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Opinions needed: Part out car or sell as is?

zrickety

The Fixer
I'm going to be the outsider and say sell it as is. Your mods are not all that valuable, the Avid wheels and tires are the biggest upgrade and you would be lucky to get $600 for the set. Your time or the mechanics time to swap all the parts is valuable too. Are you really going to swap suspension and do an alignment to make a couple hundred back? These are performance oriented cars, I would rather buy one modded once than one with parts swapped again and again.
 

Sauce118

Ready to race!
you should be able to go into any apr dealer and have them flash it back to stage 1 w/ stock file. Sell the car as stock as you can possibly get and like someone above said, leave a note somewhere saying its flashed stage 1 from apr, instructions how to switch files, and the password if you have one (or you could not say anything to the dealer and leave it on the stage 1 file). That's exactly how i bought my car! the guy didn't have to remove mods cuz it was just stage 1, but when i test drove it I could tell there was more power ( i went from an mk6 to another mk6, so i could tell it pulled harder). But there was no password, and that ended up being a huge pain. So leave the password. That initial stage 1 tune gave me the itch and since then i have prob put close to what the car is worth back into it lol. Sorry for the rant.
 

GTIguy30

Passed Driver's Ed
Perfect I guess that's the plan. Will I be able to sell or transfer of the software tune? Everything else should be pretty straightforward I think I would only sell the full exhaust system the intake piping and front mount, the wheels but everything would stay with the car. Agree?


How much are these parts new vs used?

Found an 05 M3 SMG I'm picking up tomorrow if all goes well. You don't want to know what I'm paying for it... (less than the GTI)

Cheers still much love for the VW brand and honestly would love to have a VW daily driver under $3000. Volkswagen or Audi what would be your top pick ?

Hopefully you didn't think the GTI had too demanding/expensive of a maintenance and preventative maintenance schedule (like many on this site who walk away from the car).

My Buddy had an e46M3 and a b5 S4 (consecutively, not at the same time). Both cars crippled his bank account and, I think, turned him off from modding, or even owning, European cars altogether. He now drives a Ford Escape and said while there are days he misses those 2 cars, his wallet thanks him everyday, and twice on Saturdays...
 

lilonespaz

Drag Race Newbie
Hopefully you didn't think the GTI had too demanding/expensive of a maintenance and preventative maintenance schedule (like many on this site who walk away from the car).

My Buddy had an e46M3 and a b5 S4 (consecutively, not at the same time). Both cars crippled his bank account and, I think, turned him off from modding, or even owning, European cars altogether. He now drives a Ford Escape and said while there are days he misses those 2 cars, his wallet thanks him everyday, and twice on Saturdays...
i sometimes think about moving to something else just for pure economy and some of those Korean/Japanese car companies have 10 year warranties.
 

Fissionx

New member
Yeah I will take off the exhaust (annoyingly loud) downpipe, the intercooler (maybe) and wheels (maybe); replace with stock parts and sell those aftermarket parts. Everything else stays...


Well I am back in an 05 M3, couldn't be happier. Man you guys don't know what you're missing! The GTI is cool and all but it is numb, unresponsive, slow(er), and the brakes are awful. DSG beats SMG hands down but still, for the same price I can get a higher mileage e46 m3 and still have a bit for coilovers and some maintenance items.

I enjoyed my time with the GTI but it's time to move on. Would make a cool toy/urban/show car but by no means is a sports car.

Always love for the VW brand.





 

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lilonespaz

Drag Race Newbie
gonna go horsepower freaks turbo kit? Are those guys even around anymore in the e46 market?
 

Fissionx

New member
Nope, keep her stock. Car has 150k miles so I've already bought powerflex bushings all around, TC Kline coilovers, that's it. Other small projects are replace headliner and trim (suede), new headunit, but mostly drive and enjoy.

I may do a track event again for fun but I don't want to spiral down THAT money pit again. Indoor/outdoor 200cc karting is just as fun IMO, the karts are more equal and driver ability more of a factor which I prefer.

