Free guide · 2006–⁠2011 · 3.0 twin-turbo diesel · 286 PS

BMW 335d E90 / E91 / E92: what to check before you buy

What this car is, and the six questions that decide whether the one you are looking at is a good buy.

Last Real Engines · updated 19 October 2026

In this guide · 6 chapters

1. Who built it, and what they built
2. The six questions that decide whether this car is a good buy
3. Which years, which specification
4. What it is worth
5. What it is actually like to own one
6. The buying guide — €24

Who built it, and what they built

A 3 Series diesel with 580 Nm, in the years when the V8 M3 had 400. Both figures are BMW's own: 580 Nm from 1,750 to 2,250 rpm for the 335d — Saloon, Touring and Coupé alike, before the 2008 facelift and after it — and, for the V8 M3 that BMW introduced in 2007, "Maximum torque of 400 Newton-metres (295 lb-ft) at 3,900 rpm." The comparison is ours, made from two BMW figures; we found no BMW text that compares the two. So it is only fair to tell the rest of it. The M3 had 420 PS to the diesel's 286, and it is the faster car: in BMW Spain's data sheet for the 2010 Coupé, the 335d reaches 100 km/h in 5.9 seconds and the M3 in 4.8. What the diesel had was the pull, and it had it low down.

Two more things keep the comparison honest. The 335i petrol of 2006 also made 400 Nm, by BMW UK's own table, so this is not a story about an M3 short of torque. And the press saw it at the time. CAR magazine, testing the 335d Coupé in 2006: "maybe the most exciting thing is the knowledge that BMW has had to make the new M3 significantly faster and better than this." The Auto Channel, in 2009, did the sum for American readers: "425 lb-ft of torque. That's more than the 295 lb-ft of the M3's 4.0-liter, 414-horsepower V8."

The engine

A 2,993 cc straight-six diesel with two turbochargers working in series: 286 PS (210 kW) at 4,400 rpm and 580 Nm from 1,750 to 2,250 rpm in the European car. BMW UK explained in 2006 that the small turbocharger is "effective immediately, producing 95 per cent of the available torque at just 1,500rpm."

A second generation. BMW Netherlands introduced it as the three-litre twin-turbo diesel — "de uit de BMW 5 Serie bekende 3.0 liter dieselmotor met variabele twin turbo", the one known from the 5 Series. BMW's own description is more precise: "the second generation of the world's most sporting and dynamic diesel", with 10 kW and 20 Nm more than the first, which BMW's training material dates to the 535d of September 2004, at 272 PS and 560 Nm. Asked who held the patents on this technology, BMW of North America answered: "BMW's diesel engine specialists in Steyr, Austria … working with a number of partners, including Bosch." BMW's own September 2006 press kits do not agree on which car had the new engine first — one says the X3 3.0sd, another the 335d Coupé — so we do not say.

"Variable Twin Turbo" — and what is not variable. BMW called the system VTT, and the name invites a misunderstanding. BMW's training workbook for this engine is plain about it: "The two turbochargers do not have variable vanes." What varies is how the two are combined — a small turbocharger for the high-pressure stage, cast in one piece with the exhaust manifold, and a larger one for the low-pressure stage — through, in BMW's words, "various flaps and valves": a turbine control valve, a compressor bypass valve and a wastegate. All three are worked by vacuum, in the European and the American car alike.

BMW's claims, read closely. In October 2006 BMW UK called the engine "the most powerful production straight-six cylinder diesel engine in the world". That is a 2006 claim, with two qualifiers in it — production, and straight-six — and we have not checked it against that year's rivals. The "world first" for this kind of turbocharging belongs to the earlier car: BMW credits the 535d of 2004, "as the world's first car maker" to introduce Variable Twin Turbo technology. And BMW UK's own pride in August 2006 was local: "the most powerful diesel ever to power a BMW in the UK."

Clean, in two different ways. The European car has a particulate filter as standard — BMW's 2006 Paris kit lists "use of a particulates filter fitted as standard" among the engine's merits — and no AdBlue. The American car, sold from late 2008 as "BMW Advanced Diesel with BluePerformance", added an SCR catalyst with urea injection, "a small dose of urea referred to as AdBlue", so that it could be sold in all fifty states. BMW's US training says of that system: "The SCR system is used for the first time at BMW." Much the same basic engine, two different cars around it; this guide keeps them apart throughout.

