welcome back everybody Mark with Exotic Car Play Place today coming back at you
to discuss one of the most unreliable BMW 3-series engines available we've
talked about it before and we know that I'm looking at buying one because I find
that it's a fascinating engine that's very tunable and that's why it intrigues
me to buy a car like that with that type of engine but today we're going to talk
about a couple generations of that engine of this 3-series one of them
being the n54 and one of them being the n55 and I'm going to show you briefly
each car that you'll find these engines in and I'll describe some of the
differences of both the cars but more importantly basically talk about the
engine or the key engine differences between the n54 and the n55 engines so
here we go this here happens to be a later generation so we're gonna talk
about the two models this one is the newer of the two so what do we have here
this is a 335 now you look you've got the fancy little wheels and this is the
luxury edition not sure this is really the car I'd be looking for per se but as
you'll notice it is a 335 so we've got the 335 emblem there and we've got the
dual pipes and a lot of the features are very similar to the early car but this
in fact is the newer generation of you know utilizing the n54 and fifty-five
engines this one here uses the n55 which is the revised engine now you'll notice
subtle differences between this and I'll show you in a moment I'll show you an
end and early generation an early generation 3 335 which utilizes the n54
but this here the n55 engine why did they switch to this engine I mean along
with not just the facelift as you can tell the headlights are substantially
different they utilize the LEDs the front valence is quite a bit different
because this is a 2011 model year this car is quite a bit different look at
that headlights look at the mirrors and I'll show you
that on an early car right away this of course the style of wheels are different
but you'll notice the taillights are a little bit as different as well they
have the revised taillights on this car those are some big differences you'll
notice also the rear bumper quite a bit restyled you've got some nice styling
elements on there as well some chrome accents this one's the X Drive so see
all wheel drive but overall there are a lot of little subtle changes on this
facelift on this version of course over the previous generation you've even got
these nice accents on the hood you've also got the you'll notice of square
hood of course is quite a bit different than the newer stuff now why did they
switch not just the facelift but what did they do to this engine
well the earlier car actually utilized a twin-turbo engine the n54 was a twin
turbo engine and pushed out about 300 horsepower then in the facelift and the
utilized in the n55 engine they bumped it to a single turbo but a twin
scroll so it's a more efficient turbocharger that spools up quite a bit
quicker however it's only a single turbo and now it sort of does one now why is
that important well not only did they switch the turbos but they actually
switched some other parts the newer generation car typically has a lot less
issues than the earlier car the earlier car had issues around the oil the oil
filter housing leaking this one here not so much wastegate issues rattling
injectors leaking down in the early cars whereas they fixed some of that here the
turbocharger of course you only have one to break and also internally this engine
was different because they utilized different internal parts on the engine
now the early cars believe it or not had stronger internals and was better
actually for modern modifying than the n55 now the n55 was reconstructed more
for reliability but the original n54 was more based on power and performance
especially if you wanted to mod it that was the car to have this one here
is more for the reliability that's why you choose this car so there's an early
generation 335 of course prettier wheels on there you'll notice the handles very
similar of course but the mirrors are quite different on the earlier car the
headlights are more of the old-school as you can tell look at the headlights the
front end is a lot more rounded off the older generation a lot like my m5 or my
e70 x5 it sort of has that rounded look different altogether fog lights are
different wheels are different way different now this one here actually has
the n54 engine in it of course which is the problematic engine the most
unreliable three series motor available that's what you have in this car here
this one knows also an Xdrive but what's nice is this one here is a manual
you can see in there you've got a manual transmission and what else is different
about this you'll see the taillights slightly different on this of course
they're both sdeans so it's a direct comparison but you've got different
taillights on here you've also got the dual exhaust but look at the rear finish
on the bumper a little bit different they don't have the nice finish on there
so it's kind of a different look overall slight subtle changes to this car from
the other one but again the overall styling is you know generally there
again on the hood you have these different creases generally a different
looking car altogether now these ones here weren't the most reliable cars on
the market for the reasons I just mentioned wastegates
injectors leaking valve cover gaskets turbos you name it this had issues with
it but that's okay if you wanted to modify it this was the car you bought
and that's as a matter of fact likely the kind of car I'm going to buy here
very soon
stumbling of all is not too good engine engine light...
she's got a little bit of troubles or something I don't know another one on
the side of the road dude isn't a good sign it feels got rough and also everybody I
hope you enjoyed the video I hope that was good information for you when you're
making that choice on which car you want to use or which car you're looking at
purchasing make sure you give it a like thumbs up subscribe to the channel I'd
love to see you guys on the next one because after all I will be doing much
much more on the reliability discussions on these cars hope to see you soon and
see you then guys bye bye