Can bmw's be driven on a shoe string?

[sweep]

As many have come to expect?

[Rtaylor2208]

So far in my experience, no chance I'm in for over £1500 in parts give of take before even touching the body work. And the cabs done approx 1800 miles in 2.5 years.

[Osamam3]

Depends on the BMW some can eg I ran my 316 on next to nothing but due to a heavy foot and cost of parts my m3 was a lot more not too bad but did cost a lot on service and vanos , a friend has now bought a merc A class as a daily ( big drop from a m3 as the daily ) fuel has gone crazy too !

[Morat]

If you are a mechanic with a set of tools, a discount with a friendly BMW dealer and your own spray booth - yes!

[Brianmoooore]

If you are a mechanic with a set of tools, a discount with a friendly BMW dealer and your own spray booth - yes!

As long as it runs on LPG.

[Jim320i]

Yes, dont waste your money on bodywork or get drawn into spending all your money on rimz, and its easy.

[Speedtouch]

If you get a good one and drive it carefully and maintain it yourself whenever possible, and source spares from breakers or dare I say it, The Zone, then yes, most BMWs can be surprisingly cheap to run.

The parts quality of '80s German cars was superb, so not much goes wrong for ages, then it all suddenly seems to let go at once.

For instance, I've bought used E30s that still had the original distributor caps, etc. after 20 years, yet they still ran OK!

[capri_rob]

No

Spend next to nothing on maintenance and It will catch up with you sooner or later.

[polsta]

thats it jim, if you just ensure its mechanicly good and keep it properly serviced and maintained,lubricatd etc etc, then they go on and on

[maxfield]

No car can be driven on a shoe string so to speak. But many out there do.

[Alex]

If you buy a good low mileage one.

Yes

[DanThe]

If you are happy to drive around in a bridge dodging piece of s**t then yes, as thats how they will end up.
It doesnt take much to maintain a previously looked after BMW, regular fluid/filter changes and common sense preventative maintenance, if this is not kept up with though you will end up with the above sooner or later.

Most E30's will need pretty much a full rebuild now though to get to a reasonable standard, the usual MOT repaired/general run of the mill serviced cars are showing their age on the underside

[Cloggy Saint]

I daren't add it all up but i guess my touring owes me 20-25 grand

[pnd]

No the eighties stuff is too old and anything post e36 is too complicated/expensive to fix. A good condition e36 is probably the best bet here BUT why would you want to ruin a good car by spending nothing on it? by that stage it will be worse to drive than a run of the mill shitter from another manufacturer.

[polsta]

If you buy a good low mileage one.

Yes

Rubbish !! I bought my old 318is with 179k on the clock and sold it with 198k and it never skipped a beat or went mechanically wrong , all I ever did was service it properly and maintain it

[Alex]

If you buy a good low mileage one.

Yes

Rubbish !! I bought my old 318is with 179k on the clock and sold it with 198k and it never skipped a beat or went mechanically wrong , all I ever did was service it properly and maintain it

More so with one owner low mileage cars

[capri_rob]

Take a tired E30 with MOT for £500 or so.

Even if you just refreshed the suspension bushes/mounts/dampers which a tired daily sh1tter WILL need by now it would cost you more in parts alone than the car is worth.

You can only "service" them for so long before you need to start investing proper money in upkeep replacing the stuff that doesnt last forever.

[Osamam3]

Is log a good idea on bmws or in any car really ? Many people say its full of issues ? I have no idea what to think , not sure if a reputable log system would be worth the long time savings ?

[magpie]

i wouldn't buy a car with 200k on the clock unless it was going to be fragged .

[DanThe]

If you buy a good low mileage one.

Yes

Rubbish !! I bought my old 318is with 179k on the clock and sold it with 198k and it never skipped a beat or went mechanically wrong , all I ever did was service it properly and maintain it

There are also low milage cars about rusty as foook!

[Alex]

ive just had a saxo vts as a daily over the last 3 month

if you want a money pit you buy a french car, never again

[Alex]

If you buy a good low mileage one.

Yes

Rubbish !! I bought my old 318is with 179k on the clock and sold it with 198k and it never skipped a beat or went mechanically wrong , all I ever did was service it properly and maintain it

There are also low milage cars about rusty as foook!

are these the ones where the digits on the instrument cluster dont line up properly

[capri_rob]

ive just had a saxo vts as a daily over the last 3 month

if you want a money pit you buy a french car, never again

The lure of cheap to buy and "nippy" yeah ?

