People who got dirt cheap E30s, how did you do it?

[flyboyx]

Almost every e30 I buy is under a grand. If you check through the threads i have started, you will see a few of them.

Let's see....


91 318i for 400 bucks. Needed a fuel pump and master cylinder.

87 e with beautiful blue paint and beautiful tan velour cloth sport interior. Wrecked lightly in the front. 400 bucks.

89 is with lots of little issues and an intake leak for 800 bucks.

91 318 cabrio wrecked lightly in the front for 900 bucks

Silver 89 auto with seized engine and beautiful paint for 560.00

91 silver ix manual coupe with transfer case issue, bad interior, and lots of little things needing fixed. 700 bucks. My son and I dove it all the way from charleston, sc. traded this car for the mtech 2 in my signature.

Silver 88 manual coupe bad transfer case and plenty of other issues including a bit of rust. 450.00

87 i sedan with seized water pump. 300 bucks. Traded it for an 88 ix manual coupe.

88 super eta sedan auto. 350.00. Trashed interior. Didn't run. Was severely monkey fucked by its previous owner. My son and I are still to this day in-fucking this car.

Probably several others I can't think of at 2 am. As you can see, the common theme is that they all needed a good bit of work. If you want a cheap e30 it will need a shitload of work too.

Most likely anything you find in your area will be a rust bucket. Do you have any relatives in the south that can look on craigslist for you?

[Shock(/\)ave]

My E36 M3 and E30 M3 were both luck bordering on divine intervention by the car gods, but some degree of luck definitely played a part with my other cars. I bought my E34 M5 off of a seller who had posted a feeler thread two years prior and decided to hold onto the car just to give you an example.

What you need to do is get into a routine of looking at least twice per day; that increases your odds of being lucky and finding the bargain before someone else does.

When a car pops up don't hesistate. Commit to buying it pending an inspection in person, offer them a deposit to be delivered in person, and if it's already cheap don't be cheap and lose the car to someone else who pays their already low asking price (or more). If the car isn't local and you want it you need to take greater risks, as most sellers are much more likely to sell the car to a local buyer to avoid risk and hassles on their end.

[Shock(/\)ave]

Now that I've had some time with one, if you're prepared to head south to pick up a car without rust issues an E28 would make a pretty good substitute for an E30, and they can still commonly be found quite cheaply (at least in the U.S.).

[Kershaw]

Luck.

You see the deals people are bragging about because they're crazy, what you aren't seeing is the 50+ sales of e30s for a normal price for each crazy deal.

[Rontgen]

Lots of luck and the willingness to spot a deal and quickly make it happen. Do your research, know what you're looking for, and be patient. Facebook classifieds is a great place to find non-enthusiasts who are too scared or too computer illiterate to use Craigslist.

There's also lots of rose-colored glass situations where people remember their $450 shitbox as being much nicer than it ever really was. Sad truth.

As someone above said - you get what you pay for. In most cases, you are better off with the $4000 car that needs very little vs. the $500 car that needs everything.

[UlrichFennec]

It's all luck.

When I got my vert, I had picked it up for $1000. Then there was all the registration and license plate junk and a couple immediate fixes I wanted to do, so more around 1500. The paint was dead on the rear quarter, there's a huge key scrape on the driver's side and the interior was shot, but the motor was serviced all the time at the dealer and I got maintenance records dating back to 92 when it rolled off the dealer lot.

Not like I could complain about cosmetics, though. I'm just happy it's a manual, has a top that isn't torn up, and has a functioning LSD. Although, there's the initial investment of fixing little things the PO may not have done, and in my case, it was a huge vacuum leak and a slew of oil leaks that had just started popping up months after I got it.

A cheap E30 can make or break you, but so can a normal priced one. Either way, you're gonna spend money fixing a lot of broken or aging junk, so it really doesn't matter. The youngest of these cars are reaching 25 years old.

[redsubdivisions]

stop looking on craigslist (not really), because you wont find the deals there unless you are lucky and quick.

your best bet is to find an old person who bought their E30 and doesnt drive it anymore.

