E30 Zone

Hello,

Just thought ad let you all know iv decided that a E30 325I sport will be my next car

Will have roughly £2700 to spend. Is there anything I need to look out for?

Rust etc??

Don't want to sound anal here, but it's "buy a sport" and not "bye a sport"...

If you are looking at cars in that price region, it's likely they won't be 100%, so rust WILL be your main concern.

Check everywhere for rust, if possible even behind the infamous mud trapping bodykit.

Good luck!

Rust.. For that money it will have it. Plus a few mechanical issues..

oh ha ha, was in a rush and just mistyped it...

Just a quick question then.

Is rust the fate of all these cars then or is there something you can do to prevent this?

you mean like replace wheel arches, new sills etc?!

I don't know... am new to this

But yeah, either replacing the rusty parts or using a special coat of paint??

(I know my questions might sound so newby, but if I don't ask them then I won't learn anything)

If you are new to this then my advice would be to spend your £2700 on a 325i SE 2dr. Much better chance of finding one with minimal rust in that price bracket.

Find one with low owners and miles and take someone with you to look at the car who has E30 knowlegde and knows where to check for rust.

Once you have found a decent example, you can have the car rust proofed and treated to prolong the bodywork life... and you can add bits like sport bodykits and limited slip diffs as you go.

If you are desperate for that genuine sport tag (like I was) then you need to be thinking in terms of £5000 upwards for good, rust free ones really. Even then you still need to give them a full inspection.

Mate, I was in your position 5 years ago. I found a "cheap" sport and off I went... today it's all in bits receiving a full resto due to.... RUST!!!

If you have to sort out rust in the usual places then your looking at at least the same as the budget you have to buy the car.

Arches to replace the outer and repare nastyness insde is £500 as side painted.
Probs the same for sills. A wing replaced would be £300 at a guess as bmw wings are £150 i think.

This is just an idea on cost of having this work done properly. There isnt really any special paint but if all rust is removed and waxoil and paint applied to new metal then you should be set for another 20+ years

So that's a pic of your car as it once was??? so what happened, can it rust so fast?

Lets just say a tech II bodykit and a respray can hide a lot from a niave E30 newbie as I was then.

Dezzy wrote:If you have to sort out rust in the usual places then your looking at at least the same as the budget you have to buy the car.

Arches to replace the outer and repare nastyness insde is £500 as side painted.
Probs the same for sills. A wing replaced would be £300 at a guess as bmw wings are £150 i think.

This is just an idea on cost of having this work done properly. There isnt really any special paint but if all rust is removed and waxoil and paint applied to new metal then you should be set for another 20+ years

Bmw wings are now £175 with a discount Ive just brought one

Nice, everything seams to have shot up.

Make that nearer £350 fo new wings painted than

are new items for e30's still available?

such as wings, inner arches etc?

yep, the dealer still stocks about 90% of everything required to build a new e30

also plenty of companys such as hadrian who do aftermarket panels. Cheap wings can be bought for £30 from ECP however i would rather a good used one than one made from Italian Metal or where ever it comes from

I got my sport for £1800 with no probs whatsoever, bar a slightly rusting front wing. Mind you, the owner had no idea what a 'sport' was and didn't know the true value.

As for wings.... i found one on ebay - came off a 89 E30, same colour, so being the same age the paint match was perfect....and it cost me £10 !

Make sure you check the inner arches also the boot wells, expensive repair.

HJG-E30 wrote:I got my sport for £1800 with no probs whatsoever, bar a slightly rusting front wing. Mind you, the owner had no idea what a 'sport' was and didn't know the true value.

As for wings.... i found one on ebay - came off a 89 E30, same colour, so being the same age the paint match was perfect....and it cost me £10 !

Taken the kit off it then...?

Good luck getting in to the E30 world, they are a treat to own even with the issues they have - you can't put a price on character!

