Skyrocketing E30 prices. Is it worth it anymore?

[TimKninja]

unfortunatly as people realize how great of a car they are the price goes up. There is also many going to the scrapper that could be saved.

I would classify my car as a rolling parts car. 281k on it, a good amount of rust (Getting patched now) and a wavy rear quarter panel. But I dont care. Its fun as hell to drive, it still looks ok, and im not gonna sell it anytime soon. and if I did, i wouldnt be asking an insane price for it.

Half these kids dont care if the floors are rotted out and it barely runs. as long as they can show up to car meets and take overly doctored pictures of them and post them all over the instagram and get internet famous.

[Julien]

dude, but was it stanced?

oh yeah, H&R super sports (may have had a cut coil up front too), unkown shocks and... multilug ICW wheels.


ebay fuh raze seats too

[MPLFoster]

I haven't been in the E30 market for years, but from what I see locally - about 75% of them are basically rolling parts cars at this point. Finding a good one and a decent price has got to be much more difficult. ...

Truth.

When i was in Anacortes, searching for an E30 in the valley and surrounding areas, i had to wade thru some over-priced shit before i found a gem. So many were barely running yet listed as "runs good, great DD!"... even went so far as Seattle to look at a heap...waste of time. The E30 tax kept the prices well above the true value of the car. It's too bad that some people are willing to pay such outlandish prices for junkers, thus keeping prices at a premium.

I got lucky and found my '90 325i in Anacortes for $750 and only a couple miles from my house at the time. The PO was just glad an enthusiast was interested and pretty much gave it to me. Some minor damage to the right rear QP, AC didn't work and sunroof cables had come off-track, but everything else was OK. A little over 180k miles and NO rust. Even had brand new khumo tires and a full size spare/full tool kit.

So there is hope. There are diamonds in the rough out there, just have to dig until one pops up.

[firstE30]

I will say that i got a cheap e30 and still think i overpaid. Asking $1900 for a 1991 318i with new transmission around 150,000 miles and some mechanical and cosmetic issues.
Wound up taking a four hour greyhound ride down there and left with an $1100 1991 318i with a new transmission, a torn shift boot, a cracked windshield, rust all along the rockers, rotted out trunk pockets, rusty coolant, thrashed interior, no AC, no heat, broken sunroof, non-idling, overheating, rich running crapcan with 1 toyota hubcap.

Still love it though :)

[ThatOneEuroE30]

haha saw a local 318is the other day.

- front fender lips pulled out via vis grips

- half the car had been painted and was peeling off

- death shake from wheel when braking from anything over 20 mph

- sunroof *sealed* with duct tape

- icv unplugged. I want to say the motor was also running open loop

- ETA cluster with inop temp gauge. had autozone temp gauge in place of 6 button obc (just kind of jammed in there)

- no heat (bi-passed)



was listed for $4500

I wouldn't pay 450 for that car okay maybe would but that would be max

[nando]

dude, but was it stanced?

[Julien]

I've come across a good amount of sellers that are honest people, but just aren't on the same wavelength when it comes to evaluating or describing a car.

For cars i've gone to see...

"Zero rust" has actually been:
-"I didn't see any rust on the car, but I didn't look on the underside"
-"Oh, well, there's that bit of rust, and just 5 or 6 other spots. But they're small. It's XX years old, what do you expect?"
-"I've never noticed any rust. But I didn't really look the car over too well."

"Perfect paint" has actually been:
-"It's in good shape for a XX year old car. But you have to expect that 24" key mark down to bare metal, and the color burned down to the primer on 10 or 12 places, by someone who didn't know how to use a buffer. It's not a new car anymore"
-"It has a fresh respray. It's all perfect, except the areas around every edge, where the paint is chipping off and bubbling due to underlying rust that wasn't fixed before the spray"
-"That huge dent in the door, preventing it from opening all the way? That's a problem? Oh, I didn't know you were looking for a show car"
-"Oh that? I closed the hood with a tool on the engine and it cracked the paint around the golf ball sized dent. I never got it fixed, so it spidered and rusted out in a 8" wide area. So, it's perfect except for needing a new hood. Those huge failed areas in the floor pan? Oh. I put jacks stands in the wrong place and it destroyed the metal. I never re-coated it, so it rusted out. So, it's perfect and rust free outside of needing a new hood, and having huge holes of rust in the floor pans"
-"Oh that? A car canopy fell on it and dented the roof, rear quarter, and front right fender. A body shop could fix that stuff easily. It's perfect outside of that"

"Runs Perfect" has actually been:
-"The blue smoke? I never noticed that before. That horrible whirring noise in the rear? No, that's not wheel bearings, I think the brakes are just dirty."
-"The excessive bottom end clattering noise coming from the engine? No, it's never been beat on...Just oil starved 4 or 5 times from when I cracked my oil pan and din't realize it until I got home, 5 separate times. Low is a lifestyle. Don't hate."


