Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure on the 2004 BMW M3
Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When control arm, ball joint or bushing failure gets reported
There are 5 reports of control arm, ball joint or bushing failure on the 2004 BMW M3, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 108,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 111,500 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Putting it right typically runs $400–$2,200 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 4 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2003, at a median of 95,000 miles, and latest on the 2001 at 130,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 8; the 2004 has 5. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Had my car inspected by a mechanic and he noticed a tear in the subframe near the rear drivers side. Tunes out this is a known problem for e46 bmws. Bmw will only cover 50% of the repairs and has admitted that this is a defect in their design. It's now a safety issue as the car is out of alignment and the floor has dropped, rubbing on the rear axle. *tr
Had my car inspected by a mechanic and he noticed a tear in the subframe near the rear drivers side. Tunes out this is a known problem for e46 bmws. Bmw will only cover 50% of the repairs and has admitted that this is a defect in their design. It's now a safety issue as the car is out of alignment and the floor has dropped, rubbing on the rear axle. *tr
I inspected the trunk floorpan and noticed buckling, cracking of the trunk floor and welded seams coming apart. The rear subframe mounts were cracked on both sides. The rear subframe is ripping itself out of the car and I'm very lucky I found this while the car was at rest and not driving at speed. Bmw knows this is faulty engineering but somehow their lawyers fangled a way to only cover the repairs for the e46 cars for 1 year (2010), everyone else is screwed. These cars should be outlawed, or at least a giant sign should have to be placed in the windshield explaining this problem to potential buyers and they should be forced to sign a waiver if they are dumb enough to buy it anyways. I bought the car 2 months ago under the impression m3s had re-enforcement in this area above and beyond the regular e46, I was wrong to the tune of 3500.00 repair bill (and I got off light). What a mess, that little baby chassis can't even handle 333hp without ripping itself apart. My buick gn makes 550hp and the frame holds together just fine. *tr
Also reported on the 2004 BMW M3
Other visibility problem
Other powertrain problem
Airbag inflator rupture
Other engine problem
Other wheel or tire problem
Engine knock or bearing noise
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 5 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 5 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does control arm, ball joint or bushing failure happen on the 2004 BMW M3?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 110,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is control arm, ball joint or bushing failure on the 2004 BMW M3?
5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed