Newbie Qs: What alloys should be on a 1991 J plate 325i?

[Shedtastic]

Hello - a newbie here in need of a little advice..

I'm mid purchase of a tatty J plate 325i 2 door - my first beemer.
1) To get it though it's MOT it's going to need tyres (no doubt among many other thiings..) & figure that I may as well buy a set of wheels and tyres as I really don't like the "E36 M3 Replica" alloys that are on it.. What would this year and spec of car have worn originally? I'd guess either the 'bottletop' 14" wheels or 15" cross-spoke BBS wheels? I think a set of the bottletops is going to set me back about £50 with usable tyres, but more like £150 for the BBS 15"? Does that sound about right? Expect to see the M3 copies on eBay soon.. (To me they just don't look right but perhaps they are right up someone's street..)

2) Assuming I get it through an MOT without too much expense (I am on a tight budget..) I will need to do something about the totally threadbare front seats. Do good condition used ones crop up? If that is unlikely, or at least unlikely at a reasonable price, what are cheap and easy alternatives that won't look too out of place - I mean will later 3 series seat bolt in reasonably easily?

I'm up in Lancashire btw, in case anyone wants to reply with "I live in preston and have everything you need for £60" and as a result make my day..

Neil

[Brianmoooore]

The original wheels would have been whatever the original purchaser specified on the options list, but the 'standard' alloy would have been the 14" bottletop, with the 15" BBS cross spokes as the most likely upgrade.
Plenty of good condition passenger seats around, even if driver's ones are a bit rarer.
Passenger seats are very easy to convert into driver's seats, although on the tilting mechanism releasing levers on those from two door cars is a bit more involved to get correct.
Seat backs are easily separated from seat bases and swapped around , and it's also not difficult, although a bit labour intensive, to change just the fabric on seats.

[capri_rob]

Find a friendly local BMW dealer parts person and give them the VIN number - they can give you a printoff of the original spec of the car from new including any options including alloy wheels.

You can't go wrong with 15" BBS - they are timeless.

Oh and welcome

[Kemix]

Find a friendly local BMW dealer parts person and give them the VIN number - they can give you a printoff of the original spec of the car from new including any options including alloy wheels.

You can't go wrong with 15" BBS - they are timeless.

Oh and welcome

really? do they charge for this information?

[lance1a]

As a temp measure I have used passenger fronts on the drivers side, you can still access the levers when they are next to nthe tranny tunnel. As Brain says, swap them (and/or the covers) over or have a look for seats on here or Ebay. £150 for 15" BBS with correct centre caps and decent tyres is a bargain, 14"'s maybe......bottletops even seem to fetch decent money these days at about £150 incl good tyres, last time I looked anyway.
Hope you don't have a hard time with the MOT, let us know.

[bss325i]

Find a friendly local BMW dealer parts person and give them the VIN number - they can give you a printoff of the original spec of the car from new including any options including alloy wheels.

You can't go wrong with 15" BBS - they are timeless.

Oh and welcome

really? do they charge for this information?

No its free.

[csl]

Find a friendly local BMW dealer parts person and give them the VIN number

Hello Neil and welcome.

If you live in Preston,call around to Bowkers on the docks. They can give you a printout of the original spec of your car and seem to like the older models,rather than being totally set on new model only.They have always been very helpful to me with my e30.Mind you,i have spent a small fortune there!

[jonmsm]

Hello - a newbie here in need of a little advice..

I'm up in Lancashire btw, in case anyone wants to reply with "I live in preston and have everything you need for £60" and as a result make my day..

Neil

HI Neil!

Welcome to the zone too - glad to see another e30 being bought up and already plans for 'oem' fixes I like you optimism above too - but you never know!

From my experience, cloth interiors are about as costly as a can of beans - a lot of people are still buying up e30's to make track cars from - thus the cloths are ditched for a set of buckets so people are usually desperate to get rid of them!

