I figured I would make a project thread here to document the life of my 1990 325i Convertible. I will probably be editing this post over the coming weeks, however I felt it necessary to just get it started - so here we are. This is probably going to be in journal fashion - aka it may some boring information regarding my wants and desires, past, present, and future. :yawn:
A little background - I don't like convertibles. Always been a coupe fan. In my eyes, convertibles usually just look weird compared to their coupe twins due to the lack of the c pillar. It just seems to make the rear end look strange. My mother and father have 1977 and 76 alfa romeo spiders. So you would think it would be in my blood to enjoy verts. Yeah perhaps if I actually every saw them running in my youth
This was/is the general state of those alfas for the first 25 years of my life:
I've been daily driving my e46 325xi since 2011 when my parents were kind enough to gift it to me. Purchased from my moms anal boss who bought it back in 2001 and had it dealership maintained until 148k when she sold it to my mother @ $4k. An absurd amount of stuff had been replaced - for serious stealership prices, which is why she ended up selling it. I was provided all the records and good lord I can see why she had had enough! By 148k I think she had gone through 8 window regulators... after the warranty was up she was paying around 350-400 for each one
They had one stipulation: apart from the purchase price, everything after that was on me. At that point in time I didn't really know anything about cars. So after 6 years... let's just say I have learned quite a bit.
I quickly found out that I enjoy wrenching on cars very much. In fact I regret not getting into them earlier. It's always bugged me that I can only realistically work on my e46 on weekends as I need it to get to work come Monday. So last spring I decided to pick up an e30 in an effort to scratch that wrenching itch for real.
Fast-forward to the first 'affordable' e30 I found on craigslist. A 1987 325 red (idk what shade) automatic houndstooth interior e30 with 109k on the clock. Woo! BETTER BUY IT! So I picked it up without really knowing much about e30's other than I wanted it and this one seemed priced much lower than the 5-8k examples on craigslist. Here are my two red heads the day I purchased the e30:
Welllllll. turns out there was some really strange vibrations going on in 2nd gear which I somehow didn't feel when I bought it. I got around to cleaning the interior and documenting all the stuff that would need to be addressed. I found a massive gash in the floor pan under/behind the passenger seat which I still can't really see how it got there unless this car was ridden up onto a sharp rock or something. Perhaps that would explain the lack of a lip on the valance?? Look at this - it looks like it a can opener or something
At this point I was slightly regretting my purchase. I decided screw it, let's make the wrenching serious - and I settled on swapping an m5X + 5 speed in. I picked up various parts such as the e34 oil pan and so forth from this deceased BMW:
Around that time, a co worker came into work with an e30 325i convertible that was better than my e30 in just about every single way - 5-speed, sport leather interior, bav auto strut bar, not an eta, seat heaters, etc (although 219k miles). She had purchased it for her husband as a "weekend sports car to cruise around in." Whelp - she got it from "2-4-6k cars in PA." The dealer there said this was a one PO car. (turns out it was actually 8 lol - is that even legal to lie like that?) After buying it, she goes to get it emmissions tested and registered or what not and the mechanic informs her it won't pass unless they put in $5,000 dollars worth of parts and labor. She was not having any of that and was bitching about it all the time at work. Naturally I asked her all about it and saw the print out she got. It was all stuff that wasn't super serious, but required a lot of labor or was straight up blown out of proportion.
Here it is the first day she brought it into work. I obviously creeped and got photos and such:
Well. My lovely coworker was taken aback that a 26 year old car would need some work. She began negotiating with the dealer about selling it back to him. So......I had actually spend more moeny on my 325 than she had on this convertible. After the dealer was giving her the run around, I said I would buy it off her if I could sell my e30...... how did that turn out you say? I ended up with 2 e30s
I was feeling pretty good - strapped for cash - but pretty damn good:
A week later I got rid of the 325 coupe for a solid loss of 600 bucks. Whatever, I felt that was worth the upgrade to the 325i. Just so you have an idea of what e30's are going for in Baltimore around 2016 - I bought the 325 for $2600 (I know, I know) and sold it for $2000. Bought the 325i for $2,300. Sold the e34 m5x swap bits for $100 (pan + dipstick tube + oil pick up - purchased at 18 dollars) Also made some money back by finding 2 sets of style 5's at the junkyard and reselling those:
All in all, it was quite the learning experience, and I am very happy with my 325i I now have. Next post will get into the good stuff - parts and wrenching!
