Inspection service on 1989 320i E30

Post Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:47 am

Hi all.

Got a quick question for you fine people.
I recently acquired an '89 320i and it's due for a service. It's got 250000kms on the clock and the inspection lamp is on yellow.

Now I could take it down the road to my local BMW dealership and get it done there, but after having a Triumph Spitfire for the last 5 years and spending a lot of time working on that, I'd like to do the service myself. I am going to be buying a Heynes manual for the car, but I would like to know if there are any specific areas of potentional problems to look for and if there are any websites dealing with the issues of self servicing your own Beemer.

I have fallen in love with the car and would like to keep it in as good a condition as possible so any help would be most welcome.

Oh one more thing, it feels like the gear ratio's in first and second are very short. Is this normal on a 320i ?

Thanks again
Alex

Post Wed Jun 22, 2005 12:05 am

Welcombe to the zone.
You've now entered a completely different world from that of the Spitfire. It's a world of German precision engineering.
The E30 is a very DIY friendly car. Everything comes apart easily when you want it to, doesn't come apart when you don't want it to, and all goes back together like it's never been apart.
Any questions you have regarding servicing, faults, tuning, whatever, just ask on here.

Post Wed Jun 22, 2005 10:42 am

Thanks for the welcome!

Yes after a few years of tinkering with the Spit I can see that the my Beemer is a different kettle of fish. Glad to hear that they are DIY frendly. I plan on keeping mine in original (or as close to) condition. No body kits for me thank you.

I'm quite fortunate that here in South Africa (JHB) the air is really dry so there are no rusting issues.

Any South African owners on here who know where to get parts here in JHB please drop me a line..

Thanks again for the welcome..