This is a very complete and comprehensive servicemanual for anyone who doesn't really know much about the technology underneath the hood (or anywhere else in the car for that matter). If you know what exactly is wrong with your car, bets are this manual will help you fix it.

I own multiple BMWs so I own multiple Bentley manuals to cover them. The updated E46 3 series manual is my most recent acquisition since my newest BMW is a 2004 330xi. The Bentley manuals cover more detail than most of their competitors, have good clear pictures, note the variations from year to year in the production run, and are well produced on good paper stock (or on CD media in some cases). If you maintain your own car and want to be able to do more than the most basic things, this is a must have. Even if you just want to understand how things fit together, it's a good resource.

I recently bought this book as a reference guide for my 2000 BMW 328Ci. In the past few years I have migrated toward maintaining my own car rather than paying high fees for work of varying quality at the dealership.

I have benefited greatly by using the internet as a reference for DIY projects such as oil changes, brake pad replacement, and brake bleeding etc. In my opinion this manual is excellent for providing additional procedural detail, pictures, guides and practices that are not available elsewhere.

I also have a service manual for my Honda Pilot. Of the two, I feel the BMW Service Manual is better written.

I was looking for a more descriptive book on my '03 330i. Although it is very thorough, it appears to try to appeal to many users of many vehicle types in the 3 series family. I expected a bit more user friendly steps. You really need to know what you're into here. My opinion, if you need this book, you probably need professional car repair help.

Excellent book. I ordered this book because there is no equivalent book for my Z-4. This book covers the same engine, which is what I needed.

Bentley publishes the best service manuals for the DIYer. This book is essential if you want to save time and money - and do the job correctly.

Must have for all E30 owners. Easy to read and understand. Don't start DIY until you have this book! It is as simple as that.

AFTER OWNING COUNTLESS AUTOMOBILES AND PURCHASING REPAIR MANUALS THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST I HAVE EVER OWNED. GREAT PICTURES, GREAT INSTRUCTIONS, EVERYTHING NEEDED IS THERE. IF THEY MAKE THIS BOOK FOR YOUR CAR ITS THE ONLY ONE TO PURCHASE. BETTER THAN THE MANUFACTURES REPAIR MANUAL

if you want to work on your bimmer. this is a must have. don't waste money on other manuals coz I have tried them, they all sux.

I've used Bentley Publishing service manuals since owning my VW Beetle in the 70s. The BMW E30 and E28 manuals have proven to be invaluable, and I can only imagine that the higher complexity of the new-to-me E46 car will lead to me spending many time- & cost-saving sessions pouring over this manual.

Very informative with illustrations and pictures. Excellent helpful hints. Highly recommended. This manual really makes me appreciate the exceptional quality of engineering of the BMW 3-series. Another checked flag for Bentley Publishers.

The book you need to work on your car yourself. Slightly better price than the online BMW parts stores.

Excellent book!!, Extremely useful to deal with all the BMW E-30 models. Well written, explained with graphics.

This service manual is the one to get for BMW guys. It's very easy to use.

For the novice do-it-yourselfer, this book provides a tremendous amount of material. But I wish there were more photos (step-by-step) and diagrams (sometimes the photos are so close up it's hard to tell where you really are).

I used this manual to repair a car I bought that was not running. After reading it, I quickly found my problem and had it running in less than an hour. The manual is very informative and accurate,easy to understand and is worth every penny it cost !

The manual was recommended by other BMW E-30 owners and so far it has been pretty helpful. Without it I would not have been able to troubleshoot and find out the problem with the windows of my car. The pictures are black and white and could use many more to show the steps to follow. The electrical diagrams are good. I recommend you buy it if you are going to start working on your car but don't expect lots of pictures.

This is a very thorough book with a very useful troubleshooting section. It has plenty of detail though because it appears to be BMW backed it refers to the use of BMW special tools and doesn't give many alternatives

There is no way anyone should buy that thing for that much! You can go anywhere else and find it for cheaper by almost two hundred dollars! This is just crazy!!!!!!!!!

I had a similar experience to another reviewer in that after a few days owning the manual, the binding started coming apart and a few pages are now trying to escape.
I used the book so gently that I believe I'd rather just get a refund than an exchange - because I'm afraid the same thing will just happen again.