[RANT]
One of the cars I test drove (not this one) was a modded '03 m3 with tune, intake, header back exhaust and some other BS, but stock suspension and shit tires. Car was not well setup and tune left the car with mostly on/off power not good control part throttle (horrible for car control). Kid was saying he's selling to get a V8 m3 because it has more power. He has no idea how to drive or what he wants. He talked about doing a 'race event' but would need race suspension and harnesses...

This car has such high limits out of the box already and most people never come close to driving the car to it's potential. They are just blind, asleep and chasing a dream they don't fully understand. A dream put into their head by marketing and BS ads telling them 400hp>300hp M3 so newer must be better... Im just tired of it all. Know what YOU want in life, get it and enjoy it. You don't need all this other BS.

Don't know why the GTI was just so bad for me. Maybe it was simply the FWD boring, numb platform but I was just completely unimpressed.

Please correct me if I'm wrong and just had one bad experience but man I hated that GTI! Perhaps I should drive more and a MK7 but that one I owned just rubbed me completely the wrong way.
 
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Fissionx

New member
No love for the m3? The BMW guys enjoy and respect other brands, not sure why VW crowd likes to keep to themselves?
 

SwiftGTI

Go Kart Champion
No love for the m3? The BMW guys enjoy and respect other brands, not sure why VW crowd likes to keep to themselves?

I've got a lot of respect for the E46 M3's. One of my good friends that I track with has a VF-supercharged E46 M3 making 450 whp with supporting mods - Brembo BBK, KW coilovers, Hankook RS3 tires, good alignment, etc. He's pretty comfortable with my driving so one day at the track he threw me the keys, hopped in the passenger seat and told me to let it rip in my advanced/instructor run group. He's a pretty trusting guy lol - did I mention he's a good friend?

Anyway the E46 M3 is definitely a great car. It's a little heavier/slower in corners than the car I normally track with, but the handling balance is excellent - much better than I was expecting. Slight understeer on corner entry, but easy rotation on power. BMW really did a good job with the chassis - it deals with the extra power well. My friend let me take it out a few more session that day and it never got boring. My only real complaints are the stock seats suck at the track, the steering ratio is a little slow and it's slightly heavy but otherwise it's one of the most fun cars I've driven at the track.

And yeah it's definitely better than a GTI, but it should be right? One's a $25k FWD hot hatch and the other is a $55k+ RWD sports coupe. Not much of a comparison there. :iono:
 

Fissionx

New member
Anyway the E46 M3 is definitely a great car. It's a little heavier/slower in corners than the car I normally track with, but the handling balance is excellent - much better than I was expecting. Slight understeer on corner entry, but easy rotation on power. BMW really did a good job with the chassis - it deals with the extra power well. My friend let me take it out a few more session that day and it never got boring. My only real complaints are the stock seats suck at the track, the steering ratio is a little slow and it's slightly heavy but otherwise it's one of the most fun cars I've driven at the track.

Yep pretty dead-on there. My '99 911 was the best 'track' car I've owned, and '02 m3 was the best street car / track car dual I've owned. I've owned the '02 m3 and '99 911 and now the GTI, that's it). Friends let me drive their 996 GT3s on track (like your friend with the m3) for a few sessions and man that thing is another animal... Beyond my capabilities for sure.

Cool you and your friend seem like awesome guys, good on you I approve.
Now I just want a fun street car
 

SwiftGTI

Go Kart Champion
Yep pretty dead-on there. My '99 911 was the best 'track' car I've owned, and '02 m3 was the best street car / track car dual I've owned. I've owned the '02 m3 and '99 911 and now the GTI, that's it). Friends let me drive their 996 GT3s on track (like your friend with the m3) for a few sessions and man that thing is another animal... Beyond my capabilities for sure.

Cool you and your friend seem like awesome guys, good on you I approve.
Now I just want a fun street car

Agree on the 996 GT3's. I came across one at the track that was putting some serious distance on the rest of us. Chatted with the owner later and all he had done was brake pads and hoosier r7's. Not a ton of power compared to modern supercars but amazing what they can do at the track. Wish I had the chance to try one myself, but probably would be hard to get back into my own car after that LOL.
 
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