01/02 M3 Mantenance Issues
 

The 01, 02 M3's are starting to come down into my price range for purchase. Since most of these are off warranty is there any particular problems that owners have had with these years.

Bill

I don't follow the E46 M3 much, yet... but I expect many of the problems with the other E46's hit the M3 also. Such as sunroof, window regulators. Also general suspension wear and replacement happens at 75-100k.

There was an early engine problem with M3's but I cant "recall" the nature of it.

The 01/02 cars are still under warranty. There were some early engine failures and BMW extended the warranty on these models to 6 years/100,000 miles for all cars (basically giving all M3 owners the factory extended warranty, free of charge). Come to think of it, I think all E46 M3s get this. Some people feel the rev limit on the cars was set too high, as it was lowered on the Z3 M Roadster and M Coupe and those cars had far fewer engine problems.

Other than that, as Jeron said, the car's have the usual E46 quirks, none of which are serious.

I just purchased a 02 back in March, and couldn't be happier. If you can, try and get a CPO car. This along with the 6 year 100,000 mile eninge warranty is pretty good coverage.

The early engine failures were due to rod bearing failure.