The gearbox

One gearbox: a six-speed automatic, with paddles on the steering wheel as standard, which BMW's parts catalogue lists as the GA6HP26Z for every 335d, European and American — a ZF gearbox, by BMW UK's 2006 data sheet. BMW UK's tables carry the footnote "Automatic transmission only." BMW of North America gave the reason: "The twin-turbo diesel engine is best suited to the sporting characteristics and torque-handling capacity of the automatic transmission from BMW's V8 engines." Drive goes to the rear wheels; the parts catalogue lists a four-wheel-drive 330xd in this generation, but no four-wheel-drive 335d.

The bodies, and the two markets

Europe. BMW UK announced the 335d "in the 3 Series Saloon, Touring and Coupé models from September 2006". BMW Austria put the Coupé's market launch on 22 September 2006, and BMW UK had its Coupé follow in October. The facelifted Saloon and Touring went on sale in the UK on 20 September 2008, still with the 335d; the Coupé was facelifted later. BMW UK priced all three bodies, so right-hand-drive cars exist. We found no 335d Convertible: BMW's parts catalogue lists no 335d for the E93, and BMW's 2010 Convertible data sheet lists the 320d, 325d and 330d as its diesels.

The United States. BMW announced the 335d for the Detroit show of January 2008, together with the X5 xDrive35d, and reminded American buyers of the last time: the 524td of 1983 "was the last BMW diesel model to be sold in the US." BMW said the first cars would reach its dealers in December 2008. It came as a Sedan only, rated by BMW of North America at 265 PS and 425 lb-ft — BMW's American figures, in American units; the European car is rated at 286 PS and 580 Nm — and the US recall records list it for the 2009, 2010 and 2011 model years.

How many there are

We do not know, and we would rather say so than guess: we found no production figure for the 335d from BMW or anyone else, in any market. The one number BMW of North America published is a combined one — 991 cars in March 2010 for "the BMW 335d and X5 xDrive 35d" together. It says nothing about the 335d alone.

How the figures in this guide work

How much work each job is, not what it costs. Every point in the buying guide carries an effort level — an hour or two, half a day, a day, two or three days, or a week or more in the workshop — plus a line saying whether the money sits in the part or in getting to it.

There are no prices, and that is deliberate. What a job costs depends on which workshop you walk into, and where, so a figure we cannot verify is worse than no figure. If you want an amount, ask any workshop one question — what is your hourly rate? — and every effort level in the buying guide becomes your own number, in your own currency.

None of this is advice about one particular car, because we have not seen the car you are looking at. Have every one of them inspected before you buy, by someone who knows this engine.

The six questions that decide whether this car is a good buy

Most of these cars are now between fifteen and twenty years old, and on this model the paperwork, the market the car was built for and a read-out of the fault memory tell you more than the paint. Six questions.

1 · Europe or America — and do you know which one you are looking at?

The basic engine is much the same — BMW's US training says "very few modifications have been made to the basic engine" — but much of what surrounds it is not. The same training lists the differences: another engine control unit, electrically operated swirl flaps in the intake and an electric EGR valve — the valve that feeds some exhaust back into the intake — extra sensors, and an SCR system with AdBlue tanks that the European car does not have. BMW of North America rated the American car at 265 PS; the European one is rated at 286 PS. The BMW service bulletins we could find in public were all BMW of North America's, written for the American car, and the American warranty extensions do not travel. So this question decides which half of what you read applies.

2 · The recalls and campaigns — done, and can somebody show you?

Several recalls touch these cars. Two are about fire or a loss of electrical power: the main battery cable where it meets the fuse box, and the wiring of the heater blower's regulator, which in the words of the US recall could increase the risk of a fire "even when the vehicle is unattended". Others concern the driver's airbag and, on cars built from December 2010 to mid-2011, the propshaft. The US car had its own emissions recall on top. And there are BMW's EGR-cooler campaigns for six-cylinder diesels, defined by build dates rather than engine codes; no source we found says whether a 335d is in them. The VIN, the chassis number, settles all of it, and a BMW dealer can look it up.

3 · How was it driven?

