NotoriousREV

What are E30 M3's worth these days? I quite fancy one as an everyday car, is that a viable proposition? What are the running costs like and how fragile are they? And where do you find decent ones?

Colinj

seen them for about £5 - 7k on AT

Nice cars but not sure id have one!!

phelpsa

They are all LHD arent they? Which means overtaking can be tricky . The wet isnt their strong point, it isnt quite such a good looking car when its pointing the wrong direction at the 'ring looking straight at you because it tried to overtake and took a greasy corner to fast (I speak from experience).

Adam

New To Scoob

Anywhere from 4/5k for a rough one to 15K for one of the last EVO 3's

Personnaly love them and plan on getting my hands on one sometime, also doubt if you'll lose too much cash on one if any.

All WERE LHD but Birds done some official RHD conversions.
Handling is on par or better than most RWD cars, but would be a good idea to budget for a spruce up of the suspension.
Check out the BMW club GB web-site there is a dedicated bit for M cars, loads of good info there including the ongoing debate about the requirement or not to change the timing chain and tensioners at 100K

John.

fatscoobyfella

E30 M3 are a classic,but dont forget how old they are.
My friend recently bought a 91 215bhp version.The car overal looks very nice,but had non standard racing dynamics alloys fitted.
He paid £5300 for the car,
Since having it though,there is a long list which need doing,the car aint a banger by any stretch of the imagination but..

Timing chain tensioner was done along with top guide,chain still rattles though.
Rocker cover gasket
Exhaust manifold gasket
Steering rack developed a leak.
Oil pump front cover leaking,getting worse!!
Wheels hit arches on full lock,so new set needed
Screen has chips in.
Bodywork,although good has few bits allover
ABS light on.

So from being a cheap classic,he reckons it will be 8-8.5k when done,but he never really budgeted for that after he bought it.

The LHD bit doesnt really matter,you just reorientate yourself on the road,takes about a week.

HTH

Petem95

Was interesting to see 5th set some times on their track in an old E30 M3!

The lap time was pretty much on par with a 'warm hatch' you could buy today - ie. a mini cooper and even ford KA sport!!!

They were pretty shocked at how slow the lap times were - Tiff was really trying on the track from the look of it. They are really old cars now, and the new stuff has come on a long way.

V4JDMSTi

iTrader: (2)

that was a mates e30 m3 on 5th gear. shame about the lap time but despite tiff saying on the programme that he gave it and the lancia full beans he didn't. said it was because he didn't want to kill the tyres off as the 2 cars had to be driven home after filiming.

aaron paid about £4.5k for his but it stands him in at around £14k now. General servicing and preventative maintenance rather than repair.

the timing chain isn't the weak point so don't let that put you off. it's the tensioner. change it for an e36 one and it'll smooth out the idle and get rid of a bit of the rattle. for around £30 and an hours labour it's worth it.

the m3 keeps up with my scooby around the country lanes no problem and even stuck to the road when the scooby went broadside on a 90 degree right hander. if you get one buy some top quality tyres. if you want to know what it's like running an e30 m3 everyday i'll scan in the article from the mag that aaron's was in a few months back.


if you want one get one, you won't regret it. make sure you service it well and enjoy!!

rr_ww

As an owner, which I bought from a guy who owned a Scoob before. I would say they are "OK" but nothing amazing. I wouldn't buy another one, put it that way.

It took me over a year to find one I wanted to buy, they are "generally" reliable, but the parts are a) a nightmare to get and b) expensive compared to other 14 year old cars. Ive run mine for 18 months and probably 12K miles. And spent about 4-5K on maintenance on top of the £8,5 I paid for the car. You have to keep on top of the maintenance or it will get very expensive. Mine had a recon diff fitted by the previous owner, and Ive had the gearbox rebuilt when that started to knock. The absolute worst thing is the "M Power specialists" Not one of them (Ive tried 4 now) have done a job to my total satifaction, and Ive lost count of the number of times Ive been told "Well they all do that sir" Yes, I undestand these are old cars. But if I give you money to fix something I want it done RIGHT not 85%

I would say that people who don't know cars dont really knows what it is. Its fairly discrete, but the wings and spoiler give it away a bit. Most people just see a dirty H reg 3 series.

They can be a bit wayward in the slippery conditions, but on a dry summers day it can make you feel like Schumacher. Another pet hate is the engine chain rattle. Every car Ive seen does it, and its awful. Crawling through town with the window down makes me cringe, it sounds like its got no Oil in it.

Like I say, glad I owned one, and a good one too. But wouldn't buy another one. If you really want one, pay around 6K and try for one with 85-90K on the clock,as the previous owner will have had the fiancial heartache!

V4JDMSTi

iTrader: (2)

if you get one try bennetts bmw specialists in south woodham (essex, near chelmsford) they look after my mates one and they really know they're stuff. labour isn't overpriced either.

chippy17

I owned an M3 Cecotto for 4 years and replaced it with a MY99 UK wagon and whilst the wagon is a much better road car in many ways and certainly faster in a straight line at anything below about 100mph I miss my M3 soooooooooooooo much, I think you either get these cars or you don't. For me it remains one of the great cars OF ALL TIME, period. The engine is fantastic, the gearbox tough as old boots, the handling sublime, steering so talkative it makes the scooby seem like an Audi! But it is an acquired taste. They are very well built and very reliable, my car never failed me in 4 years. The only downside is running costs, I think between 1K-2K per year is about right. Some of what I spent was preventative maintenance, the flip side of these running costs is their depreciation is done, I spent a lot to keep her going but did not really lose any money.
Price wise, good ones are about £8k, frankly anything much below that and you will find yourself spending money on it initially. There are lots of specialists around some good and some not so good, the garage that looked after mine were superb, not one problem, although they were in London so labour rates were a bit nasty!!
IMO I really really want another and will buy another as soon as possible, cannot see myself not having one in the near future.

