Questions on the 135i

[Luminati]

Hi gents. Quick background on my current setup. Car is a 6L V8 chevrolet lumina. Let me start at the beginning. I bought the lumina about 3 years ago, and had minimal issues with the car, only gripes atm are suspension bushing and there is no way to put a aftermarket headunit without shelving out about 20k.

No why do i think about selling it you might ask, well, since 2013 they dont get imported anymore. Parts have to be imported so its very pricey. And service from GM is the worst ive seen so far.

Now, here comes the reason i joined the forum.
I am looking at buying a 135i, apparently is easy to get good performance figures out since it FI.

Like the look of the car and well its up to date if it makes sense. My concerns are how good is the build quality on the 135, which year model to look at, hpw much do i need to look at spending to make sure i dont run into problems later.

I am not looking at buying new, since im a modified grease monkey i prefer to do the work myself, so id rather save on the buy price and make sure i fix all the hick ups, it will net be my daily drive, more like my toy but id still want to be able to do 3k km trips at a time.

So please of any of you can chime in id appreciate it and sorry for the long post.

 

[KrS24]

Welcome. There are tons of threads highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the 135i. You should get a good idea by paging through the x35 section. The 135i comes in two flavours. N54: twin turbo. N55 single turbo (facelift). The n54 is the stronger of the two but comes with a few common issues. Some of them are pricey to attend too. When it come build quality expect the typical BMW quality. Although I have never been a fan of the e series 1er interior. Have you considered a 335i. Specifically the coupe. The build quality is much better than the 1 series imo. You should be able to extract 400whp for stock turbos on an n54 and a little less on a n55 (with supporting mods) These are JHB figures on a reputable dyno. The coastal figures are +-10% greater. My suggestion is, if you ever get the car, you look at reliability mods first, like an oil catch can, PCV valve, sport oil cooler valve and a good carbon clean. Power will be extracted so much easier from a healthy car. Good luck hunting. There are a few cars for sale in the classifieds section. You should check them out.


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