Loads of progress for you all this month, amazingly I’ve done everything I planned! £63 and 15 minutes saw the broken spring replaced: it’s simple and straight forward. However, I think we all need to stop and ask why this happens. It’s a fault often reported on the forum, and the BMW parts dealers admit to shifting quite a few, so I hope BMW have improved the quality of their parts on newer models. I’ve never had a broken spring on any of my four E30 and E36 cars – why is the E46 so fragile in this area?

The car’s mileage is creeping ever closer to the 100,000 mark (apologies for a mileage error last month by the way, for some reason I stated 3,000 miles too low), and as such it is time to review its condition. The bonnet shows the distance in stone chips, but otherwise the car’s exterior is in tip-top condition. Inside the leather looks remarkably good for its age, the carpet is still rich and thick, and the only part that had really shown wear was the steering wheel which I renewed about six months ago.

The real tell-tale sign though was the slight looseness felt through the steering column over bumps, and the Pringle shaped brake discs. Not any more! I reported last month that I’d acquired some Rossini brake discs, and I spent the first half of this month amassing the remainder of the rubbery parts that form the front end of the car.

Last weekend I was ready in the garage with those Rossini discs, OE brake pads and sensor, front wishbones including ball-joints (GSF), front wishbone rear bushes (courtesy of Tom Titler, thank you!), anti-roll bar bushes and drop links, 8 litres of Castrol 0W30, an oil filter kit (thanks to Olly Bloxham from Barons of Hindhead), and a little bag containing new nuts and bolts where applicable.

I started by getting the front of the car high in the air and removing all the belly panels to provide access to the wishbones and then dropped the oil while hot. This oil change wasn’t a part of the service schedule: it’s exactly mid-way between its last official oil service and the impending Inspection II, but I believe that engines should have their oil changed more regularly, especially when the turbo shares the same oil.

Access to the nuts on the top of the inner ball-joints via the engine bay was a little awkward, especially on the exhaust side, but they were soon off and it was out with the ball-joint splitter and club hammer. And hammer, and hammer and hammer. I don’t think it’s possible to have a hammer too big for this job! Eventually, they popped off and the rear mounts could be undone and the wishbones were off.

Fitting the new ones was quite easy with three potential gotchas. Firstly, the further the rear bushes can be pushed onto the wishbones before they are fitted to the car, the easier it’ll all line up. Secondly, getting to the nut on the exhaust side inner ball-joint requires arms like Mr Tickle, a 22mm spanner and a willingness to settle for a ‘slow but steady’ technique. Thirdly, use a jack to ensure that the wishbone is held firmly up onto the car so that the ball-joint itself doesn’t just spin while the nut is turned.

Having swapped the wishbones and their rear bushes, changing the drop links and ARB bushes was child’s play, requiring basic sockets and spanners. Changing the oil filter was a bit of a chore as BMW have reverted back to the annoying plastic canisters that are capped with a 34mm nut – a socket size I don’t have. Various wrestling with a monkey wrench saw the filter changed successfully, but what was wrong with the nice metal can with a sensible bolt as found in the E36 M3? Brakes were changed (7mm allen key is the unusual tool here), oil refilled and the whole lot was comfortably finished within a day.

What’s the difference now then? The 330d steers and brakes like a new car. Everything is super tight, steering feel and turn in are sharp, and it absorbs speed bumps and undulations with brilliant competence. The outgoing front wishbone rear bushes were Powerflex items by the way, and I can’t really say I’ve been particularly impressed with them. Of course I can’t say that changing these for OE items has been the source of the improvement because I’ve changed so many other items at the same time, but I do have a nagging feeling that the OE item is superior in this instance.

It’s so nice to be able to lean on the brakes without the mental vision of poddadom-shaped brake discs accompanying a vibrating steering wheel. Rossini say in their blurb that their discs won’t warp. While the presence of the M3 means it’s unlikely that the 330d will do any track work on these brakes, I’ll be sure to put their claim to the test.

All this excitement now means that I’ve got no budget or time to spend on the 330d in the near future. I hope to be able to just get on with the business of driving it, and look forward to the milestone 100,000 mile mark. Hopefully this car won’t require any attention until its Inspection II – still some 6,500 miles away.

Mileage since last report: 412
Total Mileage: 96,796
MPG this month: 37
Cost this month: £254 (ARB bushes, drop links, pads, sensor, oil, filter, rear spring) + wishbones