All these jobs help keep my 20-year-old BMW running trouble-free.
BHPian karan561 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
I share my experience of what goes in to keep my BMW (E46) 328i running trouble-free & run you through all the new parts installed, jobs done.
This Video is a good lesson in Early Diagnosis & Preventive Maintenance. All the parts were ordered & installed at an official BMW Service Centre.
The Jobs Done;
1) Power Steering Fluid Leak
A few weeks back, I had observed a leak in the engine bay area and was visible in the underbody too.
It was discovered that the power steering fluid was leaking, hence got the power steering reservoir and some other small parts/pipes changed to fix this issue for good.
The Power Steering fluid the car uses is ATF (Cheaper than CHF used by other newer cars), do note that this is a hydraulic unit.
2) Air Intake Boot
It was noticed that the car had a very shabby non-OE makeshift intake boot (the part behind the aftermarket aFe intake kit) installed by the ex-owner.
Ordered a brand new OE BMW Intake boot. Will take care of proper Air-Fuel Ratio & support the MAF accordingly.
3) Rear Brake Pads
The rear brakes (Disc & Caliper) are from the E46 M3 but during the initial modifications for some reason (probably availability) regular E46 3 series pads were installed.
This was creating some uneven wear & contact patches on the discs:
Fortunately, the BMW Infinity workshop had E46 M3 brake pads in stock hence got proper M3 brake pads installed.
4) Air Conditioning
This car belongs to an era when cars weren't developed for global markets hence the AC performance was never good for India. However, During the time of initial mods I had spent good money on sourcing OE AC Parts such as the Condenser, Evaporator, New Gas etc. but the performance of the AC was never satisfactory. This was informed to the official workshop and they diagnosed the root cause of the AC to be a bad drive belt and the need for new water valves. These small parts again were sourced from Germany and installed in this service. Now finally the AC has reached near-optimal levels for this part of India.
5) Engine Tappet Cover (Also called Valve Cover) Gasket Change
There was a slight leak observed and if not taken care of now would have created problems in the future hence took this job up and got the gasket replaced which came in (Again from Germany) as a kit for this job.
6) Intake Manifold Job
The car was having some issues with the idling & did misfire sometimes. This was diagnosed with issues related to the Intake manifold & some odd jobs carried out by the ex-owner. In this case, I did not go into repairing/rebuilding/refreshing the intake manifold instead I ordered a completely new one & got it installed. Sometimes it's best to replace than to repair it holds especially true with older BMW's. As they say, an ounce of Prevention is better than a pound of cure.
7) Engine Oil Change
Finally, to finish things off, we gave the engine some fresh new Oil.
All the parts were sourced & installed by BMW Infinity, Turbhe.
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