Quote:
Originally Posted by Inglewood
Looking at picking up a used F80...have owned a variety of manual BMW's over the years, including an e90 M3, various 335i's, etc. On the fence between waiting for the perfect manual, low mile, enthusiast spec e90 (get in line...) or going the 6MT F80 route.
Curious as to what car F80 owners are going to after offloading their M3? Aside from the terrible exhaust sound, any major gripes or issues contributing to the eventual sale? From what I found online, they seem relatively reliable; however my local independent shop owner said he's seen a variety coming in for all sorts of weird issues...not one thing in particular. As I am likely looking at a 15-16 with maybe a year of warranty at most left, I am hoping to get into something that is not going to be in the shop constantly...
Thanks in advance for any input!
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I'll be holding mine for the foreseeable future, especially given I decided to buy my lease out this past May. I’d love to add the same type of E90 you’re on the fence about, but it wouldn’t necessarily be an F80 replacement if found.
The F80 is really the perfect Jekyll/hyde car, and if a 6MT is a need, it’s both your best & only option. Stock v Stock it’s a totally different animal than an E9x car, much more violent and much more capable.
The exhaust sound topic, where to start. This has been bantered about endlessly on the platform and it’s always going to be a taste issue, there’s no “right” answer to ‘does/can this car sound good?’ I am a V8 lover, but also need violence, comfort, and reliability in my fun 4 door car – the F8x fit my bill here. I very much disliked the sound of my car out of the box as a stock civic spec 2015 car. An exhaust was done on the car by the 1200 mile servicing and I’ve not looked back since. I went AWE Resonated – it’s not wild, it’s not childish, but throaty, bassy and I can entice those juvenile crackles on overrun when wanted, or avoid them easily if not. For my dollar, it’s the best exhaust option on the car if trying to keep stock DP’s. If you don’t care about the startup/idle smell from going catless, I would have just done DP’s and Active midpipe with stock rear section – and saved a couple thousand dollars in the process. Again, ymmv on that – all about taste.
Getting to the reliability concern; So far (KNOCKS ON WOOD INTENTLY!) the platform seems to be quite robust. I actually went searching for the earliest RB issue report I could find on an E9x a few days back and it looks like by late 2009 this was a known concern. Yes, we in the F8x world have our little Crank Hub issue, but that hasn’t looked to be nearly as widespread of a concern as the RB S65 problems were/are. We’ve got forum members here at and above 75k miles on the platform, we’ve got members with 35-40k on FBO cars here, and we have others who are at 40+ track days on them. Large scale worrisome issues haven’t yet cropped up. The Crank Hub failures all look to be related to one of three things:
(1) Abusing the car – not letting it be warm before really honing, tons of kickdown downshifts etc.
(2) A very small number of bad torque specs leaving the factory
(3) Flash/JB4 tuning the car
If you always treat the car with respect as a machine – not saying don’t drive it how it’s built to be driven, more saying don’t ride her hard cold and put her away wet, you know - then you should be able to avoid the dreaded CH issue. You can always proactively address it, but the volume of CH issues vs. production run compared to E9x RB issue rate seems much lower, anecdotally.
If the car was out for 18-24 months, I’d fully understand the open ended concern, but so far the platform has proven strong and stable. Good luck!