Touring

Touring

The five door 'estate' variant of the E30.

The E30 Touring reached the UK in 1988 with the facelift models of the E30. It featured a new rear body with an estate style rear door and split folding rear seats, and was available in 316, 318, 320 and 325 versions. The touring is approximately 80kg heavier than the standard saloon mainly due to the reinforcement that runs vertically around the car level with the rear suspension turrets. This reinforcement compensates for the removal of the metalwork behind the saloon seats to allow the folding rear seats. This extra weight towards the rear means that all tourings came with the battery mounted under the bonnet, and shorter (lower geared) final drive ratios than the equivalent saloon.

To cope with load carrying, all tourings are equipped with the 325i spec suspension of 51mm struts, disc brakes front and rear, and rollbars front and rear. Nearly all tourings are equipped with ABS, but there are some early four cylinder cars without ABS.

The E30 Touring, along with the cabriolet versions, outlasted the two and four door saloons as BMW swapped production over to the E36. The youngest tourings on the road today are generally 1993 K although some 1994 L vehicles do exist it is unclear whether they are late registered 1993 built cars or whether they were actually built in 1994.

Overall the E30 Touring benefits from the same strengths and suffers from the same weaknesses as the E30 saloons. Tourings have developed a reputation for possibly rusting less than other versions, but ironically their distinctive tailgate is a noted rust spot, usually starting with the rubber seal beneath the rear window shrinking with age and trapping water in the channel it is designed to protect. These seals should be replaced before rust starts. The load capacity of the touring, while useful, is not generous. The floor plan is identical to the saloon and the rear hatch opening is restricted (possibly BMW were conservative in their attempts to retain rigidity) so although a touring does have the useful ability to take long loads with the seats folded, it is hard to take advantage of the whole load area with a single item.

On the move, E30 Tourings have more weight over the rear wheels and have near 50:50 weight distribution which, while unable to change the underlying nature of the E30 trailing arm rear suspension, does give a more predictable rear setup than other versions with less weight on the rear wheels. This characteristic, coupled with the 325i spec suspension, makes 4 cylinder tourings ideal candidates for engine swaps to heavier engines which are sometimes criticised for causing understeer in E30 saloons.