Ownership Verified: e46 330xd Touring

The attention to detail is fantastic. Love your work!
 
Saw online that BMW recalled airbags for the e46 some time ago. Contacted my local BMW dealer to see if perhaps mine have been replaced already. Good thing I called them cause they haven't been replaced yet. Service was scheduled for this Friday, replacing them took the whole day, dropped the car at 7:30h, the called me to pick it up at 16:00h. Parts and labor were free of charge.


IMG_7819 by Marko Hre??an, on FlickrI

Not the rest of the steering wheels looks dated since I have a new airbag cover :D. Could be the right time to reupholster it.
 
Havent posted here in a while. Time for a update . . .

30.06.2017

Bought a trunk release button for the interior and wire pins for the connector. But my local BMW dealer cant find the correct connector under the partNo. that i found online. Will have to sort that later . . .

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The baby's due date was getting closer at the time, so i didn't have much time to work on the car. One problem did pop out, under hard acceleration the rear end would vibrate, like it would get loose (bit it wouldn't).


15.08.2017

Oil change and all the filters too. Replaced the inner front right shaft seal, had a tear in it. Replaced the sensors for the pads wear, one was broken. We also broke one thing, the sensor arm for the automatic headlight adjustment. This thing :

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It was broken before i bought the car, someone did a bad repair job so it only took a little ding to break it again. Ordered a new sensor.

This is how i roll since :D

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24.08.2017

Insurance and registration, 3880kn ( 510? )


01.09.2017

Before :


20170825_164255 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr

After :


20170901_072952 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


20.10.2017



_MG_1052 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_1064 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_1060 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


13.11.2017

First snow of the season. Drove up Sljeme to check it out . . .


_MG_0227 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0234 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0243 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0245 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0246 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0253 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0301 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr

After Sljeme : :D


20171114_173334 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr

After a quick wash:


20171114_174115 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


20171114_174128 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr

AWD is a biatch! :D

In the mean time switched to the winter setup (Dunlop SP Winter Sport 4D 225/50/17). When changing the wheels replaced that sensor for the automatic headlight adjustment and tightened the handbrake a bit.


20.11.2017

Bought a fire extinguisher.



_MG_0310 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0317 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


Made a mount for it. Found this at home:


20171120_143209 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


Did some cutting to it. Testing it :


20171120_150848 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


Tried it with the holder :



20171120_152200 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


20171120_152217 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


20171120_155209 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


20171120_155226 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


Looked good so i gave it a final test :


20171120_155331 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


Its under the seat, but no so much that you cant reach it. Really turned out perfect.


20171120_155418 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


20171120_155423 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


Only thing left to do is to paint the mount in black.


23.11.2017

Took the mount off and gave it a couple of layers of paint:


20171123_091908 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


And picked up some things from my BMW dealer :


20171123_153752 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr
 
I'm having wagon cravings again, mainly your fault, but sadly BMW didn't sell X-Drive cars here until many years later. SUVs yes, but not sedans or wagons.

I guess it's a couple of years of saving then something something Quattro. Scoobies are ruinously expensive to run on gas, and the diseasel engines are shocking.
 
I'm having wagon cravings again, mainly your fault, but sadly BMW didn't sell X-Drive cars here until many years later. SUVs yes, but not sedans or wagons.

I guess it's a couple of years of saving then something something Quattro. Scoobies are ruinously expensive to run on gas, and the diseasel engines are shocking.

Move to the Balkans then, we have awesome cars here :D



Did a few things today . . .

Replaced the battery. Old one was giving me problems on cold mornings.



_MG_0319 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0322 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0327 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr




Mounted the fire extinguisher with the painted mount. Look more OEM like this. I really like the way it turned out :)


_MG_0328 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0330 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0332 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0333 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr




Next, time to mount the first aid box under the passenger seat.


_MG_0335 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr

Found some screws that worked perfectly.

_MG_0336 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr

A bit fiddly to mount it but easier that expected.

_MG_0337 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0338 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0339 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0343 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr




Replaced the stupid phone holder thingy in the middle with cup holders.


_MG_0341 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0342 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0344 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr


_MG_0346 by Marko Hre??an, on Flickr
 
Nice work!

How?d you fix the A pillar trim? It got pretty ugly on my old E46.

Friend of a friend did it. But it didnt last long. He used some fabric glue. It looked great the first week but now its back looking like it did before. Maybe the glue used isnt right for this, not really sure. Didnt charge me anything, so no real loss there.
 
What button did you lose in your center console for the cup holders? Looks like voice control or something similar?
 
What button did you lose in your center console for the cup holders? Looks like voice control or something similar?

Yeah, its for the radio/nav unit, used for voice and Bluetooth pairing. But I have that same button on the steering wheel and the OEM Bluetooth doesnt work with modern phones (I did upgrade that with the GROM audio module) so I dont have any use for that button.
 
Those grill covers are interesting, should help the car heat up in the cold? never thought of that before, could be useful.

Yeah. Blocks some direct air throught the radiator and heats up a bit faster. Had a similar thing on my w210 but DIY made with some paper and wrapped in plastic. Like the fact that this is OEM.
 
Friend of a friend did it. But it didnt last long. He used some fabric glue. It looked great the first week but now its back looking like it did before. Maybe the glue used isnt right for this, not really sure. Didnt charge me anything, so no real loss there.

Ah, too bad. Hopefully you'll have some success with a future attempt.
 
I love this thread, all the work you do is just so damn awesome! And the pics are awesome too!

Keep up the awesome work!

Love your enthusiasm :D Thank you :)

Ah, too bad. Hopefully you'll have some success with a future attempt.

Yeah, me too. Its not so bad as before, but its still annoying :/

I have lots more of modding and retrofitting in mind, just need time and money :D

Waiting for some stuff from Aliexpress, small cargo net, some other little things and a Tyre pressure monitor system (TPMS) :

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Also some electronics, Arduino, CanBus schield, OLED screen . . . My plan is to read some CanBus data and display it on the screen, for a start. Maybe even decode the TPMS data and display it on the Arduino. Could turn into a cool project . . .

Next big retrofit is adding paddle shifters. Its really simple to do, but i need a new steering wheel coil (want to be as OEM as possible) which has 2 extra pins for the buttons. The coil is around 110?, plus some little things i need. Also have to source some paddles, mod the wheel. Then ill need to upholster the wheel once all is done. So the whole thing is gonna be quite expensive. But not impossible :D


LCD is showing some age. Im getting more and more dead pixels so that gonna need to be replaced. Thats gonna cost around 100?.

I was thinking of replacing the white blinkers with amber ones. What do you think?? Like this :

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There, some of my thoughts and whats next to come :)
 
I went the other way with my old touring (no need for that on the current one since it already had white ones) so if you want to have amber indicators I have a full set (front, side and rear) to spare. :p
 
I went the other way with my old touring (no need for that on the current one since it already had white ones) so if you want to have amber indicators I have a full set (front, side and rear) to spare. :p

Interesting . . . Have some pics? OEM ones? Condition?
 
AMBER ALL THE THINGS
 
Interesting . . . Have some pics? OEM ones? Condition?
They are OEM ones, condition is mostly excellent, no broken mounts or lenses except for the rear outer left lens which has a small crack in the indicator glass (click for bigger pics):



The crack isn't all the way through, the surface isn't broken and it is pretty much invisible from half a meter and further away. The lenses have been sitting on the shelf since mid-2011 or so after I changed them for clear ones on my old touring which I sold way back in 2013 after it had been rear ended.

If you're interested, drop me a line via PM, we'll figure something out.
 
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