Yep looking for another coupe 
£4K Coupe
- Thread starter Gwest44
- Start date
North West Surrey
To be fair I always thought I’d want another, my Mrs used the coupe so I was very distanced from it, so I took it out early hours one morning and the tramlining was ridiculous so I then jumped in the Quattro sport and it was fantastic so thought let the z go, on the day of sale we drove Leeds to London I checked the tyre pressures 22 psi in the fronts, I’ll be honest I was pissed off, I’m generally on top of basic maintenance, the car never stood a chance of feeling right, the guy in Sweden is over the moon with the car, he reckons tyres will sort out the tramlining after the winter tyres come off that he will have on it now, the decision might have been different if I’d checked the pressures but maybe it wouldn’t, I wish I still had it, that was a cheap car forget the miles it had no real issues drove like new
Mike6 said:
Every £3k?!
That’s a waste of money! Especially if your car isn’t a track car.
I just did my rod bearing shells, as wasn’t sure on their condition and didn’t want to take the risk.
Car did 60,000 miles on the bearings with average oil intervals of 7,000 miles.
As you can see the shells came out mint.
Car has now done just under 80,000 miles and I intend to change the oil every 6,250 miles or once per year (which ever comes first) as per the service book.
Save yourself some money fella!
Attachments
Truth said:
Mine is a pre-facelift and so has the ‘original’ service book.
I believe the service book was updated when the facelift M3 was released at the backend of 2003.
Perhaps information on intervals in the revised book changed, which then were carried through to the Z4M book? (However I cannot confirm this as I don’t have one).
Attachments
earthdweller
Senior member
R60BBA said:
I’ll dig the later service book out this evening
It says if I recall rightly as per SID or at least every two years if the SID isn’t triggered
I service mine annually sticking an additional oil service in between the normal service schedule as I only do about 4K pa
Just a guess but it looks like you have an m3 of late 2000 or early 2001 vintage judging by the service book (and lack of standard strutbrace (from the other thread)). This might explain it as at that time the s54 was specced with 5W/30 oil rather than the 10W/60 specced from 2002 onwards (after the issues with the rod bearings and subsequent service bulletin). Perhaps the thinner oil degrades quicker hence your manual asking for yearly changes?R60BBA said:Gwest44 said:This is the relevant section from my service book - SID or every 2 years
Looks like they changed the literature then (confirmation under Special note on engine oil changes)
Very strange as both cars share the same S54 engine.
TomK said:Just a guess but it looks like you have an m3 of late 2000 or early 2001 vintage judging by the service book (and lack of standard strutbrace (from the other thread)). This might explain it as at that time the s54 was specced with 5W/30 oil rather than the 10W/60 specced from 2002 onwards (after the issues with the rod bearings and subsequent service bulletin). Perhaps the thinner oil degrades quicker hence your manual asking for yearly changes?R60BBA said:Gwest44 said:This is the relevant section from my service book - SID or every 2 years
Looks like they changed the literature then (confirmation under Special note on engine oil changes)
Very strange as both cars share the same S54 engine.
My car was registered at the end of January 2002.
As mentioned before, my car came with the ‘original’ service book which was then revised at end of 2003 for the facelift models.
You’re right in that the engineers at Regensburg initially chose 5w30 oil for the S54 however this was changed at some point in 2001 due to rod bearing failure etc as you also correctly mentioned.
I can’t vouch for the service books that came with 2001 M3s, but mine states to use Castrol 10w60 oil. It does state I can use 5w30 as a last resort, but that’s not the point here.
I’m still baffled as to why BMW extended their service intervals, unless it was to offer less free services under service pack?
Sorry, I got my years slightly mixed up, but it seems your car which likely has a build date of late 01 (if registered early 02) would have had some kind of alteration from the original 01/00 cars (see below). I imagine at this time they were pretty concerned about the rod bearing issue and hence that might explain the more intense oil service schedule as it seems they weren't really sure what was causing it.
