BMW E91 335i Impulse Buy

[christhreadgill]

Following on from my first Reader's Cars thread of our Td5 Disco ( https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=&t=1995501), I thought I'd start one for my project / toy / impulse purchase. If you've read the Td5 thread, or seen my post in the Fast Estates thread, then you'll know it is a BMW E91 335i.

I'd been WFH for around 6 months, hadn't bought a new car for at least 10 weeks and this popped up on one of the Facebook groups within an hour of my flat. Drove down the next day, took it for an hour long test drive, slept on it, made an offer the next day and picked it up the following weekend.

2006 (Pre-LCI), M-Sport, Titanium Silver, with I-Drive, SatNav, Bluetooth. Black leather interior, but only the poverty spec non-heated & manual seats . However, the big selling point to me was it is the 6 speed manual, in what is a sea of ZF6 autos in these cars. Quite leggy with 129k on the clock, but with a massive box file of paperwork, FSH, and over £10k spent in the last 12 months including new turbos, boost solenoids, fuel pumps & sensors, new injectors and a full suite of engine gaskets which are prone to failure on these N54 engines.

Pictures from a miserable viewing day:






I have no need for an estate car (no kids, don't do any tip runs, and I'm not a sales rep slogging up & down the motorways), however I just like fast wagons and always wanted one.

And this one is definitely fast! The new turbos I mentioned are uprated hybrid items, and the car has also had the associated modifications to make use of the better turbos including; 7.5" intercooler, upgraded LPFP, upgraded coil packs, colder spark plugs, metal charge pipes, silicone intake hoses with cone filters, the latest "Index 12" version of BMW injectors, decat downpipes mated to a BMW Performance Exhaust system and also a twin-disc clutch setup to handle all the power & torque. All in all, this leads to a dyno printout of 510bhp and 840nm of torque.

I've had the car for around 9 months now, and will update with some retrospective posts over the coming weeks to bring the thread up to date!

[TheJimi]

A relatively leftfield choice, imo, and all the better for it. Really like it

[147lusso]

Very cool. These seem super rare, they mostly come up at ludicrous money - bet it's some thing though!

[pmorg4]

Wow, seems like quite the M3 slayer! A manual E91 335i seems like a rare thing indeed. Looking forward to the updates

[Quhet]

Looks like you've done well there. £10k is a hell of a lot to spend in a year to maintain an 18 year estate car - fair play to the previous owner!

[daver1184]

Looks like an excellent buy. Well done.

I'll look forward to updates on your ownership experience.

[Court_S]

Like that a lot…..bet it’s pretty nippy with 510bhp! That’s a very rare beast with a manual gearbox.

I’ve so far resisted the temptation to add more power to my E92.

I’ve always really liked the E91 but annoyingly most if the petrols seems to be pretty badly spec’d (no xenon’s, heated seats etc).

The old CCC is ancient but there are lots of good upgrades now which let you have stuff like CarPlay which really modernises the car.

Looking forward to hearing more about it.

[seefarr]

That'll be brisk. I loved my coupe even with ~120hp less.

Watch out for the ABS pump that also does 2nd stage traction control (with the 1st stage done by the e-throttle). They are really expensive to rebuild and I did two of them. If you feel like giving it a hiding (carefully!), back off the traction control with a single click on the ESP so it only kicks in if you're about to crash. You can also flood the pump if you let leaves build up in the drains under the A pillars under the bonnet so don't do that either.

[Mr Tidy]

Lovely - that's going to be seriously quick with 510bhp!

[christhreadgill]

It certainly is quick, almost frighteningly so. I used to race motorcycles up to National Championship (BSB paddock) level, and also had a couple of E46 M3's (I know, not exactly the last word in power!) but this is truly on another level. A late night trip to a private airstrip in Mexico has seen it off the clocks before I'd even engaged 6th gear. Mind boggling.

As I had eluded to in the first post, this was a bit of an impulse buy, with a bit of a man-maths inspired "project car" approach. So, initial weekend of ownership lead to a full external wash and interior semi-deep clean, and the usual rummage around to ascertain a parts list for little niggles. I had also already ordered a full set of new "tailored" mats for the car as the ones that came with it were awful & worn out.









So, the initial list of future plans:

• Swap out all the interior lights for a full set of new LED items.
• A new pair of the black plastic covers for the boot ISOfix anchor points (#8208733).
• A new boot latch cover trim panel (#51479142417).
• New gear knob and gaiter.
• New handbrake gaiter.
• Rear end LCI swap (tailgate & LED light clusters).
• Front end LCI swap (headlights, bonnet, front bumper).
• Leather interior could do with a proper going over with some decent leather cleaner & then hit with a restorative / conditioning product.
• Retrofit a CIC infotainment system to replace the old CCC equipment as this is a pre-LCI model.

[sam.rog]

Fantastic Donnerwagen. Must really fly with 500hp.
Boring question. How do you rate the floor mats. I need a pair for my e91.

[christhreadgill]

sam.rog said:

Boring question. How do you rate the floor mats. I need a pair for my e91.

Really good products and fit like a glove. Got them from "Premier Products". I went for their "standard" quality for the floor mats in anthracite with a thickened heel pad area, "exclusive" for the boot mat in anthracite, both with a black striped edging.

