Here at The Autopian, we’re big on “don’t try this at home.” Is the convertible top mechanism on the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet notoriously ruinous? Absolutely. Do we own one? You bet. Is a Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI insanely complex? For sure. Is there one in our collective personal fleet? Take a guess. As such, it’s time for me to make a questionable decision. The BMW N54 twin-turbocharged inline-six in the original 335i has a fearsome reputation, and yet that infamous engine’s siren call never waned for me.
Perhaps it’s spending some time as a kid in the back seat of a Dinan turbocharged 635CSi on the way to rent movies for sleepovers. Perhaps it’s memories of college shenanigans in a particularly special Individual 335i. Whatever the case, I’ve been infatuated with the E90 3 Series since I first saw it in the magazines, and although I love my dirt-cheap N52 car, I’ve always wondered what life would be like with an N54.
Expensive, no doubt. The long block itself is fairly reliable, it’s just all the stuff bolted on that’s known to cause some headaches. We’re talking $3,200 sets of fuel injectors known for failure, an electric water pump that may only last 60,000 miles, rattly wastegates that call for more than 13 hours of book labor and new turbochargers to fix, plastic charge pipes that blow out, oiling system-sealing gaskets that leak, the list goes on. However, perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment. I’m fortunate enough to approach Porsche ownership with a pragmatic yet largely open check book, and if the right E90 335i came along for the right price, it’s worth a shot, yeah?
So imagine my surprise when a 2008 335i I’d seen dozens of times before turned up on Facebook Marketplace. I hadn’t seen it at car meets, nor in my neighbourhood, but instead at various manufacturers’ press fleet lots, occasionally left behind next to my 325i. Yep, this car was previously owned by a fellow journalist, and although it has a few door dings and a warped rear bumper from the toil of daily use, all the signs checked out.
The Unicorn 335i
Unlike my other BMW, I’m merely the third owner of this 335i. The previous keeper bought it as a certified pre-owned unit in 2012, and was about as picky on spec as I am. Rear-wheel drive because all-wheel drive is extra weight and complexity. The six-speed manual gearbox. The sport package with the Style 162 ellipsoid alloy wheels, sport seats, sport steering wheel, M Sport suspension, oil cooler, and 155 MPH top speed limiter. The 13-speaker Logic7 premium audio system. All the options I want and none that I don’t. From there, it was maintained fastidiously, with every tank of fuel logged, every problem addressed, and everything attended to. The oil pan gasket, oil filter housing gasket, and rear main seal have been replaced. Most of the injectors have been updated. The water pump’s been done twice.
Of equal importance, the body is in far better condition than the one on my 325i, partly due to a change in paint process as a rolling production change and partly due to better care and feeding prior to my ownership. The price was right, at about $5,700 US at currency conversion rates, so after a quick test drive, a deal was done. Now the real race began, because here in Ontario, vehicles must pass an inspection every time they get registered to a new owner. Thankfully, this one only required modest things. A pair of hood struts because the old ones were growing weak, new Angel Eye bulbs that I still need to replace with the correct halogen ones because it actually needed a pair and I only had a full set of LEDs on hand, and that’s about it.
It did get some preventative maintenance, some new bushings and eccentric hardware out back and tie rods up front to make future alignments easier, a set of rear discs and pads because I had them on the shelf and was swapping over to summer wheels anyway, but the main thing was just removing some accessories and adding some of my own touches. OEM black grilles were swapped out for chrome items, the interior trim was unwrapped to reveal nice brushed aluminum trim underneath, fresher drop-in underseat subwoofers went in to improve audio quality, and some tasteful OE-looking brushed metallic pedal covers replaced rubber ones. After passing inspection and getting permanent registration, it was time to take this siren out on the road to see if it was really worth it.
On The Road
Look, I wouldn’t be me without some trepidation. While the rated 300 horsepower and 295 lb.-ft. of torque is stout, the N54 engine alone adds 94 pounds over the N52 in my 325i, all on the nose of the car. All-in, the 335i promised a weight gain of 308 pounds over a base 2006 325i, and the torque delivery of the stock N54 means power falls off a bit up top. For someone who enjoys reasonable curb weights and running to redline, that all seems a bit antithetical.