A diesel with a particulate filter needs long runs to keep the filter clean, and BMW says so in its own bulletins for the 335d: frequent short trips mean the filter does not regenerate properly. BMW also wrote a bulletin about carbon building up in this engine's intake. A car that spent its life on motorways is a different proposition from one that did the school run.

4 · Has anyone worked on the intake, the injectors or the turbos — and why?

These are the expensive words on a 335d invoice, and on this engine they are not always proof of what they seem. BMW had to correct its own workshop diagnosis on one of these points for the 335d. An invoice is the start of a question, and the answer is in what led to it.

5 · The gearbox — has anybody changed the fluid?

BMW's specification sheets call the gearbox fluid a "lifetime" fill. ZF, the company that makes the gearbox, recommends changing it, as reported by the UK trade magazine Professional Motor Mechanic. On a car this old, it matters which of the two the previous owners listened to.

6 · Saloon, Touring or Coupé — and is it what the advert says?

A 335d is one of three bodies, automatic, rear-wheel drive. BMW's parts catalogue lists no 335d Convertible, no four-wheel-drive 335d and no manual one. An advert that offers one of those is offering a different car, a conversion, or a mistake — and if an advert gets the basics wrong, check the rest of it against the car itself.

What the answers add up to

On a car with its recalls done, a history of long runs, no unexplained work on the intake or the injectors and its gearbox fluid looked after, an owner mostly faces ordinary work in the first two years. On a car without that history, you cannot yet tell whether the bigger jobs are still to come. That is what separates a cheap 335d from a good one.

The six questions only help if you know what sits behind them. The buying guide takes each of them apart, adds the things that are simply fifteen to twenty years old, and says for each one how much work it is, what tells you about it at a viewing, and whether it has to be done now, within a year or two, or can be left. It comes with a card you print and take with you, with the checks in the order you do them.

Which years, which specification

Europe: three bodies from September 2006. Saloon, Touring and Coupé all had the 335d from the start of the 2006–07 season. How long each one stayed in the range is less clear. BMW's data sheets valid from September 2010 still list the 335d for the Saloon, the Touring and the Coupé. ADAC, the German motoring club, lists the 335d Automatic saloon in its catalogue until November 2011, the month the E90 saloon ended; for the Touring and the Coupé, which ran on to September 2012 and July 2013, we found nothing that says whether the 335d stayed to the end.

The 2008 facelift. The facelifted Saloon and Touring went on sale in September 2008; the Coupé followed in 2010. What changed, by BMW's press kit, is mostly what you see: a wider, lower kidney grille in a chrome surround, two lines running back across the bonnet, twin corona rings in the headlights, LED light bars in the rear lights, a new crease along the sill, larger mirrors and — with navigation — a new iDrive with shortcut keys. The output stayed at 286 PS and 580 Nm; BMW says "minor software changes" took the Saloon from 6.2 to 6.0 seconds to 62 mph, and the Touring to 6.1.

The US car is its own model. It is a Sedan, built for the 2009 to 2011 model years, with a different engine control unit, an AdBlue system with tanks at the rear, and its own rating. Two BMW of North America documents give different last build dates — 30 June 2011 in one, 11 August 2011 in another — so we give neither as fact.

Standard and optional. Run-flat tyres were standard, and BMW says "the suspension of the car has been designed to suit the sidewall structure of this type of tyre." The brakes are the 330d's: 348 mm discs at the front, larger than the 325d's, and 336 mm at the rear. Active Steering, with its variable ratio, was an option in Europe — on the Coupé from 2006, and on the facelifted Saloon and Touring — but BMW of North America named it as an option only for the 335i, and the US 335d's parts catalogue lists none. At the back, by BMW Netherlands' description, it has one tailpipe on each side, like the 335i.

The engine code trap. BMW gives this one engine several names. Its development name was M57TU2 TOP; its official code, on BMW's own data sheets, is M57D30T2; BMW's US service bulletins call it the M57Y; and parts-catalogue websites file it as M57N2. It is not an N57: that is the engine of the later 325d and 330d. And it is not the 535d's engine of 2004 either, which was the first generation at 272 PS. When you look up parts or bulletins, search under the M57 names and the VIN.

Beyond that, look for a car nobody has modified. Factory wheels on run-flats, standard ride height, the original exhaust and the original engine software. On a diesel with a particulate filter and, in the US, an SCR system, the last two points matter more than usual, and a standard car usually tells you something about how it was kept.