Anyways, good luck in your search. The right one will come along.

haha saw a local 318is the other day.
- front fender lips pulled out via vis grips
- half the car had been painted and was peeling off
- death shake from wheel when braking from anything over 20 mph
- sunroof *sealed* with duct tape
- icv unplugged. I want to say the motor was also running open loop
- ETA cluster with inop temp gauge. had autozone temp gauge in place of 6 button obc (just kind of jammed in there)
- no heat (bi-passed)

was listed for $4500

[5ickride]

I got lucky...northeast car, 70k miles, no rust (really, no rust), all original unmolested. I will never give her up! I paid a premium for it, I wont lie, but it was worth it given all these attributes.

[nando]

I haven't been in the E30 market for years, but from what I see locally - about 75% of them are basically rolling parts cars at this point. Finding a good one and a decent price has got to be much more difficult. My buddy just picked up an '89 ix, and honestly, it's a basket case. He needs to put about $5k into it to get it up to par.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Yea my car doesn't have an original panel I don't think. It won't for sure when I'm done with it.

[KIRIEIW]

All I'm going to say is I can't stress enough about looking for matching vins. I checked out 2 cars last year with different finder and hood numbers/ other had them all missing... Go with my flashlight down there to reveal frame damage and rust forming were the bends were (on both) one was $5,600 and the other $2,000 if I remember correctly. If it has all vins just check for rust and it'll be a good buy because you never find 25yr old cars with the same vin panels.

[Bearmw]

I once drove two hours to look at a car that the owner assured me had NO rust. When I got to his driveway I could clearly see holes from 10 feet away...and there was nothing I could do about it unfortunately. I once saw a car for sale of which the owner claimed a "rebuilt engine" which mostly involved a couple of spray cans of paint. Yeah people often lie about condition but all you can do is get as many pics and as much info in advance as possible. It sucks but is the nature of buying and selling anything. The deals of 5-10 years ago are less frequent (a lot of E30's have been junked in that span) so that just means you have to work harder to find a good deal.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

I've come across a good amount of sellers that are honest people, but just aren't on the same wavelength when it comes to evaluating or describing a car.

For cars i've gone to see...

"Zero rust" has actually been:
-"I didn't see any rust on the car, but I didn't look on the underside"
-"Oh, well, there's that bit of rust, and just 5 or 6 other spots. But they're small. It's XX years old, what do you expect?"
-"I've never noticed any rust. But I didn't really look the car over too well."

"Perfect paint" has actually been:
-"It's in good shape for a XX year old car. But you have to expect that 24" key mark down to bare metal, and the color burned down to the primer on 10 or 12 places, by someone who didn't know how to use a buffer. It's not a new car anymore"
-"It has a fresh respray. It's all perfect, except the areas around every edge, where the paint is chipping off and bubbling due to underlying rust that wasn't fixed before the spray"
-"That huge dent in the door, preventing it from opening all the way? That's a problem? Oh, I didn't know you were looking for a show car"
-"Oh that? I closed the hood with a tool on the engine and it cracked the paint around the golf ball sized dent. I never got it fixed, so it spidered and rusted out in a 8" wide area. So, it's perfect except for needing a new hood. Those huge failed areas in the floor pan? Oh. I put jacks stands in the wrong place and it destroyed the metal. I never re-coated it, so it rusted out. So, it's perfect and rust free outside of needing a new hood, and having huge holes of rust in the floor pans"
-"Oh that? A car canopy fell on it and dented the roof, rear quarter, and front right fender. A body shop could fix that stuff easily. It's perfect outside of that"

"Runs Perfect" has actually been:
-"The blue smoke? I never noticed that before. That horrible whirring noise in the rear? No, that's not wheel bearings, I think the brakes are just dirty."
-"The excessive bottom end clattering noise coming from the engine? No, it's never been beat on...Just oil starved 4 or 5 times from when I cracked my oil pan and din't realize it until I got home, 5 separate times. Low is a lifestyle. Don't hate."


Anyways, good luck in your search. The right one will come along.