[magpie]

Rubbish !! I bought my old 318is with 179k on the clock and sold it with 198k and it never skipped a beat or went mechanically wrong , all I ever did was service it properly and maintain it

There are also low milage cars about rusty as foook!

are these the ones where the digits on the instrument cluster dont line up properly

my 323i only had 68k on the clock....that was a f00king sieve

[Morat]

Is log a good idea on bmws or in any car really ? Many people say its full of issues ? I have no idea what to think , not sure if a reputable log system would be worth the long time savings ?

If you mean LPG, it's great.

[Speedtouch]

Is log a good idea on bmws or in any car really ? Many people say its full of issues ? I have no idea what to think , not sure if a reputable log system would be worth the long time savings ?

Cars don't tend to run well on either logs or shoe-strings, sadly!

The closest I've got to it is my 1970 Minor Traveller, half of which is made of wood, and it is quite cheap to run; with a year's fully comp agreed value insurance costing just £53 and free road tax, it's literally cheaper than walking, given the cost of shoes these days!

[Gavla]

Well I didn't buy my E30 thinking it would be heap to maintain and run.

But I did buy it so that I could have fun fixing it and driving it. I reckon by the time it is up to a good standard I would have spent about 6k without counting the regular services and part replacements etc. I will probably look into an LPG kit in a year or 2 so that I am not chucking money away on fuel.

But for a sub 10k german engineered car, I challenge anyone to find better.

[polsta]

i wouldn't buy a car with 200k on the clock unless it was going to be fragged .

Well plenty of zoners saw and went in that car, I sold it for 3 grand then, nearly 2 years ago, it drove perfect and was a lovely, a car like that with an honest 200k, in the condition it was in, was a testament to all its owners and BMW e30 quality , condition over mileage every time

[magpie]

so what was the last time it had a full timing chain/sprockets inc lower and guides ?

the m42 i've just sent to Dublin recently had all this done and drove/sounded spot on ,probably the best one i've owned out of about seven . 135k on the clock.

[pac1982]

a bit too general to ask this about BMW's in general, an E30 unless in showroom condition and with low miles is not a cheap car to own or maintain simply because of average age and mileage etc.

A E36 316 compact is probably one of the cheapest overall old BMW's

If you have deep pockets or like buying on finance then there are several very cheap to own new BMW's available but then you have to factor in depreciation etc

[G-Bear]

As a general rule any car costs. Getting a new one is normally a big outlay in the first place and tougher to service yourself, plus is better to get it serviced at a garage or the dealer so it gets stamped therefore better gains when selling on.

Or at the other end you buy a 20+ year old car, and start spending to replace tired bushes and anything else rubber, body work, suspension etc, these are just wear and tear, not to mention the mechanical state of the car.

The only way to own any car on a shoe string is to drive it with total ignorance..

[magpie]

The only way to own any car on a shoe string is to drive it with total ignorance..

or until something important falls off

[Brianmoooore]

Is log a good idea on bmws or in any car really ? Many people say its full of issues ? I have no idea what to think , not sure if a reputable log system would be worth the long time savings ?

If you mean LPG, it's great.

LPG is "full of issues"????? You've got that the wrong way around - it's petrol that's full of issues! Mainly centred around the fact that petrol is a liquid that has to be 'forced' to behave as a gas to work in an engine, it's habit of washing the oil film off of the cylinder bore walls (especially in a cold engine), and it's tendency to form all sorts of nasty combustion products, some of which end up dissolved in the lubricating oil. That's just the engine part of the argument, before you get on to the safety aspect of carrying around 60 litres or so of a highly inflammable liquid in a rusted thin steel or plastic box, compared with a similar quantity of propane in a fire and virtually bomb proof thick steel container.
The only 'issue' with LPG is that it has no lubricating properties which will cause issues with the valves of cars designed by accountants, such as F*rd, where the material is of such a low spec. that problems occur.
If the problems of transferring and storing gasses at a high enough pressure to liquefy them could have been overcome in the early days of motoring, then petrol would never have caught on as the fuel of choice.

[capri_rob]

The only way to own any car on a shoe string is to drive it with total ignorance..

or until something important falls off

I had intended to do this with my current daily turd - until I took the cambelt cover off and saw the state of the belt

Previous owner had obviously taken this stance and the belt was clinging on for dear life

[B7]

ive just had a saxo vts as a daily over the last 3 month

if you want a money pit you buy a french car, never again

I rest my case!