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Ownership Verified: Mein Freude am Fahren (E36 328i Touring)

Managed to get the price down to 1500, no service, no warranty, no MOT. Picked it up yesterday and drove it to the parents' garage to have it checked out and MOT'd. The car is in quite good shape for a 16-yo car that has done 300000km.
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don't know if it was a smart upgrade. Do you got any history with the car ? haven't been realy any services done ?, because with that kind of high Odometer Wear an Tear on most of the parts are @ their last legs. And BMW Parts are mahussive f*cktone expensive.

Good choice through for the touring with a family it is a very sensible choice. Hope it will you serve long enough :D
 
The car had been serviced not too long ago, and it has been properly maintained by the previous owner, who sold it mainly because he wanted something less expensive to insure (young dude with not much driving experience, straight six BMWs are raep). I intend to do most fixes myself, I have access to a fully equipped garage with helpful people working there, and know where to get cheap parts. Combined with not driving it much, I think I can manage.
 
That sounds more like a good deal ;) :cool:
 
i don't get why people say bmw parts are more expensive.... in my experience they are not anymore expensive the most other brands.. >.< depends on where you buy them
 
Smurfen said:
i don't get why people say bmw parts are more expensive.... in my experience they are not anymore expensive the most other brands.. >.< depends on where you buy them
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having been with VW cars for almost 10 years, I'm actually surprised at how some BMW parts are a bit cheaper. it's definitely comparable with other European cars though. It's the people who are used to cheap American and Japanese cars that think European parts are expensive.
 
Smurfen said:
i don't get why people say bmw parts are more expensive.... in my experience they are not anymore expensive the most other brands.. >.< depends on where you buy them
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True, I get my bits from these:

GSF Auto Parts


"German, Swedish & French Auto Parts", my local branch have very good technical guys and discount on genuine BMW parts plus cheap pattern parts.
There ar lots and lots of branches all over England.

Adu, they do "export" as well, if you get stuck for something. :D
 
rootrider said:
having been with VW cars for almost 10 years, I'm actually surprised at how some BMW parts are a bit cheaper. it's definitely comparable with other European cars though. It's the people who are used to cheap American and Japanese cars that think European parts are expensive.
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Japanese cars aren't cheap unless you buy the bog standard basic editions.
 
loose_unit said:
Japanese cars aren't cheap unless you buy the bog standard basic editions.
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not sure what you mean by "bog standard base editions" (I know what you mean, literally, but I have no context with which to understand what you mean).. the US market is so different from what you get in Europe there's no real way to compare. In general.. Japanese parts are cheaper than German parts here.
 
In the US japanese cars probably don't even have an options list. Everything is standard. You just get to choose the color.
 
Also, it has to do with commonality. If I were to get, say, a Nissan 300ZX, parts prices would be raep, because most would have to be imported from Japan for me. Whereas if I were to drive just another ecobox, all parts would be sitting on a shelf and be pretty cheap.

Besides, I've driven a Benz for 5 years, I'm used to what, according to other people, are "expensive" parts. And I LOL every time I find out my "expensive" M-B parts are cheaper than their "cheap" cars' parts.
 
rootrider said:
having been with VW cars for almost 10 years, I'm actually surprised at how some BMW parts are a bit cheaper. it's definitely comparable with other European cars though. It's the people who are used to cheap American and Japanese cars that think European parts are expensive.
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+1. Having owned several BMW's and having worked with VAG cars for many years I agree that BMW parts are not that expensive and often even cheaper. Sure, some of the M-specific parts are expensive, but so are Phaeton/Touareg-parts too.
 
I just found out something awesome, that the selling dealer completely missed. When going through the stuff in the glove compartment, I noticed an envelope and opened it. Inside was a bill from 2007, for a new engine. So at odo 188300, the car got a new engine that had done 49219km at the time. This means the engine has done little over half the mileage the car has. I haz a happy.
 
Adunaphel said:
I just found out something awesome, that the selling dealer completely missed. When going through the stuff in the glove compartment, I noticed an envelope and opened it. Inside was a bill from 2007, for a new engine. So at odo 188300, the car got a new engine that had done 49219km at the time. This means the engine has done little over half the mileage the car has. I haz a happy.
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ooh.. nice :D
 
This is quickly turning out to be one of the best car deals one can make. :D
 
What I failed to mention in the first post, was that the rear brake hardlines looked a bit sorry, and was going to check them out. Today I did just that, so I started attacking them with a steel wire brush and prodding them in various places, to find out that they were indeed in a very sorry state. So I spent the rest of the day replacing them. Sadly, this was much easier said than done. For one, because of the way they are routed, I needed to remove the cats, heatshield, front subframe brace, drop the propshaft, drop the fuel tank, and various other bits. Only to find out the nipples on the wheel ends of both lines were so rusted, that we ended up cutting the pipes off, removing the rest of the flexline assembly from the car, put the end of the nipple in a vice and rotate the rest with a large pair of pliers. After that everything was mostly smooth sailing, putting the new copper lines on the car, hooking everything up again, bleeding it, and putting the car back together. Oh, and in the mean time I also swapped the front sway bar endlinks. All in all a (less) productive day (than I'd hoped). And the car is much better once more.
 
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