As for the contents of the manual, I'm giving it 4 stars because it seems like a decent manual. It has good pictures. Granted, sometimes you need to stare at them for a while and then stare at your car to figure out exactly which angle they took the picture from. The instructions are concise but I was able to follow pretty well.
I'm not a seasoned mechanic. I want a manual to tell me what to do, what order to do it, and generally which screws to undo for each step. This manual did that pretty good.

Here's what I used the manual for in my short time:
-I replaced my belts
-I openned up the blower motor for the HVAC system
(unnecessarily since it wasn't the problem)
-I replaced the blower motor resister pack, also called
the final stage unit which is in behind and left of
the glove box.

There seem to be a lot of reviews which gripe about various problems with this manual, however, they all fail to suggest anything better. That's because there isn't a better printed manual. BMW has not offered printed shop manuals to customers since the era of the 2002 (the car, not the year) and while some bootleg electronic documentation (TIS/ETK) is available there are times when a printed manual is the best choice. The Bentley manual is head and shoulders above the others available.

If you work on BMWs you want the Bentley manuals. There's plenty of stuff they don't cover, but for the most the TIS doesn't cover that stuff either, like how to rebuild differentials. For electrical troubleshooting you can use the ETK.

Filled with useful info and contains detailed descriptions needed for repairs. Great book. A

Great little bible for classic Bimmer owners to have. Very informative on how to take things apart, put back together and trouble shooting.
Also some very helpful hints on routine maintenance. Found some things out that we never would of without this book.
Much better then the "generic" books they sell in the auto part stores.

Excellent and informative to reduce the cost of ongoing service and maintenance of this classic car.

This book is the bomb.
Some people gave it low marks for the electrical section, but overall I find the book a great resource.

I found the information contained in the book to be of great help and most useful; however, having said that, the quality of the book (how it is put together) is in need of great improvement.

I've had the book less than one month and within the first two weeks, the binding started to come apart so pages started to come out; I will be contacting amazon.com to request an exchange and hopefully, they'll stand behind their product.

I have actually used the manual only once so far but have taken the time to leaf through it briefly. I find it well organized, with easy to locate sections, easy to follow descriptions and clear illustrations.

great book, good picture and refrences. dos'nt have the m40 motor in it which is a shame. a must buy for the e30 enthusient owner.

I will leave the more in-depth reviews to the readers with more engineering know-how; but I took delivery of this book from Amazon the other day, and as a first-timer to a BMW Bentley manual I'm quite impressed. At over 1400 pages there's no doubting that it's quite comprehensive and detailed. But for anyone who owns an E46 and has gone a step further to become an enthusiast, you will know how complicated these cars are; so it would appear impossible to cover absolutely everything for the E46, what with so many different body variations, engine options and equipment levels, not to mention different markets. Bear in mind that with the international context of use for this book, some details and specifics will be absent.

The pictures included are reasonably well detailed and are of high quality and of a decent size. Explanations are quite clear. A batch of wiring diagrams are appended to the end of the manual, which contributes substantially to its size. As those familiar with Bentley manuals will know, the manual is fully indexed and segmented into the main car components (e.g. engine; body), with each sub-component (e.g. changing the transmission; removing headlights) quite well-defined, including an overview of what special tools are required for the job.

I think this book will come in very handy for my E46 ('99 model) and would recommend it to friends. It's a bit expensive (though in reality this won't bother most people with E46s) and also this version is quite new so it may not breach the second-hand market in any great quantity in the near future.

This book does not contain proper electrical wiring schematics like other automotive repair manuals do. I have found more useful diagrams posted by kind people on the Web. This book is too pricey to have such a deficiency. Does have other useful information (which should go without saying) however, such as on the fuel delivery system.

For the most part this was a good manual for the 325i, but there was a shortcoming that I had due to it missing information on 325iX driveline components. I thought it would have covered this info as there are quite a few 325iX cars around and many of the owners do their own work. The rest of the book was complete and close to what is printed in factory manuals.

i was a bit worried when i purchased this book, i thought i would pay all this money and regret it. now that i have the book and have been able to spend time with it i can honestly say this book has saved me a lot more money then i ever expected to save. its great, i can do soo much more now with my 330ci.. its just great.