Then again, I have cars that will happily make power until right near redline, one with the curb weight of a modern compact car and one with a curb weight under 2,900 pounds and an engine in the middle. On the largely straight, largely flat roads of southern Ontario, the N54 unlocks a new dimension, the beauty of torque. With a mid-range this strong and pull to 5,800 rpm, overtaking feels effortless, and the zero-to-60 mph time of 4.8 seconds that Car And Driver logged feels about right. This is still a quick car by modern standards before you start playing with boost and timing, and it turns up big numbers on the speedometer with a reasonably quiet sense of confidence.
Do you feel the extra weight up front? Sure, but otherwise the 335i carries all the other goodness that the E90 3 Series has to offer. Steering that telegraphs the shape and texture of the road directly to your fingertips yet never feels darty, modern rigidity, confident agility. Beyond the engine, these cars fit like a favorite pair of jeans, and once you add in serious pace, it’s easy to see why people put up with N54 problems.
What’s Next?
So what does the future hold for both my 335i and my fleet? Well, since the bumpers are indicative of 17 years of life, a full M Tech 1 kit and a set of E39 M Parallels wrapped in 200-treadwear rubber wouldn’t be a bad direction. Then again, there’s joy in keeping something like this bone-stock, as it’s a tuner darling and standard examples are hard to come by. Really, it’s just a matter of getting the cosmetic ducks in a row and keeping on top of maintenance.
At the same time, my 325i is still useful. Sure, it still needs some further tending to as I’m sensing the thrust arm bushings are starting to exhibit some wear and the tires are coming up to five years on the date codes, but with cheap insurance and low resale value, I’m tempted to keep up on it but not get too obsessive. It’s hard to win a fight with rust, and although it’s just a mixture of surface and scale corrosion, it’s gone far enough to now make a good winter car, since I ended up with a nicer E90. As for the Boxster, it’s staying forever, and I just finished with a bunch of maintenance on it for the start of the season.
It’s odd, I used to find anyone who owned two of the same car to be a bit strange, but here we are. The truth is, the E90 3 Series was the last 3 Series in an unbroken chain of holistic performance improvement, a rolling monument to an industry titan at the apex of its potential. Peak sport sedan? If we’re talking garden-variety ones and not your hard-edged Blackwings and Quadrifoglios, I’d argue so. Once you experience the top of an extraordinarily specific niche, where do you go from there?
Top graphic image: Thomas Hundal
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One thing that always stood out about the E90’s, they have fantastically heavy and direct steering
This list of things gone wrong, going wrong or prone to go wrong on your BMW prior to your ownership is longer than the list of things that have gone wrong on ALL my vehicles going back at least to 1998.
I could build out a whole performance LS, Coyote or 2JZ with all the money spent on just the parts.
I hope you enjoy the BMW. Seriously. It’s definitely not for me. I’d be furious if a car failed me that often during ownership.
Most of the time and money spent on my vehicles has been voluntary. I could never live with something that willing to stomp through my savings account like an angry Godzilla.
Wow –
With that long litany of “this breaks, that breaks, this is broken, and that is broken – but I love it”, I’m reminded of 1980’s Alfa Romeo owners.
It sounds a bit like Helsinki Syndrome.
That’s an awful LOT of appealing automobile for six grand(ish) Thomas. I’m sincerely jealous! 🙂
Congratulations on the bimmer!
Congrats on the great addition to the fleet.
Wait hood struts are part of a safety inspection mandated by Ontario?
Perhaps they are afraid you are too stupid to notice your good struts are broken when you lift your hood and somehow crush your skull.
It’s probably so the hood will stay up and increase visibility of a broken down vehicle on the shoulder.
Water pump on mine went at 28,000 miles. Don’t know if that’s some sort of record. Other than than though, great car!
I’ve driven an N54 powered Z4 for years and really can’t complain about unreliability. It’s got 94,000 miles on it and it needed the water pump at 88k miles (soft failure; I was able to drive it home no problem), the oil filter housing gaskets (get the factory gaskets!), and I recently tackled walnut blasting the intake ports which it definitely needed. I upgraded the charge pipe with a metal one preventatively and otherwise it’s just been routine maintenance even with a few years worth of autocross and track days while on an off-the-shelf stage 1 tune.
Still love my 2013 335is
Lemans blue – 1 of 269 with Grey interior. N54 – dct and now an lsd , brembos , custom tune and ///m rods and arms in back and only 82k miles
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BQ77qRzkjuyhFbceA
Very nice!!