You see now I am having withdrawal symptoms from losing my M3 (even more galling was she was running a peak efficiency and with a new clutch when I was forced to sell) as you can see I am very upset still!!

chippy17

IMO this was not best example (no disrespect to the owner) it was down on power and was a very early example, I know of standard E30 325i's that have lapped that circuit in under 55secs, and Tiff did not thrash it like he would on a normal test, same goes for the 'grale
When I sold my M3 for example, it had 96k miles on it and was still showing 215bhp on the rollers and more torque than when it left the factory and this example was churning out approx 170/180 bhp

rr_ww

Heap of junk

NotoriousREV

Hmm, thanks for all the replies guys. On balance, I think to get a proper one would be out of my budget and it would best be kept as a second car.

Ah well, I'll have to think of another cheap-ish, fun car.

chippy17

very nice example, Evo 11 front spoiler and wheels but not an Evo 11?!

rr_ww

Standard 215 car, with the chin spoiler.

chippy17

v jealous, very nice

rr_ww

If you had to pay for it you wouldn't be

wilf

Last weeks autocar had an article on them. Reckoned you needed 9k for a starter and up to 15k for a decent one. Saying that was watching Mike Brewer on Men and Motors the other day and he reckoned upwards of 5k??

scoobyboy1

iTrader: (16)

My dad used to own one years ago when they 1st come out, I was only a young lad at the time and didnt think it was anything special until I get the old photos out, Left hand drive wasnt a problem as we were living in Germany at the time, But I do remember how excited my dad used to get when we was on the autobahns.

rr_ww

Well Autocar, like virtually every other magazine gets its information from www.munichlegends.co.uk They are an unusual company. Some of their opinions are wrong some are spot on. As it happens, my car was imported by them in 97 (I bought in 04) The cars they sell are normally very good, if a little on the steep side. Forget that Evo mag got a E36 GT for under 7, no public would ever get that.

And Mike Brewer knows nothing about anything.

I would say 7-10 will get you a good 2.3 and 11-14 a Sport Evo 2.5 (Not Evo 3 like some think ) Theres a hadful of UK spec cars, but there no reason to pay a premium for one of those, the main difference is they had wing repeaters fitted at sale.

falkster

I also own one and as Rich said they are not blistering but in my opinion they are a great handling car of their time and need a few bits tweaking which is what Ive done. Replaced the standard shocks with bilsteins and H+R spring, eibach anti roll bars and had the baby remapped with a 4 branch and miltek system. Goes much better and handles a treat.

I used it for 3 months after having it totalling restored and its now tucked away with its hot water bottle waiting for spring to come.

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/1...h0234hp.th.jpg


http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/9...h0249an.th.jpg


http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/9...h0261lc.th.jpg


Yeah you can get one for 5k but they are what you would call a money pit. A pretty good one would be 7k but really good later ones 9k upto 15k for sport evos

New To Scoob

Yeah yeah, I know the EVO 3's official designation was as a Sport EVO, just called it the EVO 3 as thats what most people seem to call them.

John.

mozzaITA

I missed that eppisode of 5th gear, what time did the E30 and the integrale do the lap time in?

chippy17

lol, I spent 4 years paying for one, so I know how you feel, IMO it is worth it but only if you love E30 M3s!! It does offset itself a little as the depreciation is not so bad...

chippy17

all very true, I went to Munich Legends initially when looking and tbh came away a bit dissappointed, thought they were over priced for the condition, bought privately and saved myself £2k and got a car in better nick.

I am gessing the two boys who own them on here are also members of the BMW Car Club forum as I sold my car to Eamo on there and he is one happy bunny!

chippy17

I have seen your car before, very nice

V4JDMSTi

iTrader: (2)

both 56.something. there was only about 0.25 secs in it. not the best lap times but they are both 20 years old.

i'd like to see nigel mansell take one round the top gear track!!

EVOVI

I had one for just over 2 years and it was a fantastic car..Only things to go wrong were just minor wear and tear items..I was lucky enough to have a UK car and it was a genuine EVO II...
They are not the quickest car anymore but they are great fun to drive..When I bought mine Performace car had one on a long term test and were still raving on about it despite it being over 10 years old.Just after I got mine though the country was flooded by cheap german imports and there value dropped,now for some reason there are not many for sale.I dont know why that is,maybe they have been written off or owners just keep hold of them who knows..As there are so few around now you have to pay a premium to get a decent one..
One thing to remember is they are German so they are built like tanks and after all these years they are probably screwed together better than any Jap crap...

rb5_336

i needed to own one before i died..so i did



people are correct with the maintennce costs, quiete high, so now I have a CTR and it costs me peanuts to run

V4JDMSTi

iTrader: (2)

sport evo. mmmmmmm drool, dribble, drool.