I have a 2004 BMW E46 M3 that has a whopping 0000053 original miles on the Odo right now. I purchased this car a little over a month ago. I know most of you won’t believe this and think the car had a new guage cluster installed but its legit. Everyone at our local bmw dealership knows this car and is very suprised the original owner even sold the car. I’m still deciding if I should start putting miles on it after I get all of the fluids changed. I know I will need new tires since they are the original tires from 14 years ago. Luckily they were stored in a room out of sunlight and under a towel while the owner had HRE wheels on the car. Hope I can get some advice here and get pointed in the right direction. I also would be willing to sell it for the right price.
Nice find! If preservation of it as a automotive time-capsule of sorts isn't the highest priority compared to capitalizing on it & making the most from the fact that it is essentially untouched, then rather than drive it I guess I'd say put it on Bring-A-Trailer to get the most you can for it, or whatever auction might be the best exposure. Since there are vastly more E46 M3's that can be had for driving duty without essentially robbing history (it will only ever be this new once), you could put the cash from a sale to find an acceptably clean one to drive for presumably a lot less that you'd then have extra for needed maintenance or repairs, and depending on whatever you got for it and whatever expensed on another, who knows, maybe even have some to pocket the difference. The other field of thought would be forget all that and do what you want with it regardless, it is your property after all to do with as you please. Me, I'd probably pass it along to a collector who'd continue to maintain it as-is, due to the rarity of it having been essentially unused since new - &, I don't have much interest is just ooo-ing & ahh-ing over even a perfectly pristine example that I'd have doing nothing but taking up space, I'd be wanting to drive it. That brings up the odd reality that a collector interested in the near-perfect garage queen might unusually place a higher value on the original tires even though the reality is the car should never be driven on them. If you didn't get the other HRE wheels & were opting to sell the car, I'd guess it would be advisable to follow the same route - offer the originals with the car, but have the car on some other rims with usable tires.
I'm in the other camp. I would change the fluids, buy new rubber and drive it! What was your intention when you bought it? Has that changed?