What it is worth

This is the hardest thing to establish on your own, and it does as much as anything to decide whether you buy well. We are not going to give you a price list — it varies by country and by month, and it would be out of date before you used it. We are going to give you the method.

On this car, the history sets the price. Two 335ds with the same mileage can be very different cars: one with its recalls done, a history of long runs, a clean fault memory and its gearbox fluid changed, and one without. That difference usually outweighs colour, specification and even mileage. A diesel built for distance will often show a high reading; judge how the car got there rather than how far it went.

There are three kinds of car for sale, and each one deserves a different offer.

The documented car. Full history, invoices tied to mileages, a dealer printout showing the recalls done, and an owner who knows what was done and when. Asking price at the top of the market, usually justified.

The tidy car with no paperwork. Drives well, pulls hard, and the owner says it has always been serviced. The hardest of the three, because the big items on this car — the particulate filter, the intake, the injectors, the turbochargers and their controls, and on an American car the AdBlue system — are exactly what you cannot judge on a test drive.

The project. Known faults, price adjusted to match. A 335d with a warning light on and no diagnosis is not a project but an unknown.

How to set the three against each other. Take the asking price, work through the questions in this guide — and the lists in the buying guide, if you have it — and add up what is coming in the first two years. Call that the entry price, and compare entry prices rather than asking prices. Price the Saloon, the Touring and the Coupé separately.

Europe and America are two markets. A European car and an American car are not the same car on paper: different emissions equipment, different rating, different service bulletins. Price them separately, and if you are looking at a car that has crossed the Atlantic, find out which one it is before anything else.

Where to look: your country's big classified sites, the BMW specialists and the auction sites. If you want a right-hand-drive car, BMW UK's own price lists show that the 335d was sold in the UK in all three bodies. Follow the market for a month before you go and see anything.

What it is actually like to own one

It is a compact BMW with an engine out of proportion to its size, and most of what the testers wrote comes back to that. CAR magazine: "it produces a titanically, toweringly fast car. But for those used to quick petrol cars, it's a different and deceptive kind of fast." BMW UK's own press kit for the Coupé asked the question with a straight face: "Is the 335d the 'real' supercar of the future?"

It lives on torque. evo: "You've got to love a car with 428lb ft of torque. Even if you don't understand exactly what torque is, put your foot down and you understand what it does." Auto Express timed a 335d Coupé at 5.7 seconds from 0 to 60 mph and 4.9 seconds from 30 to 70 mph in 2007, more than a second quicker to 60 than the Mercedes CLK 320 CDI it was up against. AUTO BILD called the Coupé a "sparsamen Spurtkönig" — a frugal sprint king — and liked the standard ZF automatic.

It is not the purist's choice, and the testers said so. CAR found the steering "very heavy; heavier than the equivalent petrol 335i's" at low speeds, and the optional Active Steering a trade: "you trade feel for lightness." AUTO BILD's one reservation was the ride: "Nur die straffe Federung erfordert Nehmerqualitäten" — only the firm suspension takes some getting used to. And evo, for all its enthusiasm, would have taken the manual 335i: "that would be our choice."

It is a long-distance car. The US Environmental Protection Agency's estimates, as BMW published them, were 23 mpg in the city and 36 on the highway. Kelley Blue Book put the US 335d on its Top 10 Green Cars list in 2009 and 2010, and its editors, quoted by BMW: "To most passersby the 335d looks like any other BMW 3 Series. To the driver, however, the 335d is something truly special." It was a finalist for Green Car Journal's Green Car of the Year 2009, which went to the Volkswagen Jetta TDI.

What the engine earned. Ward's AutoWorld put the engine on its 10 Best Engines list for 2009 and 2010, by BMW of North America's account. ADAC's used-car report on the 3 Series diesels calls the six-cylinders "Meisterwerke des Motorenbaus" — masterpieces of engine building — and says of the 335d that it offers "Fahrleistungen, die bis heute beeindrucken, und damit Understatement pur." Performance that still impresses today, and pure understatement.

What ADAC's statistics say about the range. In ADAC's breakdown statistics, the 3 Series of this generation does markedly better from the 2008 facelift on; earlier cars show a higher breakdown rate. ADAC also writes that the range does well at the German roadworthiness test, and that broken springs and defective dampers are the most likely problems there. That is the whole range, not the 335d — we found no breakdown figures for the 335d alone, and no long-term test of one.