QFT!

If you search the term "E30" on craigslist, chances are you won't find anything affordable. When someone calls it the internal design code, chances are they aren't asking a fair price at all. If you do hunt on CL, put in "BMW", "325i", or whatever is relevant. I have found that the only time "E30" is somewhat useful is for someone parting out one for a decent price.

The days of cheap E30's are gone, in my opinion. I sort of lucked out because the E30 I have was serviced at an indy shop where I worked at the time. This was also almost 7 years ago. Combine that with people crashing theirs or getting into minor accidents and their insurance companies totaling them out almost immediately, the prices will continue to rise until they become scarce and by then it will take a high amount of money for someone to sell theirs.

[flyboyx]

lol! here you go.

https://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/cto/6058126474.html

[flyboyx]

this one

https://waco.craigslist.org/cto/6027634043.html

[AwakenNoMore]

Got my car from a friend in the local RX-7 club back in December 2010 for $1,000. Prices weren't too bad back then and it used to be much more trashed, and automatic.

[cheffy30]

i've been putting a card on the windshield of a few here and there offering to buy for cash.
no luck yet but you never know...

[flyboyx]

QFT!

If you search the term "E30" on craigslist, chances are you won't find anything affordable. When someone calls it the internal design code, chances are they aren't asking a fair price at all. If you do hunt on CL, put in "BMW", "325i", or whatever is relevant. I have found that the only time "E30" is somewhat useful is for someone parting out one for a decent price.

The days of cheap E30's are gone, in my opinion. I sort of lucked out because the E30 I have was serviced at an indy shop where I worked at the time. This was also almost 7 years ago. Combine that with people crashing theirs or getting into minor accidents and their insurance companies totaling them out almost immediately, the prices will continue to rise until they become scarce and by then it will take a high amount of money for someone to sell theirs.

there is a lot of truth in what is posted above. the good news is that as priced rise, less and less of the remaining examples are monkey fucked by retarded 16 year olds. somehow this thread kind of makes me wonder what the op's intentions are......

[ZekeTheSneak]

2010 was the year. Alpine white foliage moss green. Kid didn't know what he had. I sent him a picture of it buffed out and he was like I fucked up lol. It's all dumb luck.

I have first dibs on my neighbors one owner e39 m5 and that's only because he's still in the piece of paper in the window phase of selling. It's all right place right time.

[FireFight]

I paid $400 for my 318i, it was a basket case, nothing electrically worked inside, the struts where so blown, if i hit a bump it was bouncing for blocks down the road hahah.
it ended up overheating because the radiator cap was broken.
but it was straight.
I drove it for awhile and fixed all the problems, sold it to a buddy for $1500, then he bought a different BMW from me so he gave me that car as partial trade.
my lady started drving it for a couple years, then blew up the m10.
tossed a m20 in it, she drove that for a couple more years then I got a hair up my ass to put a m50 in it, that's where I'm at now,
but that price was clearly years ago.

I check craigslist all the time for a cheap e30, but the market has changed, with the "VIP" thing getting popular, and every kid with a flat bill hat thinking he is a drifter, the cars get getting fewer and far between. and in return, supply and demand drives the cost up.
Watch auction sites like Copart, that's where you can still get good deals, just know there are fees, if you win a car for $70, its more like $240 to get it out of the lot

[MR E30 325is]

Definitely luck involved, and the ability/desire to put in a little elbow grease.

I still run across sub 1500 E30's on clist in my area.

Problem is, most are early 4 door autos that have an issue that keeps you from test driving them (i.e. fuel pump bad, blown hg, etc.)

So you have to take the risk of getting a junker. It's all a part of the game to me. The prices are trending upwards, but you can get lucky, if youre in the perfect situation.

They are definitely out there, but to quote Kershaw, you aren't hearing about the dozens of sales of 6-10k E30's that occur weekly. So don't get confused and think half of us are buying running clean E30's for 2k.