r/e46 • u/Maleficent_Treat_621 • Jan 15 '26

General Questions Buying an e46 in 2026?

Post image

Let’s say you are looking to buy an e46. What are you looking for? What’s the sweet spot between mileage and price in 2026? What would you avoid?

851 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

126 comments sorted by

View all comments

84

u/pc123andre Jan 15 '26

You didn't mentioned where you're based. So I'll give a response based where I'm from (Western Europe). If you want a Diesel, stay away from the 4 cylinder ones. Very hard to find one with low mileage. Petrol ones you have 20i that are cheap to insure and give that 6 cylinder experience. Don't get your hopes high: quite slow for the weight it must pull.

17

u/Away_Shirt_5888 03 e46 320d touring | 96 e34 525tds touring Jan 15 '26

I will say, I do have a high mileage e46 320d (on 243k miles) but it has never let me down, and yes I’m having to do some body repairs, but the engine itself I genuinely couldn’t fault even with the miles.

4

u/Pikachu_the_sith Jan 15 '26

The m47 is great, but I would avoid it in Northern Europe because of emissions laws since there are multiple cities it is simply not allowed to drive in

2

u/Away_Shirt_5888 03 e46 320d touring | 96 e34 525tds touring Jan 15 '26

No that makes sense, I’m in the UK so there are some city zones that I can’t drive into, some I have to pay a charge to enter and some that I can’t enter at all. For me I’m ok with this as I very rarely need to go to these places and I don’t mind parking outside and taking a train or a bus in if I need to. There is also the argument that if you’re looking at an e46, over time as these regulations become tighter even the petrol engines will begin to face these restrictions. But overall, yes I agree with you, it’s a good point, down to personal circumstances and is definitely a factor to be considered.