Advice for a Future E30 Owner

[Razor2014]

Thanks

[mkcman17]

85 323 5spd, white with blue sport seats, 3.46 lsd. It needs new front fenders to look pretty, but is in good running condition - going to do timing belt+the norm this weekend.

[Razor2014]

Absolutely, in fact I just bought a euro 323 yesterday for considerably less and drove it 240 miles home without any issues.

Can you provide some pics and details please. Thanks.

[mkcman17]

Absolutely, in fact I just bought a euro 323 yesterday for considerably less and drove it 240 miles home without any issues.

[davidayeee]

So I have a budget of around 4k. I could go somewhat higher if is the right car but I was really looking to keep it at 4k. The market is crazy right now with some people over pricing their cars so much.

Do you guys think this is a reasonable asking price for a decent DD?

Thanks again for all the help guys!

[mkcman17]

Replacement m20 = $3-400

Rust = I get stressed just thinking about it

[Razor2014]

Interesting.....having to replace / rebuild an engine, re-wire electrical, get an AC working, etc. would scare me more than rust, but I concede that you guys are much more knowledgeable on these cars than me.

[BenDem]

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

I hope this is right, 'cause it's what I did.

[e30austin]

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

[dannyyisntt]

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

[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.

[McGyver]

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

qft

Slam that Slammer!

[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.

[Stanley Rockafella]

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

qft

[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.