Oren writes:
Recently bought a 1995 BMW 318ti Active in beautiful condition for about $500. I was wondering if the car is worth spending money on to upkeep, the car has about 90,000 miles.
Sajeev answers:
Yeah, there’s no way I can answer a question so light on details. So indulge me: does this BMW have a service history? Do you know how to work on cars, or do you have a shop? Is the shop reasonable?
Oren replies:
Hi Sajeev, I do have a BMW shop locally run by a distant cousin and he seems decent enough but you know how things get when we’re talking about 16 yr old German engineering.
The car history is clean, I have minimal car knowledge that I’m looking to expand on through countless YouTube and book tutorials. Besides that … well … I just don’t know.
Sajeev answers:
This BMW sounds like a mistake. But it’s one of mistakes you’ll learn from and probably never regret, even if the end result is you selling the thing for scrap.
Send your queries to sajeev@thetruthaboutcars.com. Spare no details and ask for a speedy resolution if you’re in a hurry.
Where’s the mistake? Any car in beautiful condition for $500 sounds like a steal to me. Or are only the parts you can see in beautiful condition?
And you can rent a backhoe from your local equipment rental place for a weekend, should the bimmer need any body panels straightened.
I think the answer is to sell the car to me, get your money back and everybody goes home happy.
Do the minimum you need to make it road worthy. Say that costs $500 ?. Now you got a thousand in it. Try and get a thousand dollars worth of driving. Be carefull not to throw good money, after bad. Unless you have your heart set on owning 16 year old Bimmer these things can turn into a money pit very fast. At the end of the day,you still have a 16 year old car.
My advice..set yourself a budget,and don’t go over.
Or…..sell it to “MBella” or some other dude that knows and loves BMW’s
Hey, that’s my LeMons car! There were several things in that car more horrifying than that body repair.
Think of it as a 1995 1-series. Read wikipedia. Respectable car. Very.
If its not dumpster bait then its worthy of far more than running in Lemons.
Start reading the Roundel and BMW forums. Can get smart real quick if you try.
I say, nice price. Although that looks like some pretty bad smash damage out back.
Johnny, that pic is not a ti…the ti was the hatchback variant of the 3-series. Though roundly (Roundel, get it?) panned and a poor seller, I loved the car for it’s simplicity and came oh so close to buying one new when they came out to sit alongside my 1985 318i. Still see a fair number of ti’s roaming the streets…
Even if the history is clean, how was the car run? Does the clutch slip or the transmission grind when shifting gears and does the car really have only 90K miles, be honest here, $500 is extremely cheap for a GOOD running vehicle. My truck is worth MUCH more than that and it’s got twice the miles on it and is 3 years older than your BMW so something is somewhat odd here but then again, some cars just sell for super cheap in great condition.
That being said, educate yourself about German cars and this one in particular in so far as it’s model’s reliability and how it holds up over time. Educate yourself on it and repairing it when it needs it isn’t cheap either.
Good luck but next time, educate yourself on the car line itself if you plan on something like this again.
That video twigged some buried memories. I once helped a (near peniless) co-worker do a similar job to the front end of his then ancient VW 411 wagon. He (apparently) had a lapse in concentration (distraction) and had run it into a utility pole. The result had been a perhaps ‘V’ or ‘U’ shaped depression in the front bumper. We went at it with a scissor jack, wood blocks, and the 2 lb baby sledge. We got it straight enough to close and latch the hood and get the spare tire in the well. He drove it for a couple more years. I have seen it suggested that you can use a small hill or maybe some planks on the front steps to create an incline. You attach a chain, rope, or as in the video a nylon strap to the most pushed in part and let the car’s weight exert a steady pull. Then you go to work with the hammers and crowbars (torch anyone – stay away from the fuel, rubber plastic, etc.). But a backhoe, that is a new one for me.
I can’t see the mistake based on info we have.
Let your cousin check the car, if it really is as good as you’re saying you’ve done great deal, if not stop and think. Using some additional money is not necessarily bad thing as you have low base cost and after 1-2 grands it’s still OK purchase.