Ah guess my Google pic link was deleted ( sad for yall.)
Well it’s also got konis and a ets intercooler
I see it. Beautiful car – love the color and the wheels.
thanks – still fun. Got it just about 8 yrs ago now and it had 12.6K miles.
Those are appealing cars, almost got me to sign up for the “BMW experience” myself. And blue/gray is second only to blue/brown if it was even offered.
I’ve been the 2nd owner of a 2007 E93 for about 10 years now. Replaced all the suspension wear items along with shot shocks right after purchase (swapping in M3 control arms at the same time) and have had OFHG and water pump fixes since. Front springs replaced after one snapped – thankfully while backing out of the garage, though I suspect it was due to all the railroad tracks I had to drive over living where I did at the time. Modified with BMS cone intakes & cabin filter delete, VRSF 5″ intercooler & cat-back, JB+ piggyback, plus a variety of interior updates (you can buy an add-on AA/carplay “tablet” for like $60 these days, as mine doesn’t have an iDrive screen and the head unit replacements are pricey). Keep it on a battery tender in the off season and it’s relatively trouble free! At 125k miles I’m thinking about replacements, but smiles per mile is still high for what it costs to keep on the road.
This might be a hot take, but I think you made a great choice.. albeit, you do know what you’re getting into. I had an e90 335i years ago and I absolutely adored that thing. It was shockingly reliable up to 120K miles when we parted ways.
If yours turns out to be nearly as reliable as mine, you will feel like you won the vehicle lottery. With a mild tune, the N54 is a riot to rev out, while feeling so effortless down low. I still miss the way the steering wheel danced around in my fingers on uneven pavement.
I’m pouring one out to the car gods for you, Thomas. I sincerely hope this brings you more joy than heartburn.
Here’s everything that went wrong on my 2007 N54 (6speed manual, sedan, sport package) that I can remember off the top of my head.
-Injectors were on their 12th iteration, still weren’t reliable and needed replacing.
– turbos rattled and would constantly lose boost which would pop the engine light on, then the car was in limp mode (no replacing the hoses didn’t do anything)
-the car rode so hard that it literally broke a spring going over a pothole. That took an entire day to fix what a nightmare.
-the headlights would constantly die on one side, they had their own computer which needed replacing.
-no dipstick for the oil, so as all the other electronics were going bad, you just had to trust that the engine oil one wasn’t?
– constant HPFP failures. After the 3rd one they said the DME needed replacing lolll
On the last day when I sold it for $1,500, I went to plug my auxiliary cord to listen to music on its last ride, and the whole aux cord input broke/ fell into the depths of the centre console, getting it would mean removing the entire console. Fitting for its final day.
On the plus side when the turbos did have boost, and the injectors were mostly working the car pulled amazing. The other 99.9% of the time I spent waiting for the engine light to come on.
0/10 would not recommend.
And for reference, my dad’s 1987 BMW has no issues with its turbo, or injectors, or fuel pump…
I adore and reliably daily an e36 M3.
An e36 is much more reliable than the e90 with the N54. I’m amazed the N54 was even allowed to be sold for as long as it was.
LMAO as someone who has owned the same car, and commented regularly about its reputation being deserved on this site, I can only laugh.
RIP
I’ve always seen the pre-facelift E90s as some of the cheapest-looking BMWs ever made. There’s something about them that screams “costs savings” everywhere. The tail lights are something out of a Kia and the interior isn’t a lot better.
The facelift did tweak a lot of these issues but an E46 seems orders of magnitude more premium.
The E92 coupe is a much better looking car. BTW, I own an E39 and a G30, so not a BMW hater and I really wish you the best with your new 335i Thomas. I just can’t get over the E90 sedan looks.
I guess it’s just a matter of taste. I always found the E46 sedan to be hideous, but that’s just me.
https://media.tenor.com/IFPOtVfKfOwAAAAM/you-shut-your-dirty-little-mouth-that70s-show.gif
I had an E46 and then a couple of E90s, the first a 330i and the second a 330i. The E46 was definitely the better car from a design standpoint, but there wasn’t really a downgrade in quality. It is the F80 that dropped the ball in many areas. The interior wasn’t solid, the doors felt light as a feather, and the controls went full Camry with numb electric steering and mushy brakes.
