another Mazda Miata or 318ti? HELP!!!

[ilovemountains]

Hi everyone.. I’m new to your group and have a few questions.. I am looking into buying a new car.. My Miata is turning into a money pit but with 250,000 miles what do you expect! I am thinking about buying a new to me 99 or 2000 Miata but have always loved the 318ti.. I hate big cars, and I never have any one with me so to have a back seat never made sense to me....I have been tossing the idea of buying either a Mini Cooper or a 318 for a while because I could use the luggage space and never put the top down in the miata any way~! I was just wondering if there is a large aftermarket following for the 318s and what type of maintenance and problems they have.. My Miata has a lot of performance work done to it like big brakes, 4 point roll bar that I had a cross bar welded in, full Jackson Racing exhaust, Bilstien HDs with sport springs and so on.. but the car is rusting out and all of the bushings are shot and so on as you can imagine in a car with that kind of miles that actually gets driven.. Anyway any help would be great, I love the Miatas, I love the 318ti and the Mini seems cool but I have never driven one.. Thanks in advance, Matt

[cali-ti]

i guess i would recommend driving nice examples of all of what you're considering and see what you like best. the last year of production on the e36 ti's is 1999 and you'd likely be lucky to find one of that year. they're all getting on it age and will likely need bushings replaced if it hasn't already been done. that said, if you can get one from an enthusiast, it should be well maintained, very possibly with refreshed bushings, possibly upgraded in some places. ti's are certainly fun cars and, big thing for me, are RWD. i'm wondering if i'd like a mini cooper long-term for that reason.

[1996 328ti]

Well, I have a Mini Cooper S and it is fun when my wife lets me drive it.
I'm still getting used to FWD.

I too have been thinking of a Miata but you really can't beat the versatility of a hatchback. I've never driven a Miata but have been in a driving school with them. I think a ti almost as tossable.

[John W]

I'd drive both a Cooper S and a Ti. Both will feel bigger than your Miata. In stock form the Ti has a lot of body roll, but there are a fairly large number of effective suspension mods out there that work well. I thought that my Ti handled well until I autocrossed my friend's MR2 Spyder. The Spyder, which had some suspension mods, was just so much more fun to toss between the cones. It was smaller and lighter and you could most definitely feel that. I still think my car handles very well, but ultimaltely, the Ti behaves like a well-sorted sport sedan and the MR2 (like your Miata) is an all-out sportscar/roadster. The Ti is great for what it is -- a compromised form of transportaion -- just as a Miata is great for what it is -- a sportscar that makes few compromises.

The Ti is very practical. You would be surprised about how much the trunk would swallow. It's also a great highway cruiser. I get about 30 mpg highway on 89 octane. Mine has proven reliable (so far) as well.

If you go the more practical car route, you should try to keep the Miata (if you can) for those more spirited, top down drives.

[ilovemountains]

How would you rank the 318s in reliability to say my Mazda or even an MR2 Spyder.. I had looked into an MR2 a few months back but they have even less space than my Miata! I have heard that BMWs are over built and very rarely have problems but when they do they cost a small fortune to repair.. Is this a fact or fiction? I do 99% of the work to my vehicles and motorcycles myself and have most every tool needed.. I just installed a new clutch and trans in my mx5 a few weeks ago so the labor for most things would be done by myself.. I found a 1999 318ti with 46,000 garaged miles and am thinking about picking it up but need to go and test drive one back to back with even my Miata… I don't know!~ Thanks for all the input though!

[cali-ti]

i think it's myth that parts for a bmw are really expensive! i would guess parts for most japanese cars aren't cheap either. domestics are likely the cheapest, but considering you get to replace them more, i think it all evens out. doing the work yourself, i don't think a bmw will be any more expensive.

[halobeamin]

from what i hear, a 318TI is becoming hard to acquire to begin with..

when i bought my '97, i had a few neighbors ask me "where the hell did you get that?"

[halobeamin]

here are my rankings for all the cars, ill do the ones i'm familiar with:

car make (cost / reliability / feel) :

honda (7.5, 8, 5)
toyota (7, 9, 6)
bmw (6, 9, 10)
ford (8, 4, 5)
and last but not least, oh god, saturn (9, 2, 3)

haha

these are of cars i've driven, (family-owned)

[John W]

On average, parts cost more for my 91 Sentra than they do for my 97 318ti. BMW built a lot of 3 series cars and these cars have a long service life, so that keeps the demand for parts up and the prices down. They get expensive when you don't fix problems yourself. The dealership and many independent shops will rip you on repairs just because the car wears a Roundel. BMWs other than the 3 series are more complicated and often have some parts that are more expensive (they are sold in much fewer numbers), so that's probably where a lot of the high price stories come from.

Are they reliable? More reliable than VWs, Mercedes and most American cars. Less reliable than Toyotas and Hondas, IMHO. The 318ti (again IMHO) is among the best of the E36 cars for durability/reliability. It came later in the E36 production cycle (1995) and by that time a lot of the problems had been worked out. They also have less options than most of the other 3 series cars, so there is less to go wrong. They do have minor electrical annoyances (air bag lights, radio displays, power windows, etc.) and suspension bushings/ball joints don't last too long compared to other cars. Ten-plus year old BMWs are notorious for failing A/C compressors, so we are on the cusp now (due to their age) of finding out if this plagues ti's as well. Usually BMW compressors are big $$ to replace, which is even more annoying since the A/C doesn't work as well as it should to begin with. Like your Miata, with a little luck and careful maintenance you should be able to get over 200k miles out of it--probably without major engine work.

About MR2 Spyders: They (and Celicas sharing the same powerplant) have kind of developed a reputation for blowing engines. My friend's MR2 needed a rebuild (rod knock) after 65k miles. I have only heard about this happening with cars that are raced/autocrossed regularly.