M3 Evolution guidance
Discussion
Hi
As you will see I am new to the site and require some of your assistance if possible. I am looking at buying a m3 evolution around a 98. Before I buy would you be able to inform me of possible problem areas to look out for before buying.
-Servicing: Inspection 1 and 2. I have found out that these cars need a valve rocker shim readjustment every 20k, how much would this cost. Would you advise maintaining the fbmw servicing. Inspections seem costly and majority of the areas are not necessary - brake adjustment (disk brakes-I thought these cannot be adjusted???) etc.
-Problem areas to look out for an a older machine
-Running costs, including services. Intervals-services
-mpg is around 25mpg, is this achievable at 90mph on the motorway?-last year I did 20k mileage.
Are these older cars likely in your experience to develop problems, even at 80k mileage.
Thanks for your help, I have to buy one but need to know what I am getting myself into cost wise
Also - Do all models come with cruise control as standard and with a lsd without traction control are these difficult or lethal to control? I currently drive a 140bhp mx5 with lsd, the m3 evo is 321bhp.
cheers
Dan
As you will see I am new to the site and require some of your assistance if possible. I am looking at buying a m3 evolution around a 98. Before I buy would you be able to inform me of possible problem areas to look out for before buying.
-Servicing: Inspection 1 and 2. I have found out that these cars need a valve rocker shim readjustment every 20k, how much would this cost. Would you advise maintaining the fbmw servicing. Inspections seem costly and majority of the areas are not necessary - brake adjustment (disk brakes-I thought these cannot be adjusted???) etc.
-Problem areas to look out for an a older machine
-Running costs, including services. Intervals-services
-mpg is around 25mpg, is this achievable at 90mph on the motorway?-last year I did 20k mileage.
Are these older cars likely in your experience to develop problems, even at 80k mileage.
Thanks for your help, I have to buy one but need to know what I am getting myself into cost wise
Also - Do all models come with cruise control as standard and with a lsd without traction control are these difficult or lethal to control? I currently drive a 140bhp mx5 with lsd, the m3 evo is 321bhp.
cheers
Dan
Hi Dan and welcome.
I ran one of these cars for four years until September '06. Biggest problem is the Vanos unit, which controls the variable valve timing and is situated at the front of the rocker cover. This is known to fail and if it does, it costs around £1,500 to put right.
Some will tell you that the Vanos unit has the life expectancy of a plastic lighter, others will say the problem is over hyped. My personal experience is, I ran the car for four years and 41,000 miles and didn't have any problems.
If the Vanos is going there will be a heavy rattle/grinding noise from the front of the engine and the car will be down on power. Best bet is to try and find a car that has had it recently replaced.
Gearboxes can on occasion be problamatic with the car jumping out of third gear, again didn't affect my car, although don't confuse this with difficulty selecting first gear when the car is in heavy traffic. This is caused by the hydraulic clutch pipe expanding due to heat in the engine bay, causing the clutch to lose pressure, this affects all cars, and should rectify itself once you get on the move again and things cool down.
Other problems are limited to the usual axle bushes and strut mounts wearing out, and oil leaks at the back of the engine caused by worn o-ring seals, these are all relatively straight forward and inexpensive fixes.
My car went about 7,000-7,500 miles between services. The valve clearances should be adjusted at every inspection service according to BMW, and this is what makes the services quite expensive. Inspection 1 is about £550, Ispection2 about £650 at the main dealer, although costs can be saved by going to a good independant, and only doing the valve clearances when they actually need it.
Cruise control and traction control are not standard equipment, but were I think available as optional extras. All cars came with limited slip differentials, and they are quite safe and secure on a dry road as long as you don't go completely mad, in the wet however you need to take care as the tail can snap round quite quickly once traction is lost. You will need to take time to get used to the extra power over you're MX5.
During my time with the car I averaged about 26mpg on mixed driving, the car was very reliable and never let me down, the only items replaced were normal wear and tear parts.
I've tried to answer all your questions as best I can, and hope it's of some help.
