After finally overcoming my previous issues, i now appear to be loosing water
Can anyone in the know just confirm my suspicions please?

In the 1st picture you can see the pipe which has water leaking on it from the bit right above it with the pulley.
Is that bit the water pump?
I've put another picture which shows a wider view so you can get your bearings a little easier

 

Anyone?........ Ali

 

Ummm, Can't see.

All I know is the main water pump ain't located there, it's directly above the crank pulley and below the EGR cooler (stainless steel rectangular thing at the front).

The 5 series with the same engine has a auxiliary electric pump somewhere down there attached to the radiator, can't remember if the 3series has one (if it has a "rest" button on the climate control, it will).

Usual leaks from these are the thermostat housing and EGR cooler. But there are a lot of plastic couplings and elbows that are made from a Bakelite type of plastic that can go very brittle and doesn't seem to correlate with age/mileage, which makes me suspect that some non-BMW coolants could be to blame and are attacking the plastics over time...no proof though, just a suspicion.

 

It does have the rest button.
The water seems to be dripping from the item bolted to the block which is directly below the alternator but no bolted to the radiator.
I just assumed it would be the water pump. It does have pipes going into it so god knows what it is.
Although I have been saying it for a while now, the car will be going so the main thing is that it's a small drip and at least it ain't dripping internally

 

Have to guess, but location suggests oil cooler. (connected to cooling system)

 

Oil cooler is a modine attached to the oil filter housing. There is a gearbox cooler modine down there somewhere (automatics only), but again that's attached to the radiator.

 

Leak doesn't appear to be there today

Ali - its funny you should mention the stainless rectangle thing at the front of the engine. It seems to rattle like hell from a cold start. It sounds like a couple of screws in a baked bean can
It really needs to be gone