The car is absolutely stunning. Here's what I can find wrong with it:
It drives like a 65000 mile, 5 year old (say) car though it's a 1988. It was apparently parked in a lockup until 1993, when it was first registered
The temperature guage is nuts(crazy).
There is a tiny dent on the front valence (making lower plastic look out of place slightly) and a tiny one on a rear arch
There is a spot of rust on the bootlid at the front near the bottom of the rear windsreen
The bulb behind the gear selector needs replacing
The ashtray surround in the rear needs replacing
Theres ONE mystery tool missing from the tool box (looks like it's for locking wheel nuts perhaps?) and a spanner.
The electric aerial is stuck in mid position and there is a little stain of reddy/rust that has run off it onto paint (polish off when aerial is removed)
ABS light on (I'm told its a sensor)
No aircon (the guy was thick as two short planks and thought the oil cooler was an air-con rad supposedly)
Very light stone chip or two on bonnet and passenger door of all places.
Washer fluid is low (
)LED for engine oil level in check panel blown/gone
AND THAT IS IT! It is otherwise 'as-new'. Well as close as you can possibly imagine an 18 year old car could be. I even found the original radio blanking panel in the glovebox!
No rattles, squeaks, nasty add ons (apart from an old school alarm that isn't used anymore which I'll un-pick properly), stains, smoking damage, etc etc. The panels are DEAD straight and the underseal intact.
I can't beleive it. I dont normally luck out, especially on ebay.
She's beautiful. I even LOVE the fact it hasn't got body coloured anything (except se spoiler on boot).
Plans for it: Err... I bought it with the intention of gutting it and using as a project base but its SOOOOO CLEAN. I intended fitting my S50B32 eninge, MCoupé rear sus & brakes, E30 M3 front sus and E36 M3 3.2 brakes and my new (and VERY bling) BBS split rim E36328i wheels.
Now I'm going to have a hard time justifying it. Its sooooo smoothe on the motorway. It even handles well (enough) cos all the bushes and bearings are mint. The 14"s are very small but mint (bottletops though).
I think I'll go ahead with the swap but I think I've shot myself in the foot though. I CANT bolt anything to it that isn;t mint. Unfortunately this means I'll be stripping everything down and blasting, replacing consumables and painting with 2 pac before fitting! I plan to re-underseal it and get a waxoyl probe for all the box sections. I want her to stay tin-worm free for another 18 years. I normally abuse cars to death and it would be such a shame.
Short term plans are as follows:
Fix ABS
Smoked front indicators and side repeaters.
De-chromed window surround and kidney grills
SE side skirts in natural black
iS lip spoiler in natural black
Grey headlining.
MINT Mtech 1 steering wheel (from somewhere)
Fix temp sensor and oil level LED
Tweeter pods with kick panels modded to take 6.5" speakers (like Ian's)
Possibly try and find either some MINT front sport seats in the same cloth (light grey striped with light grey vinyll) or get some brand new BMW covers and fit to some good Sport seats.
I shall post some pictures soon. For now heres the number of the Ebay auction I posted before: 250008957746
Thanks for reading guys...
Jai
