e46 m3 vrt price

[Big H]

A good E46 is 20k, one way or another.

While I'm not doubting you, if spending north of €20k on an E46, would it not make a whole lot more sense to go for an E92 instead - https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sal...coupe/21230905 (which has been discussed on here before). Sure neither are going to bottom out much further price-wise in future....

If I was in the market, it would be a no brainer TBH. Of course you can argue that they're different cars - the E92 being possibly more refined & road biased.

Discuss.

[Moe]

Problem a good e92 will cost you 30k in the end

If you buy a 10k or 13k or 15k e46 you will little get a solid car, but then the fun starts, service it, sub frame, whatever suspension parts need replacing, bearings, vanos....to get it spot on you looking at 25k, to get it half decent is 20k and the ones that have all those things done are not for sale. Same with the e92, the cheaper ones will all need money spent on them in the 5-10k mark, and they have some issues that are not cheap to fix. You might get lucky on a e92 and just get a good car that some chap can no longer afford to run or wants to run but that would be the exception.

[Dave]

Problem a good e92 will cost you 30k in the end

If you buy a 10k or 13k or 15k e46 you will little get a solid car, but then the fun starts, service it, sub frame, whatever suspension parts need replacing, bearings, vanos....to get it spot on you looking at 25k, to get it half decent is 20k and the ones that have all those things done are not for sale. Same with the e92, the cheaper ones will all need money spent on them in the 5-10k mark, and they have some issues that are not cheap to fix. You might get lucky on a e92 and just get a good car that some chap can no longer afford to run or wants to run but that would be the exception.

Completely agree.

I also think that when you compare like for like, the E46 is the better all rounder.

When I say that, I mean, manual, non EDC E92 M3.

I've taken both of these for a spin recently, as I've been agonising over cars for months now.

This one is a 51k mile manual


This one is a 70k mile DCT


I've also driven a few E46 M3's previously.

When you throw a manual E92 M3 down a back road, it is lovely, the manual transmission feels very old school and the whole experience really is great.
Outside of that, so just regular use, it's a car I cannot gel with.

There is drive train lash in stop start traffic that's just annoying, an E39 M5 does the same thing. I don't recall this being as evident in an E46 M3.

My biggest gripe is that it doesn't seem to settle down at speed, it revs too high, 120 ish KPH is near 3k RPM, that's way too high, it doesn't relax.

So if I were given the option of a low mileage manual E46 for 20k or a reasonable mileage manual E92 for 23-25k, I'll take the E46, I think it's the more complete car.

This is based on the premise that it would be my daily, if it was just a Sunday car, the tides would probably swing in the favour of the E92.

I did completely fall in love with the the DCT E92 though

[Moe]

Yeah Dave, Say all you want about the purity of a manual, DCT is just so sweet at speed and so smooth round town, best of both worlds. The e92 does make a great sound. Neither the e46 or the e92 are a bad choice, and I have to say I would consider either a solid choice.

[Dave]

Yeah Dave, Say all you want about the purity of a manual, DCT is just so sweet at speed and so smooth round town, best of both worlds. The e92 does make a great sound. Neither the e46 or the e92 are a bad choice, and I have to say I would consider either a solid choice.

Problems don't get more first world than this


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[CitizenKane]

Aside from maintenance costs, etc. would it also be fair to say that the e46 would be cheaper to run (less thirsty) than the big V8?

[Big H]

Aside from maintenance costs, etc. would it also be fair to say that the e46 would be cheaper to run (less thirsty) than the big V8?

Thinking of buying either and being worried about fuel consumption - you really need to look elsewhere....

[SmokyMo]

I ve never driven E92 but e46 is getting really annoying to daily drive around dublin. Harsh suspension, clunky diff, notchy gears, feels like a tank when you doing stop start and driving around town.....

[CitizenKane]

Thinking of buying either and being worried about fuel consumption - you really need to look elsewhere....

Not about being worried, but if you're factoring things like maintenance costs in to your decision between the two as discussed as above then why wouldn't you also factor in this?

[Moe]

In my experiance the e46 and e92 are about the same, the e46 is not frugal at all especially if you like to rev it out, I am surprised at how much of a drop it like to drink TBH.