E30 Zone

Right my Dad has a mint sport that has around 25,000 miles on it, everything is mint, exterior and interior. It has been garaged for the last 5 years.

It is automatic, and I was wondering in the future when hopefully the car is passed down to me that would it be a good idea to convert to manual.

Its just I would prefer it to be manual

but would it lose its worth?

and would it be easy to do?

Cheers, il get some pics up in a few days.

325i Sport with a genuine 25k
Hate to admit but id leave it as is just for originalitys sake!
If it has to be done then its not too bad a job,weekends work maximum

Cool, but say if I were to convert it, would it be noticable that it had been done?

And I don't have the skills to do it, so would it cost much at a garage. I would probably get the parts needed through here.

convert it!

probably worth more anyway and is easily revesible (keep the bits).

Dont do it. The car will still be listed as a auto sport, and will have lost a chunk of value. A car with those miles should be left standard.

Its quite easy to do though if you do.

Yeah I most probably will, much morefun to drive.

Can't wait till the day, (hoping its my 21st birthday).

It will be so nice to get into as it is in perfect condition, I really cannot wait.

Difficult one, but the words 'Sport' and 'Auto' should never have been in the same model name anyway!

Change gearbox, change V5. It was available in either format so will not affect reale value.

As Brian said Sport Auto is akin to army intelligence.

personally i would buy a sport manual, and keep that car in a garage, will be worth good money in a few years once the current lot have rusted through nah fec it, paint it techno violet with a brush, convert it to anything and rag the arse off it till its knackered

Just converted my 323i auto to 5 speed sport box. well worth the money. cost me £450 cash to a professional classic car mechanic. Plus of course the new clutch kit, new rubbers on the prop etc.

so you got any pics of it then! , would be alot better in manual, but if you want to keep it original then leave it auto..

What's this keep it origional shit, has anybody on here got an origional car. It's not like it's going to be worth 10's of thousands. Get a manual into it and enjoy.

HenryM3 wrote:What's this keep it origional shit, has anybody on here got an origional car. It's not like it's going to be worth 10's of thousands. Get a manual into it and enjoy.

Yes, quite a few very origional cars on here, not that i own one.

It will never be worth a huge ammount, its an E30, we don't own them for the money value, we own them for the fact we really like the cars. A car with these miles (i personally would say) should be standard. The only reason you convert to manual is to drive it hard and have more fun, why not buy one of the 99% of thrashed manual sports and have fun in that and keep this nice.

So not really 'keep it origional shit', more 'keep a nice example from becoming like every thrashed council sport out there.'

Don't agree with you at all. There are loads of hard driven cars on here that are an absolute credit to there owners. I'm sure they have fun. You don't necessarily have to have a thrashed council sport to have fun.

cars shuold be used, not tucked away in some garage to gather dust. leave that to the museums. convert it, take care of it, enjoy it and give it to your sun (well maybe not that last bit )

Convert it to manual and give it the abuse it deserves.....

udp260y wrote:Just converted my 323i auto to 5 speed sport box. well worth the money. cost me £450 cash to a professional classic car mechanic. Plus of course the new clutch kit, new rubbers on the prop etc.

Crikey, a Y plate 323i would have been a 3 speed auto!
Got any pics of the beast?

Oh, and convert the Sport to manual. It'll never be worth millions and any future buyer will know exactly why you did it. BUT.......spend a week driving it as an auto - you might like it and they're not bad as old autoboxes go.

I reckon I will convert it to manual just for the sake of being more fun to drive. I won't be doing loads of miles on it as I live in Jersey and its a 8x5 mile island. So I will just keep it as a nice car to go about in when Im older, and they once im done with it pass it on to my son when he will be old enough. Keep it in the family as this car started my passion for e30's, Id used to see it everyday when I was younger as its been around pretty much as long as I have so I think it will be best to keep in good nick and one day could be worth a few bob.

Cheers for replies.