Thoughts on this e90

xabi

I had a look at this today and it drives well but the mileage is putting me off. I know 100K miles probably isn't much in a modern diesel though, ill take another look tomorrow but wanted opinions on it, what should i look out for?

http://www.driving.ie/used-cars/BMW/3-Series/318-D/30213491810435840/

Paddy@CIRL

Does the 318D still have the N47 2.0 Diesel? Personally, I wouldn't touch any of the N47 177BHP x20Ds with a barge pole, or at least not with my own money anyways. Having seen first hand people with good cars develop those timing chain issues and how much it costs to put right, I'd personally avoid. If your going for a 2008 model for the low tax, why not look for a 325D or better? Marginal increase in road tax plus a smoother and more reliable engine.

xabi

Im also looking at a few 2006 / 2007 520Ds, do they have the N47 engine?

bazz26

2005 to early 2007 520d had the M47 engine, its the 163bhp engine without Efficent Dynamics. The M47 has it's issues but nowhere near as expensive as the timing chain issues on N47 engines which are 177bhp.

The only things to watch with the M47 engine are the turbo breather filter which needs to be changed every second service otherwise it gets blocked and kills the turbo, and the swirl flaps in the inlet manifold which need to be removed and replaced with blanks otherwise they could break off and get injested into the engine killing it. Both cheap enough things to do.

Paddy@CIRL

bazz26 wrote: »

2005 to early 2007 520d had the M47 engine, its the 163bhp engine without Efficent Dynamics. The M47 has it's issues but nowhere near as expensive as the timing chain issues on N47 engines which are 177bhp.

The only things to watch with the M47 engine are the turbo breather filter which needs to be changed every second service otherwise it gets blocked and kills the turbo, and the swirl flaps in the inlet manifold which need to be removed and replaced with blanks otherwise they could break off and get injested into the engine killing it. Both cheap enough things to do.

You can also replace the turbo breather filter with the newer vortex type filter to remove that problem altogether :-)

AFAIK, the N47 engines were introduced in May 2007 so anything from that date forwards may be affected although I think they remedied the issue in 2010/11?

Edit to add:

The N47 was in both the three and five series.

xabi

Some good info there, thanks. I had heard about the swirl flaps before, is there an easy way to check if they have been removed while viewing a car?

bazz26

From what I have read the redesigned vortex filter slows down the problem but doesn't solve it completely. Given that the filter is not that expensive I would air on the side of caution and replace it regularly.

Idbatterim

how many miles do you do and how long you plan on keeping it?