It is definitely a taste thing. I’ve always thought that all of the Bangle cars to be really cheesey, the headlights on the e60 5 series are the worst.
Though I am a fan of the e46 as a car, they drive spectacularly, it looks like a bar of soap to me. I chose to buy an e36 M3 50% on style over an e46 M3. I also have had an e39 M5 and my parents have owned 3 e38s. The slightly more sharp 90s appearance appeals to me.
The E60 headlights (and the whole car, especially in non-M form) is terrible. Every day I see more and more people warming to its design, but a base 525i E60 is one of the worst looking BMWs ever made and completely out of place among other 5 Series. I should know, we have 4 gens of 5 Series at home with the E60 being one of them, unfortunately (it has also been the most unreliable, by a landslide).
In my opinion that’s the best way to own a 335i, in sedan form with the sport package, RWD, 6-speed, black interior, no iDrive. It’s a timeless formula for a nice sport sedan which has always been BMW’s bread-and-butter.
And I’ll say this, while the N55 worked out a lot of the issues the N54’s had, the N55 has its own problems that are starting to rear their ugly heads, from Valvetronic eccentric shaft failures (which can take out a motor) to oil starvation problems (spun rod bearings or just the engine seizing up entirely). The N54 will nickel and dime you, but unless you’re pushing 1000whp, it likely won’t grenade in a catastrophic manner. Plus there’s a huge aftermarket for the N54 now, so if the stock twin turbos start going out, you can get a set of uprated drop-in replacements, or go wild with one of the many single turbo kit options. In my opinion the sweet spot is a set of upgraded twins, where you can push a bit more power out but still keep the low-end torque and drivability of the twin-turbo setup.
The fuel injector issue is largely overhyped, because many of the 335i’s have had the injectors replaced by the later index ones which are quite a bit more reliable. It’s rare to see a 335i on injectors that are less than an index 8 at this point.
The N55 also had high pressure fuel pump failures at an incredibly high rate – I had mine replaced twice in the first 50k miles. I did read somewhere that they finally re-engineered the pump and it is now lasting longer. The n55 e90s were noticeably faster than the n54 -but had a much, much stiffer suspension that made them a bad choice for anything other than smooth pavement – I really feel like someone was trying to sneak out a 4-door M3 with the 2011 335i I had.
That’s just BMW’s in general from like 2010 onwards, they really bought into the whole “stiff is sporty” ethos, along with with run-flat tires and 19″+ wheels, leading to a really crummy ride. I rented a 2024 BMW 330i M-Sport on a trip recently and I was annoyed at how bouncy and rough the ride was.
Obviously, I rather like BMWs. Currently own two 2011s, an e91 (bought new Euro Delivery) and an e88, and have owned multiple older ones plus another Euro Delivery f22 M235i.
But this is a car where the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze, even now that a lot of the initial bugs have been worked out – for example there isn’t much reason for any replaced water pump to not last 150K+ today. The n/a N52 isn’t QUITE as fast, but it’s still plenty quick enough to be entertaining (especially with a stick), and it is far more in keeping with the traditional BMW ethos, and as I found with my M235i, all that power is fun for a minute, but ultimately gets kind of boring when you simply can’t ever use it without having your license shredded, if not a cuff and stuff situation if you REALLY get on it. My M235i was great fun in Germany, but rather a snooze in the US – the GTI that replaced it was far more entertaining here (and I DEEPLY regret selling that car while not missing the BMW at all). If you simply MUST have hur-dur power, a later N55 e9x is a MUCH, MUCH better bet for long-term ownership happiness. These early cars are cheap for a damned good reason. But maybe you will get lucky and all the things that fail and have been improved have already been done on this car. And of course, the price difference between this one and a new one pays for a HELL of a lot of repairs.
FWIW, both of my 2011s have been damned near anvils in their 14 and 15 year lives so far. Other than routine maintenance (some preventative) the wagon has only needed a new battery since the warranty ended, and it didn’t need much under warranty either. The convertible has blotted it’s copybook a little bit more, having had the oil leak trifecta (oil pan, valve cover, oil filter housing) before I bought it and rear shocks and a blower motor last year. They are both relatively low mileage cars at 55K and 73K respectively, but time takes a toll regardless.