This is a good book. Has good information on specifications, maintenance and mechanical work. However, the book has no information on working on the factory wiring for a a car stereo replacement process, which is probably a very popular thing to do on an older car. There was no wiring diagram or instructions on how to work it. It also had no information on pulling the on board computer.

Another area of disappointment was removing interior and exterior body pieces. Very minimal information.

Almost nothing specific to the convertible model 325ic.

The manual looks good until you actually have a need for information. The electrical diagrams are crude, inaccurate, improperly drawn, and actually very limited with almost nothing about the engine or fuel system (what you need the data for most).

Have a question about the steering rack? Want to rebuild one yourself? Want to see a parts break-down before tearing into it?? Forget it, there is little mention of the rack other than telling you to buy a new one from a BMW dealer. How much fluid does the power steering pump hold? No data. Want to see a photo of under-carriage parts? Forget it. Want to know which wires run to the fuel pumps? Forget it. Ignition switch data? Ha! Want to trouble-shoot your ignition or fuel injection? Forget it. Anyone who has ever spent much time at all servicing their own vehicles already knows more than what this book contains.

Over and over the book purposefully avoids giving information, totally skipping the topic entirely by stating things like "...we recommend that this be done by an authorized BMW dealer...". It is personally insulting that the author deems everyone who buys the book is not competent enough to service one's own vehicle. A service manual should be just that, a service manual, one that supplies technical information. This book fails to live up to that need. I now recommend avoiding the Bentley book. A Chilton should suffice as well and cost half the price.

I am a 25 years+ experienced electronics technician whose specialty is trouble-shooting everything from basic house wiring to the most complex computerized security access systems. This morning I wasted almost 3 hours tracing down a bad fuel pump relay, but could have found the problem in less than 5 minutes if the manual had given correct information. (In the afternoon it took me less than half an hour to trace down a faulty CPU chip connection on a circuit board I've never seen before, one that caused two separate main security system controllers to malfunction, and with my having no data whatsoever to go by. Obviously, I would have been better off not using the Bentley manual at all while working on my BMW.) If you cannot trust a manual's diagrams and writing, then it is of no value, actually a liability. I personally will from now on avoid anything from Bentley. Yea, I'm ticked at Bentley!

Since having recently bought my first BMW (318i), I bought the manual mostly to familiarize myself with the model. It is nicely done, with more photos than I've found in any other manual. It even has usable basic electrical diagrams!!

I've used various service manuals for over 30 years (for numerous brands, from Mustangs and Harleys to MGs and Triumphs). The Bentley BMW manual is without question the very best I've seen for under several hundred dollars. I feel it is well worth the cost.

If you are (or are considering becoming) a home mechanic whowants to work on your own car, this is the essential volume - farbetter than Chilton or Haynes because it's much more specialized. Ifyou'd rather pay a professional for a particular job (or foreverything needed on your car), this book will give you the knowledgeyou need to not get fleeced.

It's pretty good with the step-by-stepwalk throughs, though it depends a bit too much on cross-references toprocedures that are described elsewhere but seem to belong *here*,in-line with the rest of the work you're doing *today*.

One weaknessis lack of detail on changes through the model years. For example, itdescribes the power steering pump and coolant plumbing location on6-cyl cars from mid 88 on, but doesn't discuss the earlier locationthat permitted the PS pump drive pulley to saw through the lowerradiator hose...

Not as good as the excelent Bentleys 5 series and Fuel Injection manuals. I was disapointed to find that it does not cover the later M40 engines as fitted to E30 cars from 1989 onwards.

Still a valuable tool in the 3 series library

careful on using this or any books that talk about 1996 318i convertible.

most everything in this book does resemble 1996 318ic wiring, electrical distribution, locations.

the 1996 318ti more closely represents the 1996 318ic.

any info you get from any bmw web site, there is very little about 1996...a transistion year, especially for convertibles.

but the book is helpful, just check before you leap.

There are several things you just have to have in order to perform accurate diagnostic work and repairs on cars. This book is complete in its descriptions, photographs and procedures. Purchasing this manual has saved me hundreds of dollars in repair costs. The Bentley Publishing group has really done its homework on this one!

1.diagram of electric control box 2.picture of motor power-window

BMW 318i 1984,8

Has many illustrations and detailed information