So true. Especially the there's only two patches of rust on entire car but I didn't look at the bottom cause my x ray vision already told me there wasn't any rust.

[Benjamin_Button]

I've come across a good amount of sellers that are honest people, but just aren't on the same wavelength when it comes to evaluating or describing a car.

For cars i've gone to see...

"Zero rust" has actually been:
-"I didn't see any rust on the car, but I didn't look on the underside"
-"Oh, well, there's that bit of rust, and just 5 or 6 other spots. But they're small. It's XX years old, what do you expect?"
-"I've never noticed any rust. But I didn't really look the car over too well."

"Perfect paint" has actually been:
-"It's in good shape for a XX year old car. But you have to expect that 24" key mark down to bare metal, and the color burned down to the primer on 10 or 12 places, by someone who didn't know how to use a buffer. It's not a new car anymore"
-"It has a fresh respray. It's all perfect, except the areas around every edge, where the paint is chipping off and bubbling due to underlying rust that wasn't fixed before the spray"
-"That huge dent in the door, preventing it from opening all the way? That's a problem? Oh, I didn't know you were looking for a show car"
-"Oh that? I closed the hood with a tool on the engine and it cracked the paint around the golf ball sized dent. I never got it fixed, so it spidered and rusted out in a 8" wide area. So, it's perfect except for needing a new hood. Those huge failed areas in the floor pan? Oh. I put jacks stands in the wrong place and it destroyed the metal. I never re-coated it, so it rusted out. So, it's perfect and rust free outside of needing a new hood, and having huge holes of rust in the floor pans"
-"Oh that? A car canopy fell on it and dented the roof, rear quarter, and front right fender. A body shop could fix that stuff easily. It's perfect outside of that"

"Runs Perfect" has actually been:
-"The blue smoke? I never noticed that before. That horrible whirring noise in the rear? No, that's not wheel bearings, I think the brakes are just dirty."
-"The excessive bottom end clattering noise coming from the engine? No, it's never been beat on...Just oil starved 4 or 5 times from when I cracked my oil pan and din't realize it until I got home, 5 separate times. Low is a lifestyle. Don't hate."


Anyways, good luck in your search. The right one will come along.

LMFAO. SO TRUE.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[fiveightandten]

Can attest to what fiveightandten is saying. Been looking for a clean example of an e30 for a while. The owner of a particular e30 I found on Craig's blatantly lied to me claiming "absolutely no rust". Needless to say when I got there, the thing was coated with cancer. These days when sellers refuse to send me additional pics I don't even bother. Usually means they have something to hide.

I've come across a good amount of sellers that are honest people, but just aren't on the same wavelength when it comes to evaluating or describing a car.

For cars i've gone to see...

"Zero rust" has actually been:
-"I didn't see any rust on the car, but I didn't look on the underside"
-"Oh, well, there's that bit of rust, and just 5 or 6 other spots. But they're small. It's XX years old, what do you expect?"
-"I've never noticed any rust. But I didn't really look the car over too well."

"Perfect paint" has actually been:
-"It's in good shape for a XX year old car. But you have to expect that 24" key mark down to bare metal, and the color burned down to the primer on 10 or 12 places, by someone who didn't know how to use a buffer. It's not a new car anymore"
-"It has a fresh respray. It's all perfect, except the areas around every edge, where the paint is chipping off and bubbling due to underlying rust that wasn't fixed before the spray"
-"That huge dent in the door, preventing it from opening all the way? That's a problem? Oh, I didn't know you were looking for a show car"
-"Oh that? I closed the hood with a tool on the engine and it cracked the paint around the golf ball sized dent. I never got it fixed, so it spidered and rusted out in a 8" wide area. So, it's perfect except for needing a new hood. Those huge failed areas in the floor pan? Oh. I put jacks stands in the wrong place and it destroyed the metal. I never re-coated it, so it rusted out. So, it's perfect and rust free outside of needing a new hood, and having huge holes of rust in the floor pans"
-"Oh that? A car canopy fell on it and dented the roof, rear quarter, and front right fender. A body shop could fix that stuff easily. It's perfect outside of that"

"Runs Perfect" has actually been:
-"The blue smoke? I never noticed that before. That horrible whirring noise in the rear? No, that's not wheel bearings, I think the brakes are just dirty."
-"The excessive bottom end clattering noise coming from the engine? No, it's never been beat on...Just oil starved 4 or 5 times from when I cracked my oil pan and din't realize it until I got home, 5 separate times. Low is a lifestyle. Don't hate."


Anyways, good luck in your search. The right one will come along.