The best advice I can give is look at and drive as many as you can, get a feel for the cars and the owners, look for invoices for work done rather than just a stamped book, most enthusiastic owners will have these. Once you find a car you like get it inspected by a dealer or independant who has a good knolege of these cars, and maybe think about investing in an aftermarket warranty. There are plenty of good cars out there and if you get one you won't regret it.
Good Luck, David.
I ran one of these cars for four years until September '06. Biggest problem is the Vanos unit, which controls the variable valve timing and is situated at the front of the rocker cover. This is known to fail and if it does, it costs around £1,500 to put right.
Some will tell you that the Vanos unit has the life expectancy of a plastic lighter, others will say the problem is over hyped. My personal experience is, I ran the car for four years and 41,000 miles and didn't have any problems.
If the Vanos is going there will be a heavy rattle/grinding noise from the front of the engine and the car will be down on power. Best bet is to try and find a car that has had it recently replaced.
Gearboxes can on occasion be problamatic with the car jumping out of third gear, again didn't affect my car, although don't confuse this with difficulty selecting first gear when the car is in heavy traffic. This is caused by the hydraulic clutch pipe expanding due to heat in the engine bay, causing the clutch to lose pressure, this affects all cars, and should rectify itself once you get on the move again and things cool down.
Other problems are limited to the usual axle bushes and strut mounts wearing out, and oil leaks at the back of the engine caused by worn o-ring seals, these are all relatively straight forward and inexpensive fixes.
My car went about 7,000-7,500 miles between services. The valve clearances should be adjusted at every inspection service according to BMW, and this is what makes the services quite expensive. Inspection 1 is about £550, Ispection2 about £650 at the main dealer, although costs can be saved by going to a good independant, and only doing the valve clearances when they actually need it.
Cruise control and traction control are not standard equipment, but were I think available as optional extras. All cars came with limited slip differentials, and they are quite safe and secure on a dry road as long as you don't go completely mad, in the wet however you need to take care as the tail can snap round quite quickly once traction is lost. You will need to take time to get used to the extra power over you're MX5.
During my time with the car I averaged about 26mpg on mixed driving, the car was very reliable and never let me down, the only items replaced were normal wear and tear parts.
I've tried to answer all your questions as best I can, and hope it's of some help.
The best advice I can give is look at and drive as many as you can, get a feel for the cars and the owners, look for invoices for work done rather than just a stamped book, most enthusiastic owners will have these. Once you find a car you like get it inspected by a dealer or independant who has a good knolege of these cars, and maybe think about investing in an aftermarket warranty. There are plenty of good cars out there and if you get one you won't regret it.
Good Luck, David.
The reason I say to do the tappets only when required is because, although it is a service item, the word is that they rarely ever need adjustment, so it's probably something you could leave till the car displays signs that they need adjusted i.e tappety noise from the top of the engine, or perhaps have them done at every inspection 2 which would equate to about 30,000 miles.
I'm not sure how much it costs to have the valve clearances adjusted as I always had it done as part of the service, but you can probably reckon on about 1-2 hours labour plus the price of a rocker cover gasket, which I think is about £20.
With regard to servicing, I would advise having servicing and repairs done by a specialist who has a good knowledge of these cars. The reason I say this is because my car suffered from the very common heavy oil leak which is caused by the failure of the o-ring seal at the back of the engine block. I took the car to a local garage who diagnosed a failed cylinder head gasket and quoted £900 to repair it. I then took the car to the main dealer who diagnosed the correct fault and repaired it for just over £70.
The M3 Evo is still quite a specialist car, for example when changing brake discs, each disc is specific to each side of the car, and if the car is worked on by someone who doesn't know about these little things, then there is potential for jobs to be bodged, and the cars ability compromised.
All in all, probably better to go to someone who really knows what they're doing, even if it means paying slightly more money or travelling a bit further.
Again hope all that is of some help, and good luck with your search. David.
I'm not sure how much it costs to have the valve clearances adjusted as I always had it done as part of the service, but you can probably reckon on about 1-2 hours labour plus the price of a rocker cover gasket, which I think is about £20.
