Undercarriage pics of my 2003 E46 330Ci ZSP

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Hello All:

I'm one of the older guys on this forum. I've always taken good care of all my stuff, cars included. I was working around in the garage and decided to take a few pictures my special ordered from the factory (no sunroof) 2003 BMW E46 330Ci ZSP. This car will go down in my lifetime as once of my all time favorites. Even though the car has been flawless since new, i spend a lot of time on it anyway.

Since owning it another pair of hands have not touched it in any way except for the CA emissions test every two years, my hand picked alignment guy, and for the air bag recall. I do everything; maintenance, mechanical, modification, detailing, etc., everything.

Our E46 has never once been driven in the rain or on a wet road. The only time it's outside is when it's being driven, and that's usually on high quality, low traffic, driving roads. Even so, I hand wash, yes hand wash, the undercarriage every year or two. Our E46 lives a good life!

Anyway, I was putzing around the garage and took some pictures of the undercarriage, just for the heck of it. Crazy thing is, the car looks like this all the time. I was kinda chuffed while looking at the pictures and thought I'd share them with you. Realize, this car has 91K miles on it. So it's been driven! And this is a 16 year old machine you're looking at!

Enjoy,

Scott

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Looks great, your ownership and californias weather has been really nice to the undercarriage. There is an ebay seller who does OE re wraps in Czech Republic if youre looking to refresh the suede on the steering wheel. Most guys recommend driving gloves to keep that new.
 
WOW!! 16 years, 91,000 miles......very, very impressive! It looks like it just came out of the factory.

Well done SLO_Town!!
 
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That's a beautiful car.....but with the OCD treatment you give it....do you get an equivalent or more enjoyment out of it when you do drive it? Or does it turn into a mental exercise on what to fix or work or clean next....rather than flooring the pedal?
 
Must have nicer roads than Southern California. We have holes, cracks, trash on a 70mph freeway. Hard on the front end of any car. I hope your rear subframe holds up. We have had a 98 E36 for a little over 100k miles. Much rougher life it appears.
 
That car is beautiful and it's obvious you take meticulous care of it. I can only dream of cars that clean around here. Recently I had to sell my XJ Cherokee due to rust issues, even though I maintained it religiously and kept it clean with minimal salty weather driving. It was cleaner than most, but seems like around here no matter what you do it will rust eventually. Moving out of New England to the west or down south has been a serious thought for me the last couple years. I'm tired of working on rusty junk.
 
Originally Posted by jeepman3071
That car is beautiful and it's obvious you take meticulous care of it. I can only dream of cars that clean around here. Recently I had to sell my XJ Cherokee due to rust issues, even though I maintained it religiously and kept it clean with minimal salty weather driving. It was cleaner than most, but seems like around here no matter what you do it will rust eventually. Moving out of New England to the west or down south has been a serious thought for me the last couple years. I'm tired of working on rusty junk.


Besides the rust in CT there are the unfunded state pensions in that state. I think most unfunded in the nation.
 
Thanks all for your nice comments.

Originally Posted by tundraotto
That's a beautiful car.....but with the OCD treatment you give it....do you get an equivalent or more enjoyment out of it when you do drive it? Or does it turn into a mental exercise on what to fix or work or clean next....rather than flooring the pedal?

I still get a lot of enjoyment driving the car, but I can stress about it at the same time. Just yesterday I got blasted by some small dirt clods while following a pickup truck that hit a pavement seem. The pavement seam knocked loose the debris and sprayed me. I cursed out loud!

I live in the land of traffic free, smooth, dry, twisty mountain roads. I've made extensive modifications to the chassis. The car is 100% dialed in and sorted. It's a joy to drive. The car sees full throttle and the Michelin Cup 2 tires earn their keep. But since it's our fourth car it's only driven about 1,500 miles per year - enough to keep it "wet" and full of fresh gasoline. I try to exercise it every month or so. I never plan on selling it so it's kind of become an experiment to see how well I can preserve it for the next 25 years. So far, so good!

Scott


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