Or in worst case scenario at least you have cheap beater which looks good but has some ugly hidden problem.
Or sell it for 2k to someone like you.
More than likely, you’ll need to replace common wear items. Control arm balljoints and bushings, which are fairly easy to do, and possibly servicing the cooling system. Assuming working electronics, straight body and a well running powertrain, $500 for the car is a steal. Not sure how much you’re willing to spend getting the initial maintenance out of the way, but if it’s in as good a condition as you briefly described, I’d say it was worth keeping. I myself bought a 318is E30 (red, with sportline trim like the one in the video) a few months ago from a friend for 4x what you paid, and I thought I was getting a steal.
“Recently bought a 1995 BMW 318ti Active in beautiful condition for about $500. I was wondering if the car is worth spending money on to upkeep, the car has about 90,000 miles.”
This is one of the oddest questions I have ever heard.
Multi-part answer:
1. An automobile will transport you farther from home in a day than most of our ancestors traveled in their entire lives, at blinding speed, and in luxurious comfort.
2. A minimum wage job will net you $500 in about 3 weeks.
3. It’s hard to find working transportation for $500.
4. You already bought the car.
5. If you want to play, you have to pay. You will pay for the privilege of getting from place to place. It doesn’t matter if you pay Hyundai finance or your local junkyard, but it will cost you.
6. You already bought the car.
7. You already bought the car.
I 2nd part 4,6 & 7
The ti is a keeper. Parts are abundant, and the vehicle is easy to work on. Rock Auto is your friend.
They were some of the last fun RWD car. And with the 4 cylinder they are usually lighter than the faster ones, so can be quite fun on a winding road. But, the 4 cylinders require more upkeep (cam belt every other year etc.) Worth keeping driveable, and worth puttting some konis and grippy (not too big, remember unsprung weight)tires and a noisy exhaust and airfilter on. Strip everything that’s not necessary off it and sell. Have fun.
Are you sure there has ever been a BMW 4 cylinder with a timing belt? I can’t think of one off the top of my head, not the M10, #14 or the M42 in this 318ti. The BMWs that required a timing belt service were the M20 baby sixes, and the conservative service interval was 60K miles or 5 years, IIRC.
the m40 had one, but it may only have been in the 318 models, up until 1995. The ‘i’ and ‘is’ models may have used the m42 and/or m43 with the decent cam drive. which more or less means as much trouble free motoring as a BMW can deliver :)
edit:
(according to Wikipedia the m40 wasn’t available in the US, you lucky ba**ards ;)
A friend of mine paid about $500 for a 318ti automatic with laundry list of problems and crummy cosmetics. Its a great car now that he has fitted an M50 variant and a manual transmission. If this 318ti is really in beautiful condition, it is well bought and would be easy to flip for a 200% profit. 90K miles is nothing, unless it has an automatic. Our E36 automatic received its third GM transmission at 60K miles, and we retired it from daily use at 90K miles so avoid buying a forth.
Great buy! I’d pay more than that for a 318, no question. So long as it has a manual transmission you shouldn’t be afraid to spend money on the thing IMO, this isn’t a German car that is going to punish you with ridiculously complex maintenance tasks. Definitely read up on suspension builds on the forums (this takes 20 minutes), get some great tires with a reasonable sidewall, and enjoy the hell out of it until it’s totaled.
Just be thankful you didn’t end up with an impulse buy 7-series.
First e38 was impulse. 2nd was habit. 3rd was a mistake :p
The 318ti’s are fun, relatively cheap in the BMW world, and honest fun, as long as you don’t pretend you have a baby M3. One of the last, if not the last stripper BMW’s imported to the US. I know of one that is in good shape running pizzas to the campus by my apartment, and college pizza delivery is hell on the wheels. Check the brakes, replace the fluids (pay mind to the oil, good $$$ synthetic on high-milage engines and a new filter can be an overhaul in a can) and check the wear parts on the front and rear suspension.