I…….respect you, Thomas. I have an irrational and rational hate of BMWs but I respect you.
I agree that this seems to be the best BMW offered in a standard car before they succumbed to the bloat and getting so high on their own sense of superiority, and from a driver’s perspective its therefore one of the best ever.
But from an actual good car perspective? I can’t agree. ANY car that has such insane over engineering that doesnt really do anything other than cost a lot when it inevitably fails sooner than it rightfully should cannot be a good car. As enthusiasts we put up with this things and rationalize them but the non-enthusiasts of the world take these rationalizations as gospel and run with them.
The number of times I have heard “its super reliable, its just the , X, Y, Z parts that go bad every 10k miles and cost 10K each to replace” about a german car, and more specifically a BMW, drives me crazy. That means its NOT reliable.
But I digress. Good for you Thomas, you know what you got yourself into and are willing to suffer through that for us, by way of the classic auto journalist trick: Buy a car that will need lots of wrench time and the articles never stop coming!
I hear a similar adage from a lot of people. Most have not owned German cars. I have owned many, and they have many reliability advantages over domestic and Asian market vehicles which keeps me coming back to the BMW and Mercedes brands.
I dare not throw rocks from my glass house at other enthusiasts, I can very much appreciate a lot about German vehicles. There are models from every German brand that I would gladly own if I have the spare money. I have owned only 1 VW, and it did not fail me in my ownership. It was a decent car, and it was what I expected of the older, simpler VW’s (it was a 95 Jetta with the 2.slow). I liked that car.
My ire is aimed more at when very much non-car people make proclamations about how great “insert German marque” is, they usually have not ever looked at a balance of the American or Japanese offerings as they just really want to show off. I know that is not the case for you or Thomas or a large number of BMW owners (as shown on this great site).
Most any car brand has some weird, bad designs from time to time that are super expensive to fix, but it really seems like German ones do that more often. In many cases that appears to be the trade off for better performance, which no doubt, a BMW can offer. But in other cases things just seem complex for complexity sake. I could blather on about specific anecdotes but I will say I was a staunch DSM owner for many years, so I have little ground to stand on honestly.
I appreciate the nuance in your reply. A lot of the apparent over-complexity has distinct advantages. That electric water pump that only lasts 60,000 miles? It makes bleeding the cooling system extremely easy, it can vary the flow rate to very precisely control engine temperature, and because it’s not belt-driven, there are fuel economy advantages as well. There are always tradeoffs with this stuff. It is rarely complexity for complexity’s sake, although it can seem like that until you learn how these systems work.
One thing I cannot overstate is that the quality of the fasteners BMW and Mercedes use are worlds better than from any other domestic or Asian car brand. I live in the salt belt, and I almost never have to fight with frozen or rusted nuts and bolts in my cars. For me, that is a huge advantage. For someone who doesn’t live in a place where the roads are regularly salted, it might not matter.
This is the big draw to European cars for me, the quality of fasteners and corrosion resistance. Even on my 325i, I haven’t had any trouble with fasteners. Meanwhile, I’ve had to take a Sawzall to a rear shock eye on an Acura CSX because the bolt was completely seized to the bushing, fought seized hardware and weird corrosion issues on my G35, and even my Crown Vic from British Columbia’s famously kind-to-cars-for-Canada Interior had its own hardware issues.
When you’re in the rust belt and time-limited, yet can still do your own maintenance, fewer outsourced repairs due to seized hardware versus more frequent at-home repairs is frequently, at worst, a wash.
Yup. Between four Mercedes and four BMWs, I’ve had precisely four stuck fasteners total, all exhaust downpipe bolts. Huh, that’s a lot of fours.
Anyway, my best friend’s Hyundai Sonota is much newer and lower mileage than my BMWs and it’s a disaster under there. It took me like six hours to swap out his front struts and rear shocks, and I was using quick struts! Everything required a torch or an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel, or both.
I can never go back to owning a car like that.