Have you thought about buying a non-Sport, which will be easier to spot rust issues on (cheaper too), and then putting an M Technic kit on? This might bring you a lovely car in on budget and has far more chance of being cheaper than taking the Sport kit off to find oodles of holes...

There is a vast market for the cosmetic bits; BBS wheels, Sport interiors etc, etc.

Just a thought.

There are plenty of people out there that will tell you that there is little valuable difference between a Sport and a non-Sport, we all know what subtle differences they are and the fact that a well specced 325i could have most bits, but when it comes to it I'm just a sucker for the Tech II...

Phatz,

Just seen your earlier post mate, sorry to re-cycle your sound advice!

So here's a second to above mentioned advice...

Jhonno wrote:

HJG-E30 wrote:I got my sport for £1800 with no probs whatsoever, bar a slightly rusting front wing. Mind you, the owner had no idea what a 'sport' was and didn't know the true value.

As for wings.... i found one on ebay - came off a 89 E30, same colour, so being the same age the paint match was perfect....and it cost me £10 !

Taken the kit off it then...?

Beat me too it

yep, thought whilst I was taking front wing off, i would remove the kit and someone has already beat me to it - rust protected all the way round

the main issue with these things, as most have already pointed out, is rust!

sadly, the market is flooded with chancers overpricing scrap. price alone is not a good indicator of condition. go and view as many as you possibly can. i know it can be expensive and a pain in the arse, but it really is the best way of making sure you get a decent car for the right price.

what does it cost to primer and respray the whole car?

Several thousand for anything decent.

shimsheemer wrote:Good luck getting in to the E30 world, they are a treat to own even with the issues they have - you can't put a price on character!

Have you thought about buying a non-Sport, which will be easier to spot rust issues on (cheaper too), and then putting an M Technic kit on? This might bring you a lovely car in on budget and has far more chance of being cheaper than taking the Sport kit off to find oodles of holes...

There is a vast market for the cosmetic bits; BBS wheels, Sport interiors etc, etc.

Just a thought.

There are plenty of people out there that will tell you that there is little valuable difference between a Sport and a non-Sport, we all know what subtle differences they are and the fact that a well specced 325i could have most bits, but when it comes to it I'm just a sucker for the Tech II...

Hi, yeah maybe a non-sport is the way to go at the start. Will hang around these forums first for awhile and learn about them first.

Ok,

A 'sport' is a UK thing. It was a marketing ploy by BMW to sell better cars...

BMWs are bespoke cars. You can waltz into a dealer and go I want that, that, that and that. Tick the boxes, pay the money and you have yourself a bespoke beemer. Now, in the UK, it was noted that this doesn't happen as much as it does in say, Germany. So BMW made a 'package' which they called a 'Sport'. The sport as we call them is a 325i with:
An M-Tech body kit (depending on whether its a tech 1 or 2)
A close ratio gearbox
A limited slip differential
15" BBS
Mtech goodies (steering wheel, gearknob)
Anthracite(?) headling
Sport seats

and maybe something else I'm missing.

Sports also came in a limited selection of colours (but the better colours!). There are also two types of sports, effectionately reffered to as the Tech 1's or the Tech 2's, which are the early and facelift models respectively.

Now before I bother to continue, a 325i essentially is the same thing. In fact, its quite possible to get a 325i that out specs a sport. If you want a sport, you can make one, but it won't officially be a sport...

To itterate my point a tiny bit more, BMW also made the lux range (in 316i/318i) and the SE range in the 320i/325i range. These where packages that gave you a little group of goodies over the standard spec.

So, I'd also consider buying the best, and most genuine 325i 2 door and make your start there. You'll also find that as nice as the tech 2 kit is, an E30 can look just as good, if not better without.

Try out the red 325i that has just gone on the forum. Might be able to sort any minor issues it may have with the money left over (think it's running at £1,400 at the moment). Looks, in the photos, quite nice...

Same rules reference scuttles, arches, boot wells, passenger and driver footwells etc, etc...