With regard to servicing, I would advise having servicing and repairs done by a specialist who has a good knowledge of these cars. The reason I say this is because my car suffered from the very common heavy oil leak which is caused by the failure of the o-ring seal at the back of the engine block. I took the car to a local garage who diagnosed a failed cylinder head gasket and quoted £900 to repair it. I then took the car to the main dealer who diagnosed the correct fault and repaired it for just over £70.
The M3 Evo is still quite a specialist car, for example when changing brake discs, each disc is specific to each side of the car, and if the car is worked on by someone who doesn't know about these little things, then there is potential for jobs to be bodged, and the cars ability compromised.
All in all, probably better to go to someone who really knows what they're doing, even if it means paying slightly more money or travelling a bit further.
Again hope all that is of some help, and good luck with your search. David.
I ran both the 3.0 and the 3.2 evo a few years ago.
If I remember correctly, I averaged about 22mpg in the evo over 3 years of mixed driving. The only trouble I ever had was with the Vanos units. I had two replaced under warranty and the bill at the local main dealer would have been £1800+vat each
Traction control was not even an option but I did have the cruise control - made for a fine motorway car in 6th. The climate control was also an option and well worth having.
The other thing to watch out for is tyres - mine was very sensitive to which rubber was fitted - I ended up on Michelin Sports and it didn't like Bridgestones.
As for the brakes, I always OEM pads and discs and always found them to be excellent.
If I remember correctly, I averaged about 22mpg in the evo over 3 years of mixed driving. The only trouble I ever had was with the Vanos units. I had two replaced under warranty and the bill at the local main dealer would have been £1800+vat each
Traction control was not even an option but I did have the cruise control - made for a fine motorway car in 6th. The climate control was also an option and well worth having.
The other thing to watch out for is tyres - mine was very sensitive to which rubber was fitted - I ended up on Michelin Sports and it didn't like Bridgestones.
As for the brakes, I always OEM pads and discs and always found them to be excellent.
Edited by nos4a2 on Sunday 4th March 07:31
I'd just like to add... Most sources I am aware of state nearer £2,700 for the Double-Vanos replacing. Typically they can go wrong at about 40K miles onwards, so if the car has more than 40K miles on the odo and hasn't had a new Double-Vanos, budget for it and use it as a lever when haggling over the price. New units are warrantied for two years and, similarly, should be okay for 40K miles or more. They don't all go wrong but many do - sign-up at E36 coupe.com forums - www.e36coupe.co.uk/forum/index.php - for loads of advice from owners. If the Double-Vanos is on its way out it'll sound like a load of marbles being spun round in a tin can, like this: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?d
Edited by MitchT on Sunday 4th March 12:41
Valve shims are at every Inspection2...so every 32k miles assuming 8k between services. Best bet is to find a reputable specialist and save 50% of the bills with someone that knows more about them than BMW do...then the servicing isn't so bad.
My Evo did around 26 / 27mpg average I'd say, but easily over 30mpg on Motorways.
VANOS is really the only achilles heel, but this is not as much as a problem as it's made out to be (IMHO !). There are some tell tale signs of one with the problem, and precautions you can take to try and prevent it becoming a problem !
My Evo did around 26 / 27mpg average I'd say, but easily over 30mpg on Motorways.
VANOS is really the only achilles heel, but this is not as much as a problem as it's made out to be (IMHO !). There are some tell tale signs of one with the problem, and precautions you can take to try and prevent it becoming a problem !
Edited by danp on Wednesday 7th March 13:38
MitchT said:
I'd just like to add... Most sources I am aware of state nearer £2,700 for the Double-Vanos replacing. Typically they can go wrong at about 40K miles onwards, so if the car has more than 40K miles on the odo and hasn't had a new Double-Vanos, budget for it and use it as a lever when haggling over the price. New units are warrantied for two years and, similarly, should be okay for 40K miles or more. They don't all go wrong but many do - sign-up at E36 coupe.com forums - www.e36coupe.co.uk/forum/index.php - for loads of advice from owners. If the Double-Vanos is on its way out it'll sound like a load of marbles being spun round in a tin can, like this: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?d
Edited by MitchT on Sunday 4th March 12:41
Marbles in a tin sound is one indicator, but would say also a good idea to get BMW (poss a specialist) to test if VANOS works...believe they can plug in a machine which adjusts the timing etc and checks if all is good or not. Prob an hour labour.
