HandsOnTheWheel Introduction

[HandsOnTheWheel]

Good evening everybody! I'll start off by offering my sincerest of apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong area. I looked, but didn't *see* a more appropriate place to post this, so here I am!

My name is Ethan, and I live in Sherwood Park, Alberta. For those of you who are familiar with Alberta, but not Sherwood Park, it's a 5 minute drive from the more well-known Edmonton. I'm posting here because I have become absolutely enthralled with BMW's as of late, and I want to know more about them. You can probably tell, based on the short driving history I've provided, that I am not very well-versed in the ways of automobiles. The only car I've ever driven is my '96 Ford Taurus, which I got for free from my Sister some time back, when I first got my licence.

I am currently looking into purchasing the first car that I'll actually be proud to call my own, and that car is going to be a BMW Coupe. That's where (hopefully), you all come in! I do not know very much about cars at all. Even trying to research the BMW brand, and figure out all of the different models, has been very confusing to me. I'll detail my full situation a little further down. I actually came to join this site just through random google researching. I stumbled upon this post --- http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153470 --- created by user Suareezay. His car is basically what I'm trying to emulate. I absolutely love the exterior aesthetics, as well as the interior. I think I'm fairly flexible on the interior colours, but I really like what he's done with his as well.

Okay, now let's get down to business .

I have about $25000 to play around with here. From what I've seen through Kijiji, I should be able to purchase a very nice BMW with relatively low KM's (100, 000KM ish). There is some modding I would like to do right off the bat, namely the sound system, the dash (as much digital as possible), and depending on the car, rims, tires, etc. I'm not sure how good of a sound system the M3 comes with out of the factory, but I'm considering it to be a mandatory mod for now, because I really need a top-of-the-line sound system in my car.

Now, what I'm having trouble understanding is all of this e90, e92, 330i stuff. I've looked at a few charts on Wikipedia and understand some of it, but I don't really know the differences between an M3 and a 3-Series, an e90 and an e92, etc. Any clarification on that would be greatly appreciated, but I will continue to try and research it myself as well. To showcase how this confusion is making purchasing a vehicle difficult, here is an example:

There's a 3-Series ZHP E46 for sale in my area for $20, 000 (perfect price with my mods in mind), but I'm looking at buying an M3, so I can aspire to recreate one like in the picture's I listed above. The problem is, without knowing the differences between the 3_series ZHP E46 and an M3, I don't know if it's a good idea to invest in the 3-Series, or just hold out for an M3 to come up.

Another concern of mine is just how expensive modding is on vehicles like these. Ideally, the final product would look something like what I posted in the pictures above. However, I'm curious what it's going to cost to get to that finished product starting from a factory model. As my final inquiry, I'm wondering if there are any mods I can do right off the bat that would get me as close to that finished product as possible, again, starting with a factory model.

I think that's good enough for an introduction, don't you all? We're bordering on TL;DR here anyways, so I'll wrap it up for now.

Thanks so much for reading to anybody who took the time to, and I look forward to reading your responses. Any advice/criticism/tips anyone can offer me will be greatly appreciated. Thank-you all, and I'll hopefully be talking to you all very soon!

[Prophizee]

First of all welcome to the forum. You picked a great place to begin your research a great bunch of guys here. 25,000 is a great price in buying a good used e46 m3 which is the previous model m3. The newest m3 is called e9x m3 it's comes in three different body styles a coupe which is the e92 the convertible which is the e93 and the sedan which is out of production and that is the e90.
In my personal opinion I would opt to get a 328i or a 335i as your first BMW coupe. I have had both a 335 and now a m3. For your first performance car I would recommend not getting an m3 due to the amount of horse power. It's alot of power as a first car. Also you could get a 335 the current body style used for around 25k
sound system wise the upgraded sound system is great and def not worth upgrading. Last but not least mods can get pretty expensive espeacily for high end cars like BMW. Good luck to you in your search and you have picked a great brand to get infatuated with. IMHO BMW are the best cars ever made.

