BMW is a well known automaker in the world. It launches some of the world’s popular executive and luxury vehicles. The cars come in different series like 1, 3, 5, 6, 7. BMW E 46 is of the series 3. It was launched in the year 1998 and became a huge success. There were small changes made from its predecessor E 36 and were manufactured till the year 2006 after which E 90 replaced it. The BMW E46 was launched worldwide simultaneously in different forms of sedan and convert able. In the year 2002, almost four years after its release its sales shot up to five hundred thousand. The car had a much more powerful engine than its predecessors and had some great modifications in its aesthetic looks as well. The transmissions were of two types and either could be chosen.
There was a manual 6 speed transmission and a sequential gearbox which was manual too. It offered many styles like 2 door hatchback, 5 door sedans, and convertable. The engine layout was front type and it had an option of both rear wheel controlled and all wheel drive. The customer has the choice to select from both of the above. The manufactured parts of the car body were assembled at many of its plants in Germany, Austria, Russia, South Africa, China, etc. The predecessor E 36 had a cornered chassis. This chassis was modified in E 46 and made it more efficient by making it more streamline to minimize the friction. The major change in the E 46 was the reduction in weight and therefore making the engine to run the vehicle much faster with the same power. For reducing the weight and maintaining the strength of the car, aluminium was used as the material of construction for the exterior of the car.
The cars could run on both petrol and diesel. In the petrol cars, the acceleration was very high. A speed of 100 kilometers per hour was attained in less than five seconds. In diesel cars, 100 kilometers per hour could be reached in about 10 seconds. Between the years 1998 and 2003 few model were released with slight modifications in each. In 1999, model named 316 was released. It had a very basic engine with very low output of all the in E 46. It had 1.9L engine and had four cylinders. It produced a torque of 175 Newton meter. The model 318 introduced in 1998 but had a change in 2001. It produced torque and power more than the 1998 version.
Any BMW car is known for its luxury features and offers amazing radio dash kit. The older versions of the car have radio with 17 pin harness wire. This is used to connect the head unit to the auxiliary unit. This also enables the customer to use ipod and mp3 player. It also comes with facia kits to make the apertures suitable for using any stereo set. There are adaptors that are available to make non DIN sized openings to standard DIN size. This is all you need to change the OEM radio to a modern aftermarket MP3 player.