Best way to replace VANOS (if indeed it does need doing) is to buy 2 x sprockets (£350 or so each plus labour) as these come with the VANOS gears as well (as the VANOS gears mesh into the sprockets).
BMW tended to replace the VANOS control / transmission unit (£1k plus labour) at the front of the engine (silver box behind which are VANOS gears and electrical solenoids) but *NOT* the sprockets, so didn't replace all the bits that mesh together, possibly why the problem can come back again so often. My old Evo got through 3 lots of VANOS control units in 35k miles (long before I got the car).
It also had a new clutch, flywheel and gearbox under warranty before I got it...1st and reverse gears were stiff when hot - BMW told me it needed another clutch and possibly a flywheel. Luckily I found out about the braided clutch hose upgrade... I bet that was about £6 / 7k wasted on uneccesary work under the warranty system.
If anyone wants more info on my experiences with the S50B32 engine etc etc [as per my M3 Evo and Z3M] PM me, as I compiled a long-ish email for a couple of people that were interested when I sold the M3 recently.
Edited by danp on Wednesday 7th March 16:45
dern said:
nos4a2 said:
I ran both the 3.0 and the 3.2 evo a few years ago.
Is there sufficient a gain with the 3.2 to warrant the risk of buying one bearing in mind the potential for vanos related problems? Funny you should ask that. I'm thinking of buying one again as a weekend toy and have been asking myself the same question. The 3.0 definitely needs to be worked harder to get the performance out.
The Evo has more torque lower down - easier sideways fun, and the 6th gear makes for a much more relaxed motorway drive. However, Evo's cost a couple of grand more and have the potential for big Vanos bills. But if you are only going to be using the car occasionally, how likely is the Vanos to fail?
As you can see, I cannot make up my mind. I think that if I find an Evo at the right price I would be tempted if the owner would allow me to have the Vanos checked out. Otherwise I might well save myself a bit of worry and cash and go for a nice 3.0 and spend the difference on track days!
nos4a2 said:
dern said:
nos4a2 said:
I ran both the 3.0 and the 3.2 evo a few years ago.
Is there sufficient a gain with the 3.2 to warrant the risk of buying one bearing in mind the potential for vanos related problems? Funny you should ask that. I'm thinking of buying one again as a weekend toy and have been asking myself the same question. The 3.0 definitely needs to be worked harder to get the performance out.
The Evo has more torque lower down - easier sideways fun, and the 6th gear makes for a much more relaxed motorway drive. However, Evo's cost a couple of grand more and have the potential for big Vanos bills. But if you are only going to be using the car occasionally, how likely is the Vanos to fail?
As you can see, I cannot make up my mind. I think that if I find an Evo at the right price I would be tempted if the owner would allow me to have the Vanos checked out. Otherwise I might well save myself a bit of worry and cash and go for a nice 3.0 and spend the difference on track days!
nos4a2 said:
But if you are only going to be using the car occasionally, how likely is the Vanos to fail?
I'd like to know the answer to this. I do about 5,000 miles per year and quite fancy an M3 Evo. I believe Bi-Vanos failures start to happen after 40K miles, which would give me eight years if I bought a car that had just had a new one! However, I have read somewhere that someone is offering a Bi-Vanos service which replaces seals, the deterioration of which is believed to be the start of the problem. If it is the seals could it be that they'd go after a certain amount of time regarless of mileage due to perishing, or is it renewed exposure to the high pressures that they have to withstand that causes the damage, hence making it more of a mileage than age issue?
The 4-door also came in 3.0 guise - I have one 
Went for this as it was a touch chaper to buy than an Evo, and I didn't fancy the potential hassle of the vanos and 6-speed box issues. Comments above are quite correct about the 6 being much more relaxed on motorways, but for me that's not that big an issue. Regularly get 28mpg (according to the OBC).
Went for this as it was a touch chaper to buy than an Evo, and I didn't fancy the potential hassle of the vanos and 6-speed box issues. Comments above are quite correct about the 6 being much more relaxed on motorways, but for me that's not that big an issue. Regularly get 28mpg (according to the OBC).
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