Advice on this buying this car (now with pics)

[Kruzen]

so i was browsing around on some other forums i post on (genmay) and one of the members pm'd me..

Hey, I hear you're looking for an E30
I might be selling my 87 325is in the next month or so to get a 97-98 M3. Its black with red interior, 192k miles right now. Tracked and driven hard, but always taken care of and never abused. Maintainance records from day one.
LMK if interested.

i am indeed interested in an 87-91 325is (these all have the same engine in them, am i right? same base HP?)

so i am pretty interested, i asked for some pics and an asking price, i'm just wondering, since its been tracked and driven hard, what kind of things shoudl i ask about/ look for / etc, and what are some warning signs that mean i should stay away from the car.?

thanks.

[Sean]

You know teh 87 is the older bodysyle E30, right? (metal bumpers and cannot be changed to plastic easily).

other than that, they are pretty much identical to 88 and on IS's, minus a few small things

Where are you located, and where is the car? It always helps to test-drive a car.

[KenC]

I remember that Kris Olsen (bimmerphile) had a thread with a check-list for buying an e30. He compiled about half of one and then I found a huge complete list from unofficialbmw.com

Search for it.

[Kruzen]

I got some pictures and some other information :)





next pm:

Yeah, I'll get you some pics when I get back to my computer.
Bluebook value is $2750. I'll take that plus some extra if you want some mods... I have a set of M3 springs and Schroth racing harness. about $100 for each.

Recent maintainance includes/; head gasket, water pump, timing belt, new torx head bolts, some new hoses, aftermarket rotors and pads, rebuilt the calipers and clutch hydraulics, LSD fluid, and other misc stuff.

Im a fan of black interiors, and fortunately they not hard to get. Just need to replace: front seats, rear seats, front and rear door panels. Everythign else is black

and the one after that:

I don't have the 17s anymore.. I put the stock ones back on. They're a lot lighter and required for stock class.

Also: new muffler last summer, new shift knob, short shift kit, and most importantly, M3 rack and pinion.

(i blurred the license plates, originals were not blurreD)

looks farking purrrdy to me :) whayda guys think? I live in washington so i could easily go look at it :)

[Jordan]

Car looks fairly beat up to me. Certainly nothing special.

I would hold out for a better example.

[Kruzen]

Car looks fairly beat up to me. Certainly nothing special.

I would hold out for a better example.

think so?

i've been searching for nearly 8 months now on numerous forums, classifieds, etc.

looks to be like its in great condition other than the front lip.

in my 8 months of searching i haven't found anything of comparable price thats in this good (from what i can tell) of condition, and is local.. its been hard as hell to find any bimmers in the Pacific NW for sale

[e30evolution]

i will sell you mine..... $8,000

[Kruzen]

new pm.

Yeah, I'm in seattle. I saw you post a few times about E30's in the seattle area
Its a reliable daily driver for me.
Mechanically, its near perfect. As I said, I have a huge stack of all the paperwork from day one.
The paint is in excellent shape save for two areas with some minor rust.
The passenger and rear seats are in excellent shape. The driver's seat shows a fair amount of wear. BTW, this has the 3-spoke M-Tech steering wheel, sport seats, and limited slip.

As far as performance goes, it'll spank an Integra TypeR in a straight line (raced my friend on the freeway), and I regularly beat e36 M3s at autocross.

i have requested a full mod list since stock blue book private market value places the car around $2100

i'm looking to spend less than 3k so this car is pretty much inside my pricerange. more thoughts?

[Jordan]

I wouldn't touch that car. Apparently that is just me.

[Kruzen]

I wouldn't touch that car. Apparently that is just me.

if you don't mind me asking, could you expand a bit on your thoughts that led you to that conclusion?

[BavarianBimmer]

If yuo like the car and you're skillfull enough to fix the lil' things up
go for it (i like the cardinal interior ) :up:

[Kruzen]

from a thread on the forums:

Car won't start... any help?
My track car in my sig...

Replaced the headgasket, and now it wont start.
It will crank, i get ignition, and it jumps up to 1.5k like normal, but then sputters and dies. I hear detonation on the 3rd or 4th try starting it.

New spark plugs
New distributor cap and rotor
Spark plug wires check out ok (used multimeter to test)
Cam and crank are dead on TDC
Injector connectors all test at 12.3V

The only possibility I can think of is that two of the injector plugs got swapped... any way to test for that?


....


ok, found the factory markings for the injector wires... theyre all in the right places.

distributor rotor is on correctly.

....


As far as I can tell, the fuel is still good.
Filter is the same as it was before, but I have a new one handy.

....

Its an E30


It will turn over on the way up to 1.5k, but then sputters on the way down.

....

hmm aparently he was having some starting trouble with it a few days ago, i wonder what the problem was and naturally if its been fixed yet.

do you guys think his asking price is fair? I was thinking of offering to take it for that price if we have it checked out at a BMW mechanic and it checks out with little to no, mechanical problems.

If you guys don't think its a fair price, what would you think a fair offer would be? (and how much do m3 springs run these days?)

[Kruzen]

also, where the heck can i find more e30's for sale in washington?

i haven't found anything on autotrader in decent condition, the local bmw cca forums have jack diddly in their classified ads, and roadfly has had three WA listings in the past few months, all of which were terrible buys/shape.

[Sean]

How far you willing to go? Maybe broaden your look?

Lots of times, the car you want appears from no where when you least expect it. All I can say is, keep your eyes open. ;)

[Kruzen]

How far you willing to go? Maybe broaden your look?

Lots of times, the car you want appears from no where when you least expect it. All I can say is, keep your eyes open. ;)

well this car, actually, was one of those.

i guess i'm missing something but the car looks like its in dandy shape to me, just has some stuff that needs to be sanded and repainted and then its set?

and within my pricerange too.

I had moved from avid searching more towards passive searching and this guy PM'd me out of the blue one day, the car being in washington, it just seemed like the perfect deal to me but maybe i'm missing something?

i started out wanting a 88-91 325is that was black.on black and in the past couple of months i moved it to a 87-91 325i of any color exterior and interior and still couldn't find crap.. this just seems like a good deelio to me.