Advice for a Future E30 Owner

[davidayeee]

Sup R3v,

So after approximately a year of on and off searching/thinking about buying an E30 it seems like the day is coming real soon. I am very motivated to buy one now and have the money ready. ;D

The only question is I'm not sure wether I should go cheap and buy a beater to learn with, or to spend some more money on a clean & mechanically sound E30 that's DD ready.

What would your advice be for someone like me looking to purchase their first E30.

Thanks for the help! :D

[rzerob]

Spend more money for a clean and mechanically sound E30 if you have the money. It will save you in the long run, is my opinion. It will break down soon enough that you will have plenty of opportunities to work on and learn. Plus you can enjoy the car immediately.

Just because you are ready to buy one, doesn't mean you will find one immediately. It might take you a year to find the right one, or longer. Good luck on your search and post pics when you get one.

[itskingsteelo]

If I were you I would buy something that's ready to be a dd, I was in your shoes before I got my e30 and in my opinion if you're gonna buy a e30 might as well have it running good. One reason is because if you need it on the daily you shouldn't have to worry about leaks or minor fixes because after all you ARE going to be relying on it to get from point a to point b. Good luck buying your e30. Make sure you take a mechanic with you when you're checking out the car that way you know what you're gonna be dealing with. Don't forget to show us on R3v what you decided to purchase.

[davidayeee]

Thanks for the advice guys

[roguetoaster]

If it wont be your primary car off the bat don't worry too much about mechanical issues, as many E30 that are being sold need comprehensive overhauls. Instead buy the one with little/no rust and good paint. Not only will you feel better about the car, but it will be worth more if you go to sell it.

If you need a daily driver be prepared to pay a serious premium for a solid body and good running gear, or a fair price for a well maintained rust mobile that someone needs to sell for whatever reason.

Whatever you do, be patient, wait for the right car for you, otherwise you are just wasting money.

[McGyver]

If it wont be your primary car off the bat don't worry too much about mechanical issues, as many E30 that are being sold need comprehensive overhauls. Instead buy the one with little/no rust and good paint. Not only will you feel better about the car, but it will be worth more if you go to sell it.

This is the absolute truth. Unless you know how to do body work and paint, it is much more expensive to pay someone to paint a car for you than it is to learn to work on it yourself. All the mechanical stuff is easy if you take your time and read, but painting is a much more difficult skill to master.

[slammin.e28]

Don't ever, ever buy a touring.

[McGyver]

Don't ever, ever buy a touring.

Don't ever, ever have a kid. Kids are impractical and useless.

[whitebulat22]

I'm definitely echoing the advice of taking a patient search for the right one. I know when I was ready to buy I was searching every possible second to find the right one and figuring out everyday which kind of deal I was looking for.

DD > project buy will save money IMO, a lot of times project can mean replacing everything, which is either years of your labor or thousands of dollars worth of shop labor to get to a similar point as the already DD condition car.

I had a budget of 3k which made it impossible to find a mint one; first one I looked at listed at 3.5 was paperclipped together. People will bullshit you endlessly, but eventually I found one listed at 3k with broken odometer, estimated less than 150k miles with some busted seats that was otherwise a fine DD, I didn't care about unknown miles personally because it drove the price down so much and my Dad's babied 84 Merc recently went unknown at only 92k: it's still the most reliable thing I've ever been in.

I ended up looking at eta's and would do so again over 6 cylinder I's, I's are ridiculously more expensive from what I see and always driven hard, the eta I picked up for under 3k at 150 ish miles was left at it's stock ~5000 rpm redline and came with 185 mm tires, it would surprise the hell out of me if that was driven hard especially given the way it runs. It even came with the original owner's manual and toolkit in the back, not a big deal for the car but speaks a lot about it's owners.

I didn't get it perfect as a few surprise things went out finishing the trip home, but after about 5k price + shop work and occasional maintenance from here on out it feels like it'll run indefinitely.

[Stanley Rockafella]

Don't ever, ever have a kid. Kids are impractical and useless.

qft

[Farbin Kaiber]

Buy the best e30 you can for the money you have, when you have the funds for a second one, go cheap and make it worth your while from the lessons learned on the first one.

[McGyver]

Don't ever, ever have a kid. Kids are impractical and useless.

qft

Slam that Slammer!

[mkcman17]

Buy a clean body. Nothing is more disappointing than a great running rustbucket.

They're cheap and easy to work on, so make it yours and make it good.

[dannyyisntt]

+1 on buying a clean body. Everything else is a cake walk to fix

[e30austin]

Never take on someone else's project. I learned that one the hard way.