The fasteners argument definitely gives me new found respect, I admit I was not aware of the fastener quality. I am in Michigan so I definitely would appreciate being able to actually free a stuck bolt on a car over a few years old without serious tools or a torch. And to Thomas’ note about the Acura, you really went right for the jugular of Japanese cars there, Hondas are quite notorious for rust even compared to most other brands (and this is coming from a pretty staunch Honda supporter). I also appreciate the insight on the waterpump, I still don’t know if I would take those trade offs but I can see why others would. I tend to go towards the cheaper and tougher built things, but yes they normally dont have the peak performance or peak efficiency going for them, so my bias doesnt play well with many German cars haha. Something like the waterpump is where I just have a different opinion, as yes, it gave more efficiency when it was working, but that money saved on fuel from its efficiency has now been wasted on a new pump, along with the downtime that it required. I can see where someone wants “the best” and that would be this waterpump design, but its all in definition of best. I have no doubt that you could find similar arguments with American and Japanese cars though, as Thomas’ Acura points out.
On that note, I have noticed this about German cars, as Thomas mentioned, they do really make some parts very durable and rugged, like the bottom end of the N54 is very stout, but the parts that bolt to it are more finicky, like the injectors. I again realize there was a reason behind them being designed a certain way, but it seems a bit unnecessary?
Again, all this to say that yes maybe I was a bit harsh and short sighted with my original post, but I tried to qualify that by saying my hatred is both rational and irrational. I do like that there are German cars out there like this, as no single region has the best car, they all add unique takes to the automotive landscape.
Congratulations! I am a glutton for punishment as well. I chose my 09 E93 because my wife wanted a hard top convertible. At the time there weren’t many solid options for a 2+2 that also had performance AND with low mileage (<30k). I am the 3rd owner as well. Fortunately my injectors were upgraded to the Index 12 version prior to purchase. In 30k miles I have replaced the water pump and the oil filter housing gasket twice. I did replace the charge pipe as the first upgrade which included a blow off valve just for fun. I was told I had waste gate rattle by a local tuner but that turned out to just be a rattle in the driver side exhaust door/flap (the one that gets disabled with the infamous Golf T mod). That was resolved with a $60 part that simply tightened up the door likeage thus removing all vibration. Otherwise my stock turbos are still good. When neesed I decided that a set of Pure turbos is the best bet for long life and higher psi.
I think that with FCP Euro you will find Index 12 injectors cheaper, though they tend to be tough to find at times.
You will find that the intercooler and charge pipe like to collect oil. Add an oil catch can and empty the 1/4 cup oil every oil change and you will be good.
If you have the Sport seat you may run into passenger seat sensor failure. That one is annoying. A $25 sensor bypass is available if you don't want to bite the $900 bullet on an OEM replacement seat cushion (FCP Euro will always be your friend) with integrated sensor plus labor. When they were $600 I thought it was too much and decided to wait it out for a price drop. My bad. If you have standard seats, the sensor is under $100 but requires the same labor, namely, pull out the seat, take off the seat cover (lower seat only), swap sensor, put everything back together (will need a bull ring upholstery tool).
This weekend I am adding an Android Auto module for better smart phone integration and putting my MHD tune (just MHD stage 1..nothing crazy) back on as I went back to stock for emissions months back.
For any nah sayers, I found mine to me more reliable than any Mopar or Ford I and my father ever owned. I even ran into more repair instances with my Subaru Legacy. An E90 will never be like a Toyota, but is a lot more fun. And if you avoid the stealership, you will find reasonable repair prices along with nicely discounted OEM parts from ECS and FCP Euro (free lifetime warranty on all parts…no I do not work for them…LOL).
Feel free to reach out if you ever have questions or need advice.
Thanks! Totally agree about the Index 12s, which is why I’m thankful this car has them. Pure turbos are a great upgrade and cost-effective if the turbos need to come out anyway, so if the wastegates start to rattle, I know what I’m picking up.
Thankfully, passenger sport seats with good mats aren’t terribly hard to come by second-hand near me, and I have another set of cushions if necessary. MHD Stage 1 is definitely on my wishlist, as the OTS logs look pretty reasonable. Not a crazy amount of timing or boost, sensible boost mapping to keep the turbos alive at the top end.
I think it only ups the turbo pressure from 8 psi to 12. When you take the leap, I would avoid the burble. It is fun at first but you will see an increase of black soot on the tailpipes. And you just look/sound like a teenage dooche.
If you are looking to change the air intake, consider a K&N filter as opposed to the dual cone set up you see. I honestly feel they provide the same gains. Increase the ambient temp in a stock set up or go semi-unrestricted in hot engine temp air. It just depends on how loud you want your car to be..or how badly you want others to hear you.
