fail because:

1. The oil has air in it regardless of temperature. Air in the oil is the kiss of death.
2. The oil pump does not have sufficient pressure for the horsepower being generated. There is a bypass in every oil pump because once you get to 75 psi, you're pretty much done, no more pressure is necessary. If the bypass design is faulty, you'll have bearing failures, and rods fail before mains ALWAYS.
3. The oil pickup is not in a good place and the oil pump is sucking in oil and air - see point 1 above.

Rod and main bearings in a properly oiled engine NEVER exhibit wear. The hydrodynamic oil film ensures the crank never touches the rod or main bearings as long as there is a sufficient oil supply to keep the oil where is needs to be. If the pump fails to get air-free oil, the bearings will wear. If the pump starves for oil for any reason, the bearings will wear. The ONLY time the bearings suffer wear in a properly designed engine is when there is NO OIL in the bearing - so if your car sits for a month at at time and you start it up, it is going to cause some bearing wear because the bearings are completely dry and it is going to take a bit to get oil back to them. I know guys who have installed an Accusump device that they use to prime the engine because their cars sit for a long time between starts. This is not necessary for normal use, but it does prevent bearing wear for those people who have cars sitting for a month or more at at time.

BMW has had problems with rod bearings before. I am not sure why, but in the same vein, I am not sure why the Germans seem to have more issues with wiring harness reliability too. It's not rocket science, and the necessary technologies are quite well known for both engine bearings and wiring harnesses across the entire automotive industry. It really baffles me...

Quadrphnia

For those of us that store our Fs over the winter, do you recommend firing them up & bringing to operating temp once a month? Or do you think we should just wait until spring until we start it up again? My car is typically stored Dec - March & I've been doing the former since I've owned it.

Weapon F

Lobuxracer this is latest I heard about rod and bearing issue that BMW will no longer use TWS 10W60 that 10 weight was to heavy and 60 was to thick to get into areas that it need quickly enough they now have switched to and recommend 5W40 Pennzoil. But if that were the case wouldn't every single M3 had the rod and bearings go out on them at some point? Which is not case, a close friends M3 has no Rod bearing issues and he's had the car now almost 6 years he's had every other major problem but not that one lol.

FFM

Lobux, oil viscosity plays a pivotal role when talking about bearing clearance. Your statement isn’t entirely correct. Oil not at operating temp, aka more viscous, may not even under pressure be able to provide the necessary film that’s required to keep metal on metal contact. I’m pretty positive, among many others, that cold start shenanigans are a key cause of the issues. Especially since the issue can’t be traced to build date, model year, etc.

So yes, cold oil is in fact capable of causing rod bearing issues. It’s even stated in the BMW manual if I recall to not exceed RPM or specified load without proper oil temp.

MileHIFcar

This^^^^^^when I was looking for my ISF back in 2015 I was contemplating the E90 M3 and was doing research on it. When I found out that BMW (at the time) recommended 10W60 I was kind of surprised and called up Royal Purple (I've used their oil for years) and asked them if they had a 10W60 application for the M3 and they said they didn't, but they said that their 5W40 would work just fine and they thought that 10W60 was a little heavy for that motor and didn't know why BMW used such a heavy viscosity in that motor??...............

Long story short I bought the ISF instead but this made me think about it again.

MisterSkiz

iTrader: (2)

Do not start it up at all, until you will be driving it.

Fill the gas tank full with Premium fuel and a fuel stabilizer, Wash it, wax it, vacuum it, pump up the air in the tires to avoid flat spots and connect it to a battery charger and leave it alone until spring.

One thing that people argue about is to change the oil before you put it away, versus changing the oil when you pull it out.

In my '06 GTO, I would store the car with the used oil and change the oil/filter in the spring.

With my motorcycle, I used to do the same, but now I change the oil and filter before I put it away so that I can just pull it out and ride it in the spring.

There is a neighbor of mine with a Harley Sportster, who will turn on the bike and rev the living **** out of it during the winter...the bike doesn't even warm up. As soon as he revs it up, he turns it off.....I'm sure he will be buying a new bike soon....