What irritates you the most about e30s?

[Victell]

Hate to sound like a basic bitch but lack of cost effective power upgrades, bolt on or otherwise.

This right here. The e30 chassis can handle much more power, especially with modern sticky tires.

My expectations for easy and cheap power were forever ruined by growing up with american V8s.

[Conrad311]

def the lack of real cup holders

This. Sometimes though I think it’s cool because it’s meant to be a performance car. Then the coffee between my legs spills and fricassees my nuts for the hundredth time. Or spills between the passenger seat and console.

On the other hand, in the 6 e30s I’ve had I’ve not had a single issue with drip rails and keep seeing complaints about them coming off. Also only have had one or two lock actuators fail.

[Victell]

def the lack of real cup holders

BMW was so uncompromising in their belief the driver should do absolutely NOTHING besides driving that the e30 sunvisor on driver side does not have a mirror while the passenger side does.

[MrBurgundy]

BMW was so uncompromising in their belief the driver should do absolutely NOTHING besides driving that the e30 sunvisor on driver side does not have a mirror while the passenger side does.

I get that, but sometimes yah boy wants to sip on an iced coffee while driving racecar

[nick_318is]

Very few, but:

Central locking always seems iffy.

The retractable antenna was always a poor design.

The reset on the inspection/etc. always seemed odd.

Never liked the included jack that came in the trunk.



Compared to most other cars though, this model has so few irritations. It's not perfect, but it's 90% there.

All of these and add cracked dashboard, and the fan relay going out.

[Stanley Rockafella]

Never liked the included jack that came in the trunk.

This is the only legitimate complaint from that post.
All the others are nonsense and are solely based on the e30 being an old car and suffering "old car problems".

[e30davie]

Not too much really. The big annoyance for me is the AC has failed and it was an r12 system, and converting to r134 is.not going to.be a cheap exercise. But Australia is hot...

Oem steering ratio is fairly slow. Its not.bad as it makes for smooth daily driving. But i did a skid pan day and yep, shes slow:p

[efficient]

the little stuff is always more expensive than the bigger items. example :heater valve $200+, sunroof seal $100+ some other times i cant think of

[lukeADE335i]

My constant shitty idle after 3.5 years of owning my E30. Every plug, wire and DME related sensor has been replaced. I've got maybe 3 other parts it could be.

Replace the DME itself? My idle was always a bit rough, but when the DME itself died I fixed a couple of tiny vacuum leaks + the replaced the DME and the idle roughness was gone.

Back on topic - in RHD cars, the small driver's footwell & offset pedals are annoying. Not sure if it's mirrored on a LHD, but the pedal box is quite offset to the right in a RHD. Otherwise, not much to complain about.

The thing I love best is the giant glasshouse / tiny A pillars vs. modern cars that you can barely see out of.

[E30 Wagen]

Battery box and licence plate light areas prone to rust. The hood insulation thing sagging and rubbing a mark on the m20 intake manifold. Damage to the front and rear valences is not easy to fix or replace. The back rest release mechanism on coupe seats that always breaks. Door locks and central locking that always breaks. Glove box latch that always breaks (would get so many people asking for that when I was selling parts). The warp that all HVAC control panels seem to have. The premium rear speakers not fitting in the basic rear shelf. The fitment of the pre-airbag steering column cover is terrible and often cracks. Dashes that crack and warp. Weak spot welds on the front door limit hinge thing that fail (hopefully somebody knows what i mean). Cowcatcher mounting brackets. Melting odometer gears. Anxiety of a timing belt on an interference engine. Service parts from South Africa being bad quality or packaged really awful. NA market getting 14" weaves while the rest of the world got 15", seriously wtf was that all about?? Everybody swapping out the m42 for s52. Stance fags destroying fenders. The passage of time.

[ZeKahr]

- The entire Service Interval system. Useless over-engineered pile of junk that I want to toss out of my car. I need to refurb my SI board just to get the tachometer working because the bean counters decided to route the tach signal through the SI microprocessor...
- The check control system. Set of idiot lights most of which are useless to me. Make the engine bay wiring more complex too...
- The brake lining sensors. Useless and keep setting off the light on my dashboard despite my brakes working fine... Want to toss these out and call it a day
- Most E30s coming out of the factory with sunroofs. I never use the sunroof in any of my cars but my dumb friends always want to play with it. Furthermore, it adds extra weight and is another source of leaks and rust issues over the long term. I'm going to rip mine out and permanently seal the hole that's left.
- The fact that it's getting harder and more expensive to find clean stock auto Etas to use as functional daily drivers. I don't really care about the other variants.

Not too much really. The big annoyance for me is the AC has failed and it was an r12 system, and converting to r134 is.not going to.be a cheap exercise. But Australia is hot...

Oem steering ratio is fairly slow. Its not.bad as it makes for smooth daily driving. But i did a skid pan day and yep, shes slow:p

You don't have to convert to R134a. You can use R12 replacements like R12a.

[E30-325iS]

All the things that iritate you were pretty high tech in the 80s,
You shouldn't need to refurb the SI board to get the tach working.
I wouldn't expect the microprocessor to fail. It's probably something in the signal path.

e30davie, Have you looked into using Hychill as a refrigerant?

https://hychill.com.au

[ZeKahr]

All the things that iritate you were pretty high tech in the 80s,
You shouldn't need to refurb the SI board to get the tach working.
I wouldn't expect the microprocessor to fail. It's probably something in the signal path.

Yes I get that they were high tech back then, but the consequence of it being high tech make the car more difficult to repair and on German vehicles creates all kinds of dumb electrical problems. I have an 86 325e with a late production cluster. I already replaced the SI batteries, which got the tach to work for a while, but now it works intermittently. I read up on the SI board design on the bavrest website and it turns out that there are also transistors, voltage regulators, and capacitors on the board that fail due to age... this is the price you pay for being high tech. Not saying I want to go back to the automotive stone age (hell no), but there's shit on the E30 that I can live without, and the SI system and check panel are two of them.

[TobyB]

fanbois.

'respect your elders' stickers on a car that's really just a warmed- over 2002.

not catching trunk leaks until the stench is apparent in the cabin.

hee.

t

[djjerme]

Let’s hear what drives you nuts the most often..

-other E30 owners..


Feels like a damn cult at times and everyone trying to one up one another.

I just want to be left alone, in my average home - but why do I always feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.


But in all seriousness - Bring A Trailer irritates me the most about E30's, as well as Instagram. It's created this culture of E30 owners who view them as just accessories to get Like's or investment pieces to just collect for a profit. They're a fun driving car, and are reminder that driving can be fun, but now it's all about status. If you love the car, take car of it, baby it, but don't just park it - take it out and drive it.

..not to mention I can't stand when the first question some one has is "What's it worth?" It's worth all the smiles it puts on my face every time I get in it..