You've reached Doug Vetter's BMW Ownership Blog, in which you'll find lots of information regarding the maintenance and upkeep of two specific types of BMWs -- the 1998 328is Coupe (E36) and the 2006 330ci Coupe (E46).
The 328is is my daily driver while the 330ci is my sunny day car. When I bought the E46 I had an opportunity to trade the E36 but I was having too much fun driving it. For this reason, it remains in my stable and the E36 subsection of this site will continue to be updated for many years to come.
This site is the personal log of Doug Vetter and is not endorsed by or affiliated with BMW.
While BMWs are very well built and reliable vehicles, as high performance equipment, they demand regular maintenance. This is a log of maintenance performed on my cars since they were new.
I recently started to do a lot more work on my own to help reduce maintenance costs. This section contains articles that aim to explain how I accomplished various maintenance procedures so you can do them too.
Sometimes I write more formal articles that describe a particular maintenance procedure that is just too complex or in-depth for a log entry. Look for those articles here
I just purchased a 2004 BMW 330cic with 74K miles. I just took it in to have the oil changed and the mechanic said I needed new rear coil springs. This is an expensive repair. He said that BMWs of this era were known for their weak coil springs and were prone to breakage. Has anyone else had this problem? I would also like to know how long can I drive with bad coil springs before it becomes dangerous.
This 2001 BMW 330Ci convertible is phenomenal with exterior color, Titanium Silver and interior, Italian “Tuscany” Red leather with full sport (M3 style) package and all other options excluding NAV. It is my wife’s car, but I specified it. She lets me drive it sometimes. We would have purchased the M3 that year but it was not available then in any kind of an automatic and my wife will only drive automatic as sad as that is. This 330Ci excels in all areas. The brakes stop on a dime. It holds the curvy roads perfectly and very hard to force it to swing its butt out or break loose. On the freeway, it lane tracks perfectly albeit some road noise even with the top up (It’s a soft-top convertible – go figure.) The Italian leather sport seats are to die for and comfortable for anyone 5ft (my wife) to 6ft 3” (me) – no fatigue even on drives of 12 hrs+ at my age. The AC and heater will freeze or toast you before you get out of your garage in all outside temperatures. The only minor issue is the quality of the premium “Harmon Cardin” sound system at very high volumes with the top-down; it could be a bit louder without distortion. I did blow a pair of front door tweeters a year or so ago that cost $600 bucks to replace, but I had the volume way up. Other than the stereo at high volumes, top-down, it is a real crowd pleaser and even after being 9 yrs old now with 74,000 miles, it still gets great positive comments from complete strangers and performs virtually the same as when new. I do recommend the Michelin Pilot Sport tires for front and rear. I tried a pair of Good Year Eagle F1 GS-D3s, which are a world-class, superior quality / performance tire on the rear that provided slightly better rain / wet-road performance than the Michelins but for the dry track road, the Michelins are the BEST! If you like to drive for driving sake, this is one of a few cars that give it up nicely!
The 328is is my daily driver while the 330ci is my sunny day car. When I bought the E46 I had an opportunity to trade the E36 but I was having too much fun driving it. For this reason, it remains in my stable and the E36 subsection of this site will continue to be updated for many years to come.