For sure, I’m not a huge fan of burbles. IATs are an interesting subject, because turbocharging kinda breaks everything we’ve learned from NA engines since the turbos heat the air so much that charge cooling does pretty much all of the work. Ducted dual-cone with a better intercooler is probably the move on a volume vs. IAT scale, at least from the dyno charts I’ve seen, but that’s a more involved route than a drop-in filter.
In the US, isn’t there a recall for that passenger weight sensor mat? There was for my E83, and mine wasn’t even broken, but I swapped in a set of sports seats.
FYI, the weight sensor can be coded out for free using NCS Expert. Doing that (or paying for one of those bypass thingies) just means that the passenger airbag is always on.
There may be, but I have a feeling that recall didn’t make it to Canada. NCS Expert coding is definitely one way around replacement parts, and I definitely want to code in some features anyway (code in the digital speedometer, code out the unnecessarily loud start-up seatbelt chime, angel eyes as DRLs thanks to having the FRM2, etc.)
Yeah, the digital speedo is pretty cool. I always code out that super annoying alert when it hits 36 degrees outside as it startles me. I also code out TPMS if it’s the active system with sensors in the wheels. I think yours will have FTM, which is wheel speed-sensor based and a far superior system, imho.
Maybe it’s because I grew up with 70s/80s shitboxes, but since when is 4.8 to 60 merely “quick”? I don’t care that cars are doing it in less than 2, that’s still fast. Damn fast.
I agree. It seems like 500hp is the new 200hp. It’s nice to be able to effortlessly pull away from a road situation but annoying that kids have access to this power with no regard to safety and others on the road. To them traffic is just video game with any straight highway an opportunity to do a roll.
I guess part of it is the inherent lag of any turbocharged engine in real-world use. For instance, while the Car And Driver 0-60 mph time is 4.8 seconds, the street start 5-60 mph time clocks in at 5.6 seconds. Definitely quick, but a 2011 Mustang GT convertible basically tied the 335i from zero-to-60 mph but was six tenths quicker from 5-60 mph.
The other factor is that every Torontonian drives like they’re qualifying at Talladega, so it’s not uncommon to have someone in a Honda Passport blow the doors off my Boxster in regular traffic by absolutely matting it away from a light.
And then they wonder why they are paying $500/mo for gas and replacing brake pads every year.
It’s really ridiculous. My n/a stickshift e91 will crack 6-seconds to 60 and run to 150mph sans limiter, and the kids these days call that “slow”. No, it isn’t, and even that level of performance is largely unusable in the real world of traffic congestion and the watchful eyes of the po-po.
Nice work! It’s great to find a car you want whose previous owner was an enthusiast. It really takes out some of the heartburn.
The Autopian has more Unicorns and Holy Grails than a Y.A. fantasy series.
Very cool Thomas! I am one of the BMW nerds who truly despises the N54, but I can understand why some people are drawn to it, especially if you are into adding power. The N55 that came in the 2011+ 335s was much more reliable, but it can’t handle more boost without a lot of upgrades.
Here’s a tip – I don’t own an N54, but my E83 has the N52 and my partner’s E90 has the N51, so aside from the turbos, they are quite similar (and yours doesn’t have Valvetronic, so valve cover gasket changes will be easier). If/when you need to address things like the turbos, oil pan gasket, and/or electric water pump, remove the front subframe completely and do everything at once (including motor mounts). Getting the subframe out is time consuming, but yours is RWD so that will make things much easier. Without the subframe in the way, access to the turbos will be pretty easy, and replacing the water pump will turn from a 2-hour job that involves lots of wobble and swivel adapters to a 15-minute process.
It looks like your car doesn’t have the sport package, although I may be mistaken. If it does not, keep your eyes out for a set of front sports seats. The standard “comfort” seats for the E90 are not very good imho, but the sports seats are incredible. I am very picky with seats, and the sports seats in my partner’s E90 are some of the best.Edit: I missed the interior picture. The sports package is the most important option on these, imho! Glad to see yours has it.I’m sure you know this already (you may have even written an article on it), but keep your eye on the OFHG, as if it starts to leak, it can weaken the serpentine belt, which will then get ingested through the front crank seal if it breaks. There are aftermarket crank guards that you can install to prevent that; they are cheap and easy to add.