Failing that - I have a drivers seat from an ex Police Volvo 850 t5 which has only seen 247k miles in my workshop which your welcome too ;) haha

[KimH]

Welcome to the club Shedtastic.
Whatever you do, opt for genuine BMW 15" BBS alloys; assuming all is as it should be with the the running gear, they'll both transform your car and make it look good too.

I had bottletops on mine - which I hated; I swapped them for a set of non BMW 14" BBS - which looked the part but the handling was crap; I then bit the bullet and fitted a set of 15" BMW BBS wheels and my Touring came to life.

It now not only looks the part, but travels in a straight line naturally, the steering is precise, it goes round corners as it should and the steering wheel doesn't wobble at speed.

Good luck with your new car and I hope you enjoy it.

[Shedtastic]

Thanks for all the replies, advice noted & I'll be collecting some 15" BBS with good tyres on Wednesday.. I've also been offered some bottletop 14" quite cheaply, I'll probably end up getting both and try both out.

I can see that my enthusiasm is getting the better of me already and my spell of E30 ownership will be just as expensive as previous toys... The car isn't being dropped off until this Friday, and was supposed to be a cheapie bargain fixer-upper winter project..

Neil

[Shedtastic]

If you live in Preston,call around to Bowkers on the docks. They can give you a printout of the original spec of your car and seem to like the older models,rather than being totally set on new model only.They have always been very helpful to me with my e30.Mind you,i have spent a small fortune there!

Thanks for the tip:
So I did, and they were, confirming a few things for me and of course opening up a few questions.

Apparently I have a "325i E30 LIM MECH RL M20 EUR" - I don't know what the LIM bit means? Probably not much. I assume the rest translates to MECH = Manual, RL = RHD, M20 = engine code and EUR = Euro market.

I also have the following option packs, but I think the first three codes have been reused since the car was built as I doubt some of these definitions apply to my car:

0200 Diesel Particulate Filter (!)
0215 Description Not Found (!)
0350 Composite Star Spoke 108 8/8/1/2 * 18 (!)
0401 Electric Tilt Slide Sunroof
0410 Electric Windows - Front
0428 Warning Triangle and First Aid Kit
0497 Centre Armrest in rear
0812 GB Specification
0925 Transport Protection

Anyone know of somewhere I can look up the E30 era definitions of these codes?

PS - CSL - where do you live in Lancs?

[Shedtastic]

Ah - just found out the following (probable) option code definitions:

0350 back then meant Green Tinted Windows
0215 might be power steering (though I'd have thought that was standard?)
0200 probably meant "catalyst deleted" - yay!!

Also found that it was built in 11.1990 but only registered 9 months later in 08.1991, and even then, to BMW. I suppose it must have been pretty difficult to sell E30s once the E36 launched..

Sad that none of those codes translated to "LSD", but never mind..

Need to lie down now - geekiness overload..

[csl]

PS - CSL - where do you live in Lancs?

Im in Lancaster mate.
If you think i can help with something,give me a pm fella.

[Cotty]

From my experience, cloth interiors are about as costly as a can of beans - a lot of people are still buying up e30's to make track cars from - thus the cloths are ditched for a set of buckets so people are usually desperate to get rid of them!

Maybe the comforts but try finding a decent seat of cloth sport seats, like hens teeth.

[Shedtastic]

Well, 1 year later and the 325 has just passed another MOT with no issues, so I've bitten the bullet and bought off ebay an iS interior, so I will finally get some nicer seats to sit on.. The £40 'comfort' cloth interior that has done me for the last 12 months has been okay but doesn't really suit..

I did go down the 15" BBS alloys route too.. :->

The car hasn't been a complete money pit (yet)!

Neil.

[csl]

The car hasn't been a complete money pit (yet)!

Lucky man! Well done with the MOT.

[Gert_8]

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Yep, those wheels are not nice on it!

[Shedtastic]

Looks much better on these.. (but this is the good side..)

[Gert_8]

Looks much better on these.. (but this is the good side..)

Sooooo much better!