New e30 purchase - ***Can import from any country***

[ncsubowen]

Hi,

What do you guys make of this? I am very interested, obviously will be having it swapped to a manual before importing, factoring between $1,000 - $1,500 for this swap. Amazingly low miles eh? $8 - $9k seems a pretty fair price.

http://providence.craigslist.org/cto/4409309759.html

https://www.bmwcca.org/ads/1986-bmw-325es-11000-original-miles-0

All thoughts and opinions welcome. Thank you.

Do not buy that one. The owner bought it for $3.5k a few months ago and though it is low mileage, there are several known issues and the guy is a doucher.

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=319877&highlight=1986+325es

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=304611&highlight=11%2C000

The guy has been hawking it for a while now trying to get someone to buy, but there's a good reason no one is biting. I'd look for a better car elsewhere. Notice how he abjectly refuses to post any sort of pictures of the engine.

[ncsubowen]

I'm obviously partial to delphin, but this is super clean and has a lot already done. You could probably get the seats reupholstered and still be within your range.

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=323753

Unsure of mileage though.

[Razor2014]

Wow, thanks for the heads up, greatly appreciated. Sucks that people try to take advantage of other people out there, guess 'buyer beware' is always the motto to live by.

[ncsubowen]

No problem, in my opinion looking for low mileage might not be the best way to look at this.

Think about it; all of these cars are 20+ years old, regardless of the mileage the rubber bits are going to be worn out and if it's been sitting for a decade chances are there's going to be other things wrong with it. I believe you're better suited looking for the forum cars that are available for sale and finding one with a detailed build thread and a forthcoming seller. Chances are you'll wind up with a car that's been refreshed all over, and you'll save yourself the investment that comes with buying one that hasn't been updated in a while.

You'll never get your money back, so better to take advantage of someone else's hard work than to go throwing cash at it after the fact, especially considering the fact that likely it'll cost you an arm and a leg to get parts to you if they're not already attached.

[Razor2014]

Very good advice, thank you again. I guess something with higher miles that has had a proper engine rebuild and possibly other key mechanical parts replaced like AC etc. may be a good option.

Something along these lines, wow!

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=306297

[ncsubowen]

Very good advice, thank you again. I guess something with higher miles that has had a proper engine rebuild and possibly other key mechanical parts replaced like AC etc. may be a good option.

Something along these lines, wow!

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=306297

Exactly. You can tell that whoever owned that car loves it to death and did a lot to take care of it. I would absolutely go for something like that over a lower mileage example, like the ES that you had located previously. Not to mention you can go back beyond the For Sale ad and see the work that the owner did to ensure that it is up to your standards. Many of these people will take very thorough pictures showing any repairs/upgrades made, both to help other owners and to catalog the work they've done.

[ncsubowen]

Any luck?

[Razor2014]

Any luck?

Not yet. Still looking throughout the day. Still find myself looking at UK and Europe options too but obviously much prefer stateside.

One thing that is concerning me is that currently there seems to be a bit of a e30 surge. I am wondering if I wait 6 - 12 months will I pay basically 50% of what I would pay now for the same car based on the 'bubble'. I can see, rare M's and Is, etc. continuing up, but wonder if the relatively standard e30's will continue to rise.

[ncsubowen]

Not yet. Still looking throughout the day. Still find myself looking at UK and Europe options too but obviously much prefer stateside.

One thing that is concerning me is that currently there seems to be a bit of a e30 surge. I am wondering if I wait 6 - 12 months will I pay basically 50% of what I would pay now for the same car based on the 'bubble'. I can see, rare M's and Is, etc. continuing up, but wonder if the relatively standard e30's will continue to rise.

There's definitely a lot of talk about the bubble right now, there's definitely some truth to it. The question is whether or not that will go down. Right now with M3's pricing the way they are it's pulling the rest of the market with it. The debate is whether or not that will go down any time soon, as fewer and fewer decent examples are available.

I'm not really sure where I stand. I've been able to find a good number of decent cars for under $2k, but I'm also able to do work myself and have been buying primarily automatics, which have much lower demand.

[Razor2014]

There's definitely a lot of talk about the bubble right now, there's definitely some truth to it. The question is whether or not that will go down. Right now with M3's pricing the way they are it's pulling the rest of the market with it. The debate is whether or not that will go down any time soon, as fewer and fewer decent examples are available.

I'm not really sure where I stand. I've been able to find a good number of decent cars for under $2k, but I'm also able to do work myself and have been buying primarily automatics, which have much lower demand.

Thank you for your reply.

Yea, it is a bit tricky. Who knows in 6 - 12 months they could be 10 - 30% more expensive, just don't know really.

I would love to buy a $2 - 4k car and perform lots of the work myself; however, a big part of the issue is getting a hold of parts. We are talking $60 - $75 FedEx charges even if it was a small washer + 60% duty on car parts (which is also applied to the freight). Using mail outside of a courier is not an option. So no matter what the planning, performing any sort of maintenance and realizing you need a small cheap part to complete could cost $100's of dollars to bring in that one, small, cheap part. This is why I want a car that is as close to sorted as possible and if it needs to have a transmission swap from automatic to manual that must be completed before. Any leaks need to be sorted before, can't do a rear main seal here, could be crazy expensive. A/C, can you imagine sending all the parts for that conversion / repair and paying 60%+ duty and then trying to find someone on the island that knows e30's enough to properly complete the r134 change etc.....very tough. These things need to be sorted, hence why I have conceded to spending $8 - $12k upfront for a near perfect example that if any repair pops up (as it will on a 25 year old car) it is hopefully a small repair that I can knock out myself with no major parts that I will have to spend 60% duty on.

Whole thing is a bit nuts on my part anyway. Here is the math:

$10k car purchased in the USA.
+$1.5k shipping to my island
+75% duty (65% under $10k value, 75% above $10k, 85% above $20k - car import duty rates are not cheap in the Caribbean)

= $17,500 for the car, probably $18 - $18.5k by the time it's on the road here.

Need a pretty well sorted car before I drop this type of cash on an e30, no matter how much I like um :- )

[CMG]

What island do you live on? Most have small mostly crappy roads and all cars eventually get beaten up. Unless your island happens to have a racetrack it might be better to just stick with an island car. You could go thru five of them for the price of one import. Not to mention getting euro parts where you live.