Living with run-flats. BMW fitted run-flat tyres as standard, and BMW UK's guidance for a puncture was "Conservative advice says a driver can continue for 150 miles at 50mph with a punctured Run-flat tyre." That is about 240 km at 80 km/h, by our conversion.

What it gives back. A six-cylinder diesel with 580 Nm in a car the size of a 3 Series, and the range to use it. It is not an investment, and nothing in this guide pretends otherwise. It is a car you buy to drive.

The buying guide — €24

Everything above is what the car is. This is what you check.

Ten faults that belong to this engine, taken apart one by one, with how much work each repair is and how to tell which of them you are looking at. Fifteen things that are simply fifteen to twenty years old, every one with how much work it is, what tells you about it at a viewing, and whether it has to be done now, within a year or two, or not at all. What the sources document about water and the bodywork on the E90, E91 and E92 — and what they do not. How the two turbochargers work without variable vanes, what the swirl flaps do and what BMW says happens when they stick, and how the European car differs from the American one with AdBlue. The viewing in eleven steps, including the two moments that come only once. The sentences you say to the seller, and how to build an offer out of what you found.

And a card you print and take with you — seventy lines, in the order you do them. That comes as a separate file, because nobody wants to print a whole guide to take a few pages to a car park.

This is what one of the fifteen looks like

10 · A groan from the front axle over speed bumps, in the cold

An hour or two for both anti-roll-bar bushes · Cheap part, easy access

BMW of North America's bulletin SI B31 01 09 covers the E90, E91, E92 and E93 "Produced from SOP to 11/2010 except for the M3": "A grating or groaning noise is heard when the front axle compresses and/or rebounds. This may be heard particularly over speed bump-type surfaces. The noise normally occurs at lower outside temperatures." The correction is new front anti-roll-bar bushes — part 31 30 6 778 064 for the rear-wheel-drive cars, which every 335d is. BMW notes that vulcanised mounts were "gradually introduced from 04/2010 to 11/2010" to prevent the noise.

Leave it if the car is quiet over bumps. Within a year or two for a groan on a cold morning — and the quote should be for two rubber bushes, not for a strut or a control arm.

And this is how the card reads

• 1 · Round the outside, before anybody starts it
• 2 · The boot and the floor
• 3 · Under the bonnet, cold · engine off, key out
• 4 · The cold start · the seller starts it; nobody revs it
• 5 · The first kilometres, still cold
• 6 · The drive, warm

What €24 buys, put next to what it saves

A turbocharger is two or three days, and so is BMW's intake-cleaning procedure, with the manifold out to a machine shop. The cheapest check of all is a dealer printout of the recalls by VIN. The guide is €24. It will not stop any of that from being needed — but it does tell you which of them you are looking at before you agree a price, and that is the whole of the difference between paying for a car and paying for someone else's postponed maintenance.

Why there are 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 this anyway. Workshop rates across Europe differ widely, and so do parts prices. A quote from a specialist in one country tells you nothing in another.

What does not change is how much work a job is — that follows from what has to come off the car. So every point in the guide says whether it is an hour or two, half a day, a day, two or three days, or a week or more in the workshop, with a labour figure where a source gives one. And it says whether the money sits in the part or in getting to it, which is what lets you tell a fair quote from a bad one.

If you want a figure, ask any workshop one question — what is your hourly rate? — and every effort level in the guide becomes your own number, in your own currency. One question, and the answer is actually true for you.

How this guide was put together

Because you should know before you pay for it.

• Every fault and symptom comes from a source the guide names, the manufacturer's own documents first. The effort levels are our assessment, unless a source gives the hours.
• Where a bulletin is American, it says so, and whether it can apply to a European car; where the sources go quiet — swirl flaps breaking, the timing chain — it gives no effort level at all.
• The effort of every job is counted item by item and checked against the list before every edition.
• It says as plainly what you can leave alone as what you have to do. Nine of the fifteen age points start from leave it.

Leave your email address at the checkout and both files arrive straight away: one guide and one card, as two pdfs. No subscription, no account.

Have every car inspected before you buy by someone who knows this engine. This is general information about the model and not advice about a specific car.

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