[HELP] Advice on E36 BMW's with inline-6 engines
 

I am currently thinking of selling my 2001 ES3 Civic RS (kind of a mildly sporty Civic, though with no extra oomph as it comes with the stock 1.7liter D17A sohc engine pumping out a puny 130hp connected to manaul gearbox, but comes with a totally stiff suspension, anti roll bars front and rear, gearbox is a special japan only sports box) and going for my dream of getting a BMW 3-series as the Civic just is not fast enough and due to the light weight it tends to be very uncomfortable and harsh on our poor road surfaces.

Due to high taxation and initial price, getting a newer model E46 is out (a BMW E46 318i cost as much as 2.5 times the price of my civic @ my country) so i have dediced to find a used E36, preferably with the inline 6 engines.

I have found two options, with Option 1 being the favorite

1. 1994/95 model 328i 4dr, manual (49k miles, VANOS engine, driver only airbag, ABS, TCS, standard exhaust)
2. 1991/2 model 325i 4dr, manual (72k miles, pre VANOS engine, 192hp, no airbags, ABS, TCS?, Sports exhaust)

The 325i is understandbly cheaper due to the age and use, but i want to know how th reliability of these cars (engines, etc) and what are the usual repairs and things too look for. I have referred to sites such as BMWWorld, BMW forums, AutoCar reviews, but would appreciate any help, advice, info from the large membership base who I am sure would be having E36 model cars.

Also note that in my country the best fuel we have is rated 95RON, and mostly its 91RON which is commonly available and these cars would have been run on the cheaper fuel :( Also the road conditiosn are really bad, with most roads worse than the B-roads in UK (so i am told by members who have travellled to UK).

Any assistance would be most appreciated.

What a coincidence, me and my friend are looking E36 3.28 or 3L V6 or 3.2L V6...


Now I don't need to open a new thread...Help us guys(sorry for hijacking your thread)

The 328 was/is a fantastic engine, we nealy bought the E36 estate (ohh sorry...touring) version. There is nothing wrong with the 325 either.

As for the petrol, I don't think there will be a difference between the two cars. As long as the car you purchase has been run on 95, the ECU will have adapted to it, and be running efficiently on it. If you managed to find a tank of 98ROn fuel, the car would not run well on it. It takes a couple of tanks for the ECU to adjust properly.

Thanks for the replies, and following up i went and checked the used 328i out, and it seems this bimmer might be one of those which suffered from the Nicasil issue faced by 6 and 8 cylinder engines in the 1994-97 time line.

The fear i have is that the fuel in our country is horribly "impure" with two ratings available 91OCT and 95OCT (91 is only freely available and is a few bucks cheaper, and hence most forget to think and opt for the cheaper fuel).

I am not sure if there is any sulphur content in our fuel, but when i test drove the 328i i did not feel much urge in the 1 & 2nd gears (car picks rather sedaly), and it feels slower than my Civic (Civic seems to be a 0-100 in 9 sec as opposed to the 7+ sec for the 328i) and then there is a sudden power surge after that (the smooth output from the engine was not visible, even though it had only run 49,000 miles in the 8 years of running). One of the faults highlighted by the agents was that the fuel injectors needed a change, could this be the problem or is the compression messed up due to the nicasil issue coming into play?

Any thoughts?

All of the BMW's 6s were straight inline 6.

The top of the line E36 of course was the M3 which first came in the 3.0L then after 95 moved up to the 3.2L.

I heard of the Nicasil in the V8 engines but never in the inline 6s. At least not in the US.

There are a lot of problems associated with any car if you want to nick pick it. Too many to list off the top of my head.

But I could tell you that the E36 is one of the finer cars that came out of BMW.

You might also want to try www.bimmerforums.com . You could find a lot of the information you are looking for in the E36 Forum/Threads.

Goodluck.