a good friend of mine at work is selling his black '99 323i convertible. Stick. Black. Beautiful car. 122k miles. Other than a small rip in the top that he stiched back together himself it seems darn near perfect. He is not the original owner. He came right out and told me that the car is a pain in the ass to maintain. Nothing major has ever happened but a ton of little things have broken that he has taken the time to fix one by one. Says he's a huge Pelican Parts customer. Top goes up and down smoothly (he said he did a lot of work on it) except for needing a slight bit of help at one point.
I drove it and aside from being a tad bit underpowered it drives like a dream. This was my first time ever driving a 4 wheeled BMW (been on several of the 2 wheeled kind). He'll come down to 6k.
And you're asking us to discourage you?
A realistic description of an older BMW indeed. The price is average black book wholesale. It is summer and the car is a convertible. The first time you put the top down on a starry evening you'll be so glad that you bought it. I say go ahead and dive off...
My parents had an E36 convertible for a while, and I have driven a few of them. They're neat cars, and the 2.5-liter engine/stick combo is fun. Sure, you have to rev it, but so what? Not to harp on the downsides, but here's the ones I remember:
Hard to get into the back seat when the top is up. (Not sure if that matters to you.)
Smallish trunk.
Top can be expensive to replace. (That's one of the reasons my parents sold theirs.)
Still, it's a neat car and they enjoyed it. They replaced it with an E46 sedan. Buy it and then join the BMW CCA.
