So I'm thinking about getting into the BMW Compact family. My Taurus was in a wreck last week and, long story short, State Farm's giving me a check and I'm walking away from it.
I'm not looking for a gem per se, but a solid auto that will get me to work and back and is easy enough to fix / maintain.
So in my search for a new set of wheels, I found this lil' guy:
Drove it last night. His description is pretty accurate. A few things I see it needs:
1. By "few dents and bumps" he means the body has cosmetically seen better days. The dents aren't more than superficial and there's some rot outside the rear wheel wells, but otherwise the body is strong enough. All the lift points are solid, etc.
2. Steering pump, as he noted, will probably need to be replaced.
3. From a cold start, about 30 sec. in there was a rather loud screeching / squealing, and I wasn't able to tell if it was metal-on-metal or metal-on-something else. It lasted about 10 seconds, then occurred again about 30 seconds later. My initial reaction was a belt or some sort of bearing, a pulley maybe?
4. Clutch is good, shifts good, but there's some play/wiggle in the shift lever when it's in gear. Searching here suggests new bushings can tighten that up.
5. Driver's door card is falling off. Found a thread for that as well, only extra work I should need there is getting the gorilla glue off that he tried to use...
6. Driver's seat action to fold forward doesn't work. The lever on the outside of the seat has no resistance/doesn't engage anything and makes me think that it broke at one point and the owner just had flip-forward hinge welded maybe?
7. At highway speed, my patented suspension test (a proprietary pattern of rocking the wheel back-and-forth) produced not-insignificant body roll. I'm guessing the shocks are probably original and are going to need replacing.
Other than those things... it's in decent shape. I was actually surprised at how really, really nice the upholstery was in the car; fabric is in great shape, rear seats look mint, front seats show their 137k miles.
Two questions:
Is the squeal something I should be worried about? Searches here make me think it's a serpentine belt, one of the pulleys, or the crankcase vent valve, all of which look to be 2 hours work and 25-70 bucks.
He's asking 1,700... considering the body's condition and repairs I'm going to need to make, I'm thinking I should counter less. Any suggestions on a haggling price?
Attached a few pictures showing what I think are probably the worst of the rot, a few more to follow with dents and such, and I'll link a youtube video of the engine after initial idle and warmup (didn't get the phone out in time to catch the squeal).
Yes and no...its really not a bad DIY job either if you like to wrench. Struts are decently easy as well. If this is just a DD replace them with a set of Monroe's from autozone. I have put them on quite a few BMW's and been very happy for the price. Not OEM but very very cost effective.
I'm all about the wrenching -- one of the reason's I'm excited about the shape it's in, so it's good to hear it's do-able. I opened that hood last night and I think the thing I liked about the car the most is how much space there is in there. Both my last DD's were Tauruses, a '95 and an '01, and a lot of project that should be simple take a lot of extra work b/c of how poor the layout is in that engine bay.
awesome! I hate when they take your first offer, makes you think you could have snagged it for less!
Like that scene in Road to Perdition between the dad and son,
Michael Sullivan, Jr.: So when do I get my share of the money? Michael Sullivan: Well... how much do you want? Michael Sullivan, Jr.: Two hundred dollars. Michael Sullivan: Okay. Deal. [Michael Jr. stops eating and thinks for awhile] Michael Sullivan, Jr.: Could I have had more? Michael Sullivan: You'll never know.
Guy told me last night that he gets taken for a ride often, and I think he was one of those honest-to-a-fault kinda guys, so I'm okay not hosing him too bad on it. I'm just hoping I don't get it home just to have the rearend fall off or something.
Picking up a '95 318ti 137k miles 
Linear Mode