I own an E46 and get to drive my partner’s E90 a lot, and I think the E90 is very underrated. BMW made so many of them, and they aren’t as pretty and classic looking as the E46, but they are much better cars for every day use. What little they give up in tossability and vintage vibe from the E46, they make up for in comfort and stability.
If yours has iDrive (an option that I love but everyone else seems to hate), it is easy to retrofit CarPlay/AA. There are kits on eBay and AliExpress for under $200. Since yours will have CCC, I would recommend going for a kit that replaces your screen with a larger, more modern touchscreen. If you don’t have iDrive, three are also kits that replace your stock head unit.
I hope you make more content on your E90 in the future!
Thanks Micah! Good news, the OFHG, OPG, RMS, and valve cover have all been done in the past 25,000 miles, along with the HPFP (updated parts, woo!), electric water pump, and a laundry list of other sundries. It’s due for another round of walnut blasting in the autumn, but otherwise, maintenance items are astonishingly up-to-date.
The biggest thing I’d love to do in the short term is find another pair of rear Style 162s. I found with my 325i that a square setup on the sport pack cars goes a long way to restoring some of that E46 tossability. My N52 car’s nearly as flingable as an E46, just with noticeably higher cornering speeds. In the meantime, bumping the front tire pressure up by 3-4 PSI reduces sidewall roll and slightly shifts the balance of the car in a pleasing way. If you have an air compressor handy, I’d recommend trying it on your partner’s E90 and seeing what you think, as it’s essentially free.
Wow, why can I never find cars that have had their oil pan gaskets and RMS replaced!? Those are very time consuming jobs, especially the RMS. I had to replace the clutch and flywheel in my E83 (thankfully?) so at least I didn’t have to take out the transmission just to fix the the RMS leak.
Imho, considering everything that was recently replaced in your car, $5,700 is an absolutely screaming deal. Have the injectors already been updated to Index 12? I think that could be done under warranty for a while, so if those have been done, your fuel system is basically sorted. Btw Legit Street Cars has some good videos on cleaning the intake chemically (without walnut blasting) that are very DIY-friendly. It’s more time consuming than walnut blasting, but you don’t need to buy any special equipment.
My partner’s E90 is AWD and automatic, so it weighs 500lbs more than my E46. Unrelated note, but the GM auto in his car is awesome, especially in sports mode. Like you mentioned, cornering at high speeds is noticeably more stable than my E46, although still not quite as good as my (long gone) E60. He is not pushing his car to the limits… ever, so I don’t think he’d notice any difference in tire pressures, but that is good to know!
I’m sure that your car, being RWD and manual, is much closer to my E46 in weight. I agree that a square setup would make the handling more fun. BMW used the staggered setup to increase the car’s tendency to understeer at the limit. A square setup would be more neutral.
Fuel system’s essentially sorted (LPFP remains an unknown, but given it hasn’t been run below an eighth of a tank since 2012, it’s probably good for the long haul). Big $$$ spent on Index 12s over the past two years.
Man, those E60s were something else in high-speed sweepers. Absolutely rock-solid. In theory, I’d love a 6MT 550i, but valve stem seals are a costly enough procedure that you’d spend the same bulletproofing an N54.
That’s awesome! A LPFP failure is annoying, not engine-killing. The one in my E46 is original at 242,000 miles. I really need to preventatively replace it, but whatever supplier BMW used in this era knew how to make their fuel pumps last.
My E60 was a 545i manual with the sport package. I didn’t like the manual. The clutch was annoyingly vague even with the CDV removed, so the car was very difficult to drive smoothly, plus the heavy pedal was tiring in traffic. I really think E60s would be better with the ZF automatic. The manual in my E46 is worlds nicer to operate.
Mine never had valve stem seal issues. I preventatively installed a lower thermostat to keep it that way. The N62 was such a nice engine from a driver’s perspective, but it was absolutely the worst I’ve ever worked on in terms of access. After replacing the alternator bracket gasket, valve cover gaskets, and upper timing cover gaskets (a process that took a combined 26 hours), I just fell out of love with the car because I hated working on the engine so much.
The driving dynamics were something else though. Mine had active steering and dynamic swaybars. It truly felt like it defied the laws of physics. It’s a shame it was so annoying to own, and I never liked the styling. I’m much happier with my E46 as a “fun” car.