Here she is back at my house:
And one more of my cars after selling the coupe - I feel like I have the perfect combination of vehicles: A convertible and an all wheel drive BMW :)
A little background - I don't like convertibles. Always been a coupe fan. In my eyes, convertibles usually just look weird compared to their coupe twins due to the lack of the c pillar. It just seems to make the rear end look strange. My mother and father have 1977 and 76 alfa romeo spiders. So you would think it would be in my blood to enjoy verts. Yeah perhaps if I actually every saw them running in my youth
This was/is the general state of those alfas for the first 25 years of my life:I've been daily driving my e46 325xi since 2011 when my parents were kind enough to gift it to me. Purchased from my moms anal boss who bought it back in 2001 and had it dealership maintained until 148k when she sold it to my mother @ $4k. An absurd amount of stuff had been replaced - for serious stealership prices, which is why she ended up selling it. I was provided all the records and good lord I can see why she had had enough! By 148k I think she had gone through 8 window regulators... after the warranty was up she was paying around 350-400 for each one
They had one stipulation: apart from the purchase price, everything after that was on me. At that point in time I didn't really know anything about cars. So after 6 years... let's just say I have learned quite a bit.
I quickly found out that I enjoy wrenching on cars very much. In fact I regret not getting into them earlier. It's always bugged me that I can only realistically work on my e46 on weekends as I need it to get to work come Monday. So last spring I decided to pick up an e30 in an effort to scratch that wrenching itch for real.
Fast-forward to the first 'affordable' e30 I found on craigslist. A 1987 325 red (idk what shade) automatic houndstooth interior e30 with 109k on the clock. Woo! BETTER BUY IT! So I picked it up without really knowing much about e30's other than I wanted it and this one seemed priced much lower than the 5-8k examples on craigslist. Here are my two red heads the day I purchased the e30:
Welllllll. turns out there was some really strange vibrations going on in 2nd gear which I somehow didn't feel when I bought it. I got around to cleaning the interior and documenting all the stuff that would need to be addressed. I found a massive gash in the floor pan under/behind the passenger seat which I still can't really see how it got there unless this car was ridden up onto a sharp rock or something. Perhaps that would explain the lack of a lip on the valance?? Look at this - it looks like it a can opener or something
At this point I was slightly regretting my purchase. I decided screw it, let's make the wrenching serious - and I settled on swapping an m5X + 5 speed in. I picked up various parts such as the e34 oil pan and so forth from this deceased BMW:
Around that time, a co worker came into work with an e30 325i convertible that was better than my e30 in just about every single way - 5-speed, sport leather interior, bav auto strut bar, not an eta, seat heaters, etc (although 219k miles). She had purchased it for her husband as a "weekend sports car to cruise around in." Whelp - she got it from "2-4-6k cars in PA." The dealer there said this was a one PO car. (turns out it was actually 8 lol - is that even legal to lie like that?) After buying it, she goes to get it emmissions tested and registered or what not and the mechanic informs her it won't pass unless they put in $5,000 dollars worth of parts and labor. She was not having any of that and was bitching about it all the time at work. Naturally I asked her all about it and saw the print out she got. It was all stuff that wasn't super serious, but required a lot of labor or was straight up blown out of proportion.
Here it is the first day she brought it into work. I obviously creeped and got photos and such:
Well. My lovely coworker was taken aback that a 26 year old car would need some work. She began negotiating with the dealer about selling it back to him. So......I had actually spend more moeny on my 325 than she had on this convertible. After the dealer was giving her the run around, I said I would buy it off her if I could sell my e30...... how did that turn out you say? I ended up with 2 e30s
I was feeling pretty good - strapped for cash - but pretty damn good:
A week later I got rid of the 325 coupe for a solid loss of 600 bucks. Whatever, I felt that was worth the upgrade to the 325i. Just so you have an idea of what e30's are going for in Baltimore around 2016 - I bought the 325 for $2600 (I know, I know) and sold it for $2000. Bought the 325i for $2,300. Sold the e34 m5x swap bits for $100 (pan + dipstick tube + oil pick up - purchased at 18 dollars) Also made some money back by finding 2 sets of style 5's at the junkyard and reselling those:
All in all, it was quite the learning experience, and I am very happy with my 325i I now have. Next post will get into the good stuff - parts and wrenching!
Here she is back at my house:
And one more of my cars after selling the coupe - I feel like I have the perfect combination of vehicles: A convertible and an all wheel drive BMW :)
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