What's the difference between facelift, and pre-facelift?

[bimmaman]

What's the difference between facelift, and pre-facelift?

Can someone show me an example of the differences? It's just I can't see anything that obvious...

[georob]

dont have a pic but i know facelift have diff lights front and rear, non chrome bumpers, think there is something about the rear side windows as well(could be wrong)

not sure what else tho

[Zayyan]

Too tired to list every difference but here's a starter:

Facelift have plastic bumpers, pre-facelift have chrome ones.
Facelift has bigger rear lights.
Facelift 6-pot engines have lower compression, usually meaning less power.
Facelift 4-pot engines are all M40s or M42s and are all injection, pre-facelift are either M10 carb or M10 injection (exception to this are the few 316 M10 carb facelift cars about, but there aren't many).
Facelift apparently don't rust as much.
Facelift rear arches are different.
Facelift have "smiley" headlights.

[scottybeemer]

front lower panel/fog lamps

[Rosc0PColtrane]

Just to throw a spanner in...

My cab (320i) has pre facelift rear lights, non chrome bumpers, smiley head lights and it's on a H plate. So which engine will it have?

[Zayyan]

It will almost definitely have the lower comp engine. Cabs had a late facelift, about the same time as when the E36 saloon came out IIRC.

Are you sure your bumpers aren't still chrome but painted?

[Rosc0PColtrane]

It will almost definitely have the lower comp engine. Cabs had a late facelift, about the same time as when the E36 saloon came out IIRC.

Are you sure your bumpers aren't still chrome but painted?

Yeah, I think so, certainly painted metal. Have seen a few face lift cabs about, few and far between. Was it simply a change of lights? I seem to recollect the back of the car looking completely different, was there a panel that the rear lights and number plate were mounted on? Or was the whole back to fthe car different?

[Zayyan]

Cab facelift was the same as the saloon facelift, it was just done later.

Like so:





The rear panel must have been changed to fit the bigger rear lights, if that's what you mean?

[Geeman]

Compare Zay's convertible to mine and you will see the differences between facelift (Zay's) and pre-facelift (Mine)

See it...? Chrome bumpers, different front lower panel which means different foglights, etc, different rear lights, no rear number plate surround...

[mrLEE30]

plus different rear wheel arch profile due to different rear seat bench, different front seat backs on the very early pre-face lift, and the face lift had a thicker zinc coating hence why they didn't rust as bad, plus all the others mentioned above. front grill was also slighty different.

tin tops went through facelift in sept 1987. cabs got the newer engine at this point but didn't get the body facelift until end 1990 - 1991, they did get the newer E32 style head lights (called smileys but not all smiled, only the Hellas i think, bosch had the projector light but didn't smile, see my pics)

face lift cab and preface lift sport side by side for comparison.. note the pre-face lift sport had the chrome bumpers but they were painted to match the body.

[bimmaman]

Thanks guys!

That helps a lot... I was only really asking, cos there seems to be a large gap under the front of my bonnet (you can see the tops of my eyebrows) and I thought maybe I had a different bonnet on it... I guess not:D