Do I want an E30?

For sporty driving with a bum leg... one of the newer auto-tragics ('05+) with the manu-matic mode are pretty good. My wife has an '05 325Xi wagon with it and it's really pretty slick.

An E46 325i is pretty damn cheap these days - for a whole lot more/newer/capable car than the E30. If you shop hard you can find them from $6k to $10k - mostly mileage based but by the one with the best maintenance record, not the lowest miles.

A bit more than Challenge money would buy my E30 right now. Especially if an engine swap is in order. The engine is sick (head gasket?) and I have neither the time nor motivation to fix it. One would be hard pressed to find a cleaner and more rust free E30 in the Northeast.

The final insult from a car I never wanted and shouldn't have bought in the first place...

After thinking about it some more and sleeping on it, it appears that perhaps an E30 is not the right fit for me. While I think that it would be fun to tinker with a classic, I really need an automatic that will not be unlivable nor bankrupt me...

Thank you to everyone for all of your advice and input.

ddavidv wrote: Is this thing a 325e, 325i or 318? Only the middle choice is worth doing, IMO.

I'd respectfully disagree about later 318is....the M42 has plenty of pep for tooling around town and some canyon carving, if not drag racing. And the car has much better balance than the 6cyl cars handling-wise in my experience. If you don't care about mashing it from stoplights, M42 e30 is just fine. And it'll get 30+mpg all day long on the highway with a middle-range diff ratio.

That said, would never get an M42 with an automatic, so my argument is all academic :)

I personally have never thought an e30s (except the M3) are particularly fast (including the 325i), except in relation to an M10 car :) If accelerating fast is the goal, don't buy an e30.

Power and Acceleration is part of the issue that I am having with the e30... SWMBO really likes her some powah! Her nebulous definition of "enough" is pretty much her only requirement in a car. For me, almost nothing will compare to my last race car and I have resigned myself to that fact.

Sadly, it does sound like swapping a 4.10 lsd in from the M3 is a great way to kill a ZF trans even at close to stock horsepower levels. I guess that jumping off of the line is just something that they will not do.

I think I will just buy an e24 from cutter and tell her that while it is not moving off the line terribly quickly, at least she will look damn good in the process!

Around here 4.5k can buy you a 4 door M3 automatic. That's a no brainer of a choice.

DC area that is pretty close to what I've seen too.

E30s are boring to me, lol. Would rather pick up a 924s or a 944 if I want a german car.

I am bumping this thread up because I sorta just agreed to a deal on an e30 . Thank you again to everyone who has shared their wisdom, experience and advice; I truly appreciate it.

I have been occasionally looking for a cheap car and just never got them out of my head. I think I need to own one just to get this bug out of my system.

I found a mechanically sound and well maintained '89 325i that needed to be saved from a total conversion to hard parker hipster mobile. Grey ext. / beige int., 2 door, auto and most everything actually works. The exterior will remain a beat up city car with a bunch of dents, some slightly mismatched paint but at least I will touch up the few minor rust spots... probably...

Inside it needs some work to make it acceptable but it is mostly just little items that I am sure I can pick up easily. Some questionable appearance mods to revert to normal and a lot of wear and tear to restore to acceptable levels.

SWMBO should find it acceptable; she doesn't actually know about it yet She will appreciate fully converted r134a goodness and the 6 cd changer / new speakers / ipod jack.

I will have fun tackling the myraid minor projects and repairs while doing a little customizing of my own. Be on the lookout for a "build" thread where I beg everyone to help me find parts! I need to check the schedule for local autocrosses sometime soon, it has been a long time since I have run anything close to D Stock...

nice, congrats! Let us know how it all goes.

Thanks! I surely will.

Only people here would understand that SWMBO authorized a purchase of $4-5K and I preferred to pick up something very much under the challenge limit.