1995–2015 · six cylinders and up
Buying guides for the last real engines
Engines that were designed rather than specified. Every forum warns you about their famous fault. Nobody adds up the rest.
Free: a short guide for every car, on this site, no email address. The full guide, its phone edition and the inspection card: €24.
What is in a guide
One guide per model, built for the viewing
Every fault, and how much work it is
Written as work, not as a price: a job is half a day or a week in the workshop, because a euro figure from one country is wrong in the next.
The age-related work, and whether it can wait
It says as plainly what you can leave alone as what you have to do.
The inspection card
The whole viewing on paper, in order, to print and take with you — and what to say to the seller, and what to keep to yourself.
From the BMW M3 E46 guideLast Real Engines
11 · Window regulators
Labour ~2 hours per window · an hour or two per window · cheap part, difficult access
Extremely common on the E46. The cable frays before it lets go, and then the glass drops. How you notice it: run the windows fully down and fully up and listen for grinding. On a coupé, also open and close the small rear side windows — they tilt out on their own electric drive rather than winding down, and they are forgotten until they stick. On a convertible the rear side windows have window lifters of their own: run those down and up too.
Grinding means do it now, because otherwise you are standing in the rain with an open window. Silent, leave it.
How a guide is made
You should see how we write before you pay for it
Documented faults per engine and per body, with the workshop time each one takes.
Every fault, symptom and hour count comes out of documented cases, not out of an estimate.
Where the community genuinely disagrees, you get both positions instead of our preference.
Choose your car
38 guides, one per model
How it works
Three steps, and the last one is at the car
Read the free guide
What the car is, and the questions that decide whether the one you are looking at is a good buy. On this site, without an email address.
Get the full guide · €24
A PDF straight after payment, in an A4 and a phone edition. VAT included, no subscription, no account.
Take the card to the viewing
Print it and work through it at the car, in order. Write down what you find: that is what your offer is built from.
What exactly do I get?
For every model: the full guide as a PDF, in A4 and in a phone edition to read at the car, and the inspection card to print and take to the viewing. €24, VAT included.
Is there a free version?
Yes. Every model has a free short guide: what the car is, and the questions that decide whether the one you are looking at is a good buy. You can read it on this site without leaving an email address.
Why are there no prices in it?
Because a price we cannot verify is worse than no price, and because a price would be wrong for most of the people reading it: workshop rates across Europe differ by a factor of two or three. What does not change is how much work a job is, so every point says whether it is an hour, half a day, a day, or a week in the workshop. Ask your own workshop for its hourly rate, and every hour in the guide becomes your own number.
Can I get a refund?
EU consumer law gives you fourteen days to change your mind. For digital content that right ends the moment delivery starts, provided you agreed to that at the checkout. If the file will not open, or you were sent the wrong car, write to us and we will fix it or refund it.
Who handles the payment?
Lemon Squeezy, who sell the guide to you as merchant of record. They charge the VAT at the rate of your country, send the invoice, and email you the download link. We never see your card.
Buy the right one. Walk away from the wrong one.
New guides appear on Instagram first.