[HandsOnTheWheel]

Thanks so much for the quick reply Prophizee! You actually just cleared up most of my whole e90/e92/e93 confusion, which is fantastic!! I definitely want a coupe, so at least now I know that I want an e92 (which is what was in the pictures I'm assuming), or a 3-series. Again, I'm not really sure of all the differences between an e92 and a 3-series, but that shouldn't be too difficult to research on my own if someone doesn't answer it here first. Not having a very keen eye for this sort of thing, I don't see a huge difference aesthetically between them, but I'm sure there are differences to a trained eye. As I learn more about cars, and dive deeper into this new world I've found, the differences between the two might end up becoming a more serious problem for me down the road. So I should probably figure out the differences first, and then make an entirely informed decision.

You somewhat lost me when you mentioned the 328i and the 335i. Are those part of the 3-series, a variation of an M model, or something else entirely?

As for how much power comes along with it, I very much appreciate your concern. I have however been around powerful vehicles before (namely sportbikes), and am prepared to be dealing with a very powerful car. I definitely will take it into further consideration though, so thank-you for that!

Unfortunately, in my area, there aren't a whole lot of people selling their BMW's right now... Through Kijiji, there are only 7 that meet my reasonable criteria currently. I'm expanding my search to different areas, because of those 7, there's only one that piques my interest. Almost certainly going with black on the exterior, and only one of those 7 is black.

There is however a seemingly fantastic 2005 3-Series 300CI ZHP E46 for sale in my area. $20000, which would give my $5000 to play around with modding. 100, 000KM, black on black, no accidents, and it looks like he's taken very good care of it. My only concern is how much it varies from the M3 E92 pictures I posted above, because that is my overall goal. Like I said, I don't have a very keen eye for this sort of thing. Even spotting aesthetic differences between the two would be quite difficult right now.

Thanks again for the reply Prophizee!

[Prophizee]

Okay I will clear up the whole e9x confusion. E9x is what the 3 series is. They are 3 different variations of motors in the e9x level. A 3.0 6 cylinder which is in the 328i then there is 3.0 twin turbo 6 cylinder which is in the 335i then there is a 4.0 v8 which is in the m3. Now all these models come in three different body styles a coupe sedan and convertible. These as I mentioned before are e90 sedan e92 coupe e93 convertible. So basically you can say I have an e92 335i which is a 335i coupe or you can say I have an e93 m3 which is the convertable version of an m3 etc. The m3 that you considering buying is a phenomenal car. But there is downfalls to buying used cars. It's out of warranty so maintaining is a pain and so forth. Personally I would buy a 335i if I was in your shoes the performance on both these cars is very similar the 335 being a bit faster then the e46 m3. Also the n55 engine which is in the 335i which is a v6 twin turbo is a lot easier to mod since it has turbos. People on the forum have been able to just tune the 335i engine to be as fast as the current m3. So if I was you I would consider a 335i and mod thr shit out of it. But then your next question might be why then buy an m3. Simple answer the m3 is full package from factory it can handle
With the best of them it has great power great throttle response great breaks. The 335i maybe able to keep up with an m3 in straight line after the tune, but it will not be able to out handle an m3 it won't be able to out break and m3 etc etc. hopefully this cleared up some of your confusion.

[Erie Von Otto]

Im going to give you the ultra basics with some pix. There are variants and much more info, but this will give you the gist of what youre looking at...

E46 3 series 1998-2006


E46 ZHP: 2003-2006ish (US) [ZHP was special series 3er with some body and engine modifications from the OEM over the standard 3-series.]


E46 M3: 2001-2006 [Note the differences in the body/wheels]


E90/91/92/93: 2006-2012

E90-Four door Sedan


E91-Four door Touring (Wagon)


E92-Two door Coupe


E93-Two door Convertible


E9x M3: (Best all around, daily driver can go to the track no problem, V8 roaring, head turning, amazing handling car ever designed by man)

E90 M3:

(I found this on our site and was posted originally by "The Infamous". He has a shit-ton of awesome car pix and I really liked this one... Theres a car in there if you look really hard.)

E92 M3:


E93 M3:


Hope this helps you out visually...