E30 Prices rising

[M5pilot]

I have been looking around for a a car for my wife recently and what better car than an E30!

Anyway, prices for "DECENT" Touring especially are much higher than before.

Sure you can buy a reasonable touring for Ԛ£500 but it will require a good Ԛ£500-Ԛ£1000 in suspension, bushes, linkeages, servicing to get to a good standard.

Good well maintained ones seem to be easily worth Ԛ£1500.

325i SE's seem also to have jumped for non rusty clean examples.

Its really nice to see our cars are still worth somrthing in good nick.

Sport prices are still very strong for good examples which again is fantastic to see.

I hope the prices continue to go up for well kept tidy cars.

[dark_sounds]

indeed, not forgetting the ever decreasing population of IS's as well.

btw... spoiler almost done,,, just rain has been a bit of a pest!

[M5pilot]

iS's have serioulsy dropped from 2 years back. I'm sure they will go up though soon as they are a brilliant E30.

[jonbuoy]

When i do my 2.5 conversion from the 1.8, how much would i expect to get for it, considering the engine change?

[m-dtech]

When i do my 2.5 conversion from the 1.8, how much would i expect to get for it, considering the engine change?

not as much as a 2.5 as its a conversion on the insurance etc.

[Kedge]

Prices of iS's has seriously dropped recently , certainly not going to be selling mine really not worth it.

[Kos]

IS prices are odd, a dog goes for Ԛ£750 and for minter double that maybe Ԛ£2000, having said that sport prices vary aswell, tech 1 dog Ԛ£1000 and minter Ԛ£2500, but they are less desireable compared against the tech 2's which range from Ԛ£1250 for a dog up to Ԛ£5000 for a mint example.

it depens on the seller and the buyer, mine is almost mint and with the bits i've added and the bits i will change god knows what its worth???

however all original parts are being kept!!!

[Gouki]

they are gonna appreciate in value in the not too long distance future, the styling is still fresh after 15-20 years and are becoming a cult classic.

[Morat]

well, call me insane but I paid Ԛ£1288 on ebay for my 73k miler 325i Touring on an E plate with 12 months MOT. No service history but a straight car. I think had been stolen at some point because all the little bits had gone (toolkit, torch, first aid kit etc). I also found a stash of taxdiscs in the glovebox, they had a 2 year gap. Dunno what that means, if anything.

Then I spent Ԛ£500 on a full service, cambelt, coolant, plugs, filters, gearbox oil etc from the garage that looked after my previous touring for 14 years. They reckoned it was a basically a good car, but needed the service (hah, well they would say that, but it had been run by the "dealer" for 4 months and ignored).

I heard that there are only 1100 325 tourings left in the UK.. dunno if its true and it didn't affect the price I paid (I heard it afterwards) but thats what I think the touring is worth Your mileage may vary!!

I'm now looking forward to the next 130k or so miles in my practical rocketship.

Morat

edit: gotta say, gouki's looks really sweet. Modern but not OTT somehow - and I don't normally go for spoilers and big wheels!

[Simon13]

they couldn't build enough tourings back in the day! they made bloody loads!

[dobbie82]

yea 325 tourings seem to fetch a pretty penny, but those of us who own 316,318, or 320 tourings seem to be lucky if we get Ԛ£600 for them

eBay seems to have made the prices bottom out as there are so many to choose from

[Simon13]

i think what ebay has done is allowed much more detailed adverts for cars.

As before what did u have the trader? tiny 1 inch pic and a few words.

So we can now get a better picture of what the average E30 looks like now.

It's also helped some rarer models go for good money, but i don't think at all prices are rising.

Maybe sports have gone up a bit because of the exidous coming out of Ireland at the moment, as they are out of favour now.

I hope alot of the nices ones come back here where they belong!!!

[Kedge]

Got to agree with you there Si, prices haven't really done much at all in the last year or so, only the mintest rarer models seem to be going up in value.

There does seem to be a lot more choice about now thanks to ebay and this site getting so much bigger, i remember when i was looking for my iS 2 years ago there was hardly any about and you expected to pay over Ԛ£1000, usually a fair bit more. Think there was only 3 or 4 on the zone back then, now there's loads of them.

I think theres still to many tatty E30's being used as daily runabouts to let the values of many others going up.

[M5pilot]

Thats the good thing about ebay - detail.

Autotrader - you never know what your really going to see when you get to the car.

[Gwynleym10]

Thats the good thing about ebay - detail.

But ironically thats also the good thing about ebay, for those of us who like to pick out a good bargain! There are still loads of cars advertised badly on ebay that go for less than they should, I think this is especially true for bmw's has they have so many confusing names for each car i.e 3series, e30, 318, 318i, etc etc

Low mileage stuff is going pretty well, just look at these m40's


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1990-BMW-318I-RED ... dZViewItem
Oh and mine...
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1

[Simon13]

i think milege is effecting the prices of sports somewhat, if they do rise more and people are paying the higher prices........people are going to start clocking them again!

[Morat]

Thats the good thing about ebay - detail.

But ironically thats also the good thing about ebay, for those of us who like to pick out a good bargain! There are still loads of cars advertised badly on ebay that go for less than they should, I think this is especially true for bmw's has they have so many confusing names for each car i.e 3series, e30, 318, 318i, etc etc

Low mileage stuff is going pretty well, just look at these m40's


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1990-BMW-318I-RED ... dZViewItem
Oh and mine...
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1

wow, those are strong prices. The mint 2 door looks like a good project shell for an insane zoner to turn into a real street sleeper too ;)

[Gwynleym10]

To true...

These 2 cars really show my point about advertising though...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1

and

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1

Is there really nearly a grands worth of difference on them?...

Money to be made i think!

[Cava]

I dont think you can use ebay to gauge prices for particular models - using IS's as an example over the last 12 months, really nice cars can struggle to make up to Ԛ£1000, where as some pile of crap with a big selling point (like cheesy alloys or a sound system) can go for hundreds more when a few idiots get in to a bidding war.

[Morat]

I think ebay probably shows the top end rather than the bottom. There are so many people on there that you're pretty much guaranteed some interest. If you're hunting bargains you'll need to put more time/effort in and get to know your local car lots and ask them to keep an eye out, etc etc.