Hey you. Come over here. I got a secret,
yeah you, come on over, I got a secret for
you. Come here closer, do you want to know
what the most reliable 3-series BMW is?
I'm gonna share that with you right now.
Okay everybody, we're gonna review my top
picks for most reliable 3-series BMWs
today that money can buy. Now generally
as a rule let's get to this, there's
certain things you want to avoid for
sure without even talking about specific
models to buy, certain things you want to
avoid in the 3-series marketplace, v8
motors, SMG transmissions, DCT
transmissions, all wheel drive systems,
turbos, those are all things that add
complexity to an engine and
unfortunately a lot of the modern F30
and F80 engines have numbers of
features and as a result the F30 and F80
cars ,they're still fairly new, so it's
kind of hard to judge them right now, but
they themselves may have a lot of issues
as time goes on, so as a rule I'm not
saying don't buy the F30 and F80
series of 3-series. That's the newest
stuff. Basically what I am saying though,
if you're going to buy them, make sure
you get the latest and the greatest, then
hopefully you have some warranty, you're
satisfied with the service history, and
that overall the miles are reasonable,
after all these are the latest from the
brand and they can't all be bad. It's
just that time will tell which ones are
weaker than other ones. So as a rule if
you want the later cars, don't
necessarily feel free to shy away from
them, I'm just going to give you what I
know as the most reliable three series
BMWs. Now let's go on another thing that
you want to be watching out for, our
transmissions. So you've got to
understand that BMW has used different
variations General Motors or ZF
transmissions along the way. ZF is the
primary used transmissions throughout
the series, they still use them today in
many or more
capacities, as an example the new m5, but
they use ZF transmissions way back in
lauded the 3-series cars in the 80's, 90's,
and such and you've got to understand
that they are actually very robust. So as
a rule they shift well, they work well,
and if well-maintained, are very, very
reliable.
That being said an automatic
transmission is not a bad choice in busy
cities and stop-and-go traffic, but at
the end of the day a manual transmission
is always the more sporting touch, as
well there's less moving parts, so likely
you're gonna have less issues in the
long run with a manual gearbox. It's just
generally more fun that way, so before we
get into our list of the top five
choices that I have for you, you make
sure that you hit the subscribe button
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like and I'd love to hear your comments
down below. So let's get moving, the first
choice of most reliable, we'll start with
the oldest most reliable 3-series BMW
goes to the e36 325i, and that is
equipped with a manual gearbox, so that
run would be in the 1991 to 1995 years,
and was actually a very sporting car in
its day. Still to this day it has a very
spunky engine with a hundred and eighty
nine horsepower in a manual gearbox, this
car was guaranteed to provide lots of
fun. Now some of you guys might ask what
about the 328 that came later, well no
the 328 was actually a different engine
type, and actually had issues with high
sulfur content, would tend to eat away on
the NICUs aligners that you found in the
328 cars and because of that NICUs all
started eating away from high
sulfur content back in those earlier
years, that's why I would primarily
recommend a 325. It was relatively
bulletproof and you didn't have those
issues, it was actually a different
generation of engine than the 328, and I
would be more than satisfied with a
hundred and eighty nine horsepower
provided. So my second choice goes to the
e46 330i, 330CI, or even better the 330 ZHP
which is the the extra performance
oriented car that they actually BMW
bumped up the power a wee bit, and added
a whole bunch of track rated suspension
bits and pieces, as well or some
cosmetics like spoiler up
grades and things, but in essence it was
an upgraded 330ci and the zhp package
was a really, really nice performance
version. That being said, we're
really essentially talking about
reliability and the 330 had the 3 liter
inline 6 engine that was more or less
the same as what you found in the 325 of
the same generation, which was the m54
motor that shared the same bore as the
325, but had an increased stroke over the
325, and therefore created a wee bit more
power up from the 189 you had. Now it had
225 horsepower. So my third choice in
terms of top reliability for three
series BMWs goes to the e46 325i, as you
can tell, but the XI you'll notice the XI
on there, that's the all-wheel-drive
version I would probably be without that
unless you really need the all-wheel
drive or CI or any of those variations
of the 325, which also uses the basic
engine architecture that you found in
the 330 and it's the m54. The reason I
say this is the most reliable, is because
it's the tried and true, the silky smooth
inline 6 engine that BMW is so well
known for,
in this guys in the 325 in the e46
variation, it produces a hundred and
eighty nine horsepower again, same from
you would find in a e36, but again just in
a slightly newer skin, but that 325
engine was one of the most reliable BMWs
ever produced, and when you coupled that
with a manual gearbox, there was almost
nothing you needed to worry about, other
than standard maintenance. Yeah you could
still have water pump, so you could have
leaky valve cover gaskets, I mean those
aren't necessarily uncommon tasks for
any BMW, but really that was about all
you had to worry about, everything else
was pretty basic, the car was fun to
drive, and it just kept on going, and they
had such a strong reputation, and were
very, very popular for many many years. So
my fourth favorite and most reliable
3-series BMW, again that silky smooth
inline 6, goes to the e90 328i, this
time the 325 is actually still
a great engine,
but because the 328 now uses the same
engine setup as the basic 330, which is
the m52 engine, and it has been vastly
improved upon over the previous 328, it's
actually based on the previous
generation 330 in the e46, the new n52
has proven to be far more reliable than
the previous 328 engine. It's as good as
anything the 325s or the 330s from the
46, and this time it produced about 231
horsepower and about 200 foot-pounds
of torque, and again there's a common
theme here, straight-6 engine by BMW,
buttery smooth, super reliable. And so the
fifth choice for the most reliable
3-series BMW goes to the e90 330i, that
shares the same n52 engine as you find
in the 328, the difference is some slight
fine-tuning. This engine of course N52
as a rule took advantage of some
upgrades from exhaust tuning, DME tuning,
as well as intake manifold is upgraded
from the previous generations of 330, and
325. That's how they extracted more power,
but now the 330 in the 90 produced up to
268 horsepower, and they produce these
cars in 2005 to about 2013, so that would
to me would be the most, the newest
version, of a reliable silky smooth
inline six BMW that money can buy, with
performance in mind of course. Don't
forget after that BMW all of a sudden
started adopting turbochargers and went
with smaller engines, as you saw a
previous review idea of a newer 330, it
actually had a turbocharged inline-4,
again yet to be verified or proven how
reliable they are, time will tell, so
that's my top 5 most reliable BMWs, the
common theme here, you have to understand
everybody, is they were all inline sixes.
That truly is BMWs benchmark engine
series. So hope everybody enjoyed
that video,
please make sure if you
haven't already subscribed, make sure you
d,o as well don't forget to check the
most unreliable 3-series BMW, a previous
video I just recently posted. Don't
forget to check that one out, so if you
don't want one of these cars, just make
sure you don't fall into the trap of one
of those other cars, unless you're
prepared to spend the cash. So thanks
again everybody for coming out. I'm glad
you watched the video, I hope to see on the
next one, and we'll see you real soon
everybody. Bye bye.