[pmorg4]

christhreadgill said:

So, the initial list of future plans:

• Swap out all the interior lights for a full set of new LED items.
• A new pair of the black plastic covers for the boot ISOfix anchor points (#8208733).
• A new boot latch cover trim panel (#51479142417).
• New gear knob and gaiter.
• New handbrake gaiter.
• Rear end LCI swap (tailgate & LED light clusters).
• Front end LCI swap (headlights, bonnet, front bumper).
• Leather interior could do with a proper going over with some decent leather cleaner & then hit with a restorative / conditioning product.
• Retrofit a CIC infotainment system to replace the old CCC equipment as this is a pre-LCI model.

Rear LCI swap is definitely a big plus, the pre-LCI rear lights are definitely not an example of BMW's finest styling. I'm less convinced on the LCI front end though, I think it loses some aggression and looks a bit grown-up and perhaps even a bit fussy with the multitude of bonnet crease lines. But you could argue that front and rear should match, so I think either way it will look great getting rid of those rear lights.

Will you swap to the LCI mirrors? I think the pre-LCI mirrors are far nicer looking, no idea why BMW switched to the bigger items on the LCI as the visibility on the pre-LCI mirrors is absolutely fine.

Before you retrofit to CIC, look into the various upgrade options (CarPlay, Android, etc) that are available. I have a CarPlay unit and I never use the built-in CCC system any more (you can swap back to it by holding down the menu button). It's far superior to even CIC regarding maps, ability to play Spotify, Audible, etc.

[Court_S]

christhreadgill said:

It certainly is quick, almost frighteningly so. I used to race motorcycles up to National Championship (BSB paddock) level, and also had a couple of E46 M3's (I know, not exactly the last word in power!) but this is truly on another level. A late night trip to a private airstrip in Mexico has seen it off the clocks before I'd even engaged 6th gear. Mind boggling.

As I had eluded to in the first post, this was a bit of an impulse buy, with a bit of a man-maths inspired "project car" approach. So, initial weekend of ownership lead to a full external wash and interior semi-deep clean, and the usual rummage around to ascertain a parts list for little niggles. I had also already ordered a full set of new "tailored" mats for the car as the ones that came with it were awful & worn out.









So, the initial list of future plans:

• Swap out all the interior lights for a full set of new LED items.
• A new pair of the black plastic covers for the boot ISOfix anchor points (#8208733).
• A new boot latch cover trim panel (#51479142417).
• New gear knob and gaiter.
• New handbrake gaiter.
• Rear end LCI swap (tailgate & LED light clusters).
• Front end LCI swap (headlights, bonnet, front bumper).
• Leather interior could do with a proper going over with some decent leather cleaner & then hit with a restorative / conditioning product.
• Retrofit a CIC infotainment system to replace the old CCC equipment as this is a pre-LCI model.

Isn’t the CIC retrofit crazy expensive? I know it was for the E8x.

I went with an Andream screen which gives me CarPlay which gives better access to modern maps and streaming music etc.

The LED interior lights modernise it nicely and was one of the first things that I do to mine.

[Brett748]

I love this. You would never expect it to be so powerful, definitely a bit of a sleeper.

Good call on face lifting it, the LCI E9* has aged very well I think.

[d_a_n1979]

That's a cracking impulse by! With those mods it'll deffo shift as you've described

Looks underrated too; folk will just see it as another BMW 3 series touring on the road and thats it... Until you've disappeared into the distance

[Sko77y]

Who doesn't love a fast estate, although I was reading the mod list and was not expecting that power figure! Great purchase as far as I'm concerned, sometimes high mileage on a well maintained car is nothing to worry about, you won't worry about putting the miles on it at least!

[Martyn76]

christhreadgill said:

It certainly is quick, almost frighteningly so. I used to race motorcycles up to National Championship (BSB paddock) level, and also had a couple of E46 M3's (I know, not exactly the last word in power!) but this is truly on another level. A late night trip to a private airstrip in Mexico has seen it off the clocks before I'd even engaged 6th gear. Mind boggling.

As I had eluded to in the first post, this was a bit of an impulse buy, with a bit of a man-maths inspired "project car" approach. So, initial weekend of ownership lead to a full external wash and interior semi-deep clean, and the usual rummage around to ascertain a parts list for little niggles. I had also already ordered a full set of new "tailored" mats for the car as the ones that came with it were awful & worn out.









So, the initial list of future plans:

• Swap out all the interior lights for a full set of new LED items.
• A new pair of the black plastic covers for the boot ISOfix anchor points (#8208733).
• A new boot latch cover trim panel (#51479142417).
• New gear knob and gaiter.
• New handbrake gaiter.
• Rear end LCI swap (tailgate & LED light clusters).
• Front end LCI swap (headlights, bonnet, front bumper).
• Leather interior could do with a proper going over with some decent leather cleaner & then hit with a restorative / conditioning product.
• Retrofit a CIC infotainment system to replace the old CCC equipment as this is a pre-LCI model.

Glad I'm not the only one with a knackered boot latch cover (2006 E91 330D), still looking for a replacement as I have the grey (Grau in BMW speak) leather interior which doesn't seem to come up very often so used interior spares are a bit like hens teeth and I can't face spending £s on a brand new part.

[Jonmx]

Awesome! That looks like a whole lot of fun. I just got rid of my E91 (320D) on 197k and picked up a pre LCI 330i on 85k and my future upgrade list is remarkably similar to yours!

[crustyclown777]

Awesome purchase. I’ll be following with interest, as I’ve got an E91 335i aswell, but the N55 engine. I love it, and really need to create my own thread. I’d love to be making a similar power to you, it must seriously shift.