You know that feeling when a car you love isn’t ready for the junkyard, but you aren’t entirely sure about its future? That’s how I feel about my BMW 3 Series right now. While it’s not experiencing any immediate mission-critical problems, they’ve largely piled up because I haven’t seen my 3 Series as much in the past four years as I’d have liked to, and it’s all my fault. Let me explain.
For most of the time I’ve owned my 3 Series, it’s been a leave-behind car, a peculiarity known primarily by Canadian journalists. See, most American writers get press cars delivered, but because Canada is a small market with a small spend, Canadian writers pick press cars up themselves. Now, when your car basically sits behind in press fleet lots for weeks on end, the window for working on it is small. As such, a bunch of little things have cropped up, mostly cosmetic, that have resulted in a slow war of attrition. First a trickle, then a flood, right?
The most obvious from the outside is a little bit of rust on the hood. Keep in mind, this 3 Series has done 287,000 kilometers (about 180K miles) and mostly been a city car, so the odd ding or scrape is to be expected. However, those small bubbles on the outside of the hood are mildly concerning, because rust is like an iceberg. What you can see dwarfs what you can’t.
Yeah, that’s not good. Admittedly, a hood isn’t a structural part, and not only did I notice a tiny bit of corrosion under there when I bought the car, I treated it fairly properly by scuffing the surface, decontaminating, and brushing on some POR-15. Yeah, that didn’t work so well, did it? I guess we’ll have to add a hood to the tally.
Speaking of corrosion, these bubbles coming out from under the door weatherstripping haven’t grown since I got the car, but they are still mildly irritating. This is one of the things I can just let go, because the door itself isn’t in perfect shape, so it is what it is. If it doesn’t seem to be getting worse and isn’t safety related, might as well leave it until last.
A more pressing concern is a slight vibration from the front left corner under braking. I know this is the front right corner in the picture above, but just imagine it flipped. I’ve had it up in the air and the ball joints and wheel bearing are fine, the bushings are acceptable, and the caliper sliders move freely, so it’s likely just that the discs just have high spots. Right, so let’s add discs and pads to the list, and throw in some end links while we’re in there because might as well.
Things get a little bit worse when you slide into the cockpit because this is where the steering wheel points while rolling dead-ahead. Yeah, the only place that was open for an alignment when I swapped the steering rack didn’t do the greatest job in the world. On the plus side, the tie rods are new, so adjustment shouldn’t be too much of a pain. I just need to find the time.
Rest your hand on the ZHP gear knob, and you’ll find a gearbox and shifter bushings that feel every bit of 18 years old. First is somewhere, second doesn’t always like to cooperate in colder temperatures, and there’s quite a bit of shifter play on center. The cold weather behavior is fully my doing, because fluid with a little more shock resistance helps in the summer. If you know, you know. A nice set of Teflon shifter bushings is only about $80, so that might be the move.
When I started this thing up after sitting for three weeks at a press lot, it definitely wasn’t happy. Ah, gnarly misfires at idle on cold start. Love that. Since they cleared up under even a slight load, my hunch says injectors. Thankfully, I have a spare set, so I might as well swap them out and see what happens. Speaking of engine-related annoyances, codes for the primary catalytic converters on both banks being “under efficiency” come and go. On the plus side, used manifolds with integrated cats are cheap due to people switching to headers, so it’s more a job that would take its toll on my knuckles rather than my wallet. Oh, and then there’s the fact that on the way home from Honda, it was very proud of having automatic start-stop. This is only a problem because it was never equipped with automatic start-stop. Hmm.
So far, no deal breakers. That changes when you slide underneath, because this thing is fine in the places it should be rusty and rusty in places where it should be fine. Jacking points, sills, and inner fenders? Pretty good! All the sheet metal around the fuel tank? Pretty ugly. It’s not crazy pitted or anything, but it is corrosion on a structural surface, and rust doesn’t sleep. Doing this properly would require dropping the differential and driveshaft, dropping the fuel tank, and going to town with the media blaster — a tool that I don’t have, and a job requiring permanent space that I can’t really spare. Oh, and then there’s the slight weep from the pinion seal, and the cheapest way of fixing that is likely replacing the whole pumpkin with a used unit. Fun, right?
At this point, with a low value vehicle, there are a handful of routes to take, the first of which is to try to go all-in fixing it up. It might not be in perfect condition, but it’s my perfect spec, and finding one with the same mix of options would prove tricky. My 325i still pulls sweetly to 7,000 rpm, corners with incredible confidence, communicates what’s about to happen back to me, and even gets solid freeway mileage. I absolutely adore this car. However, part of me wonders if re-doing the underside is even feasible in the near future, given my free time, lack of a home lift, and somewhat tumultuous garage situation. Paying someone to get everything right on the body may result in a five-figure bill, and that’s a lot of money to spend on what is essentially a $3,000 car. I won’t lie, I did this to myself. Between falling in love with a cheap example and the cycle of sub-optimal care that often comes with a car that’s away from home for weeks at a time, I can’t say that I didn’t warn myself. I guess I just didn’t expect to fall as madly in love with it as I am.
If I were to replace the 3 Series with something more practical and more useful through all four seasons, any incoming vehicle would be sure to attract attention from cyclists, pedestrians, and some of the more anti-SUV people at city hall. It would either be an L322 Range Rover or a Porsche Cayenne, and while those may sound like silly choices, they tick some damn good boxes.
The third option is to walk the line, firing the parts cannon at the little problems, hitting it with some lanolin oil underneath, and putting it back into winter service knowing that decay is inevitable. Sure, it will continue to rust, but short of a full strip-down and underbody respray, it’ll continue to rust regardless. So, what would you do with a rusty, high-mileage 3 Series and no promise of having spare garage space for the next year? Decisions, decisions.
(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal)
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E90 328i 6MT is PEAK CAR. With that said, I’ve never seen one with rust on it (yet), and I live in Michigan. Had it been previously painted? Restoring the body on that car would, imo, be prohibitively expensive. My recommendation would be to buy a newer E90 328i manual and swap over the parts that make yours special and sell your car off for $2k.
FWIW, my buddy just bought a 50k mile 328i 6MT M-Sport for $15.5k (plus the custom license plate PEAKCAR), so I’d consider that top of market. To properly restore the body, you’re going to end up being in it for $10k and it’ll still be vulnerable to future corrosion.
No idea on previous paintwork, but I have seen the seam sealer on the leading edge of the hood fail on a few examples. As for this one, it’s mostly just the underside that needs attention. If I ever find another 6MT Arctic Metallic sport pack RWD non-SULEV single hump car with Logic 7, I’ll probably jump on it, but finding a clean one in that spec is shockingly difficult.
Your friend got the bargain of the century! You can’t find a car anywhere near the level of fun, longevity, practicality, or reliability for that kind of money. ????
LOL. Hi Friend.
From my service advisor point of view, time to bail. Once you get into some of the needed repairs more problems will rear their ugly heads.Meh???? You BMW has reached the point of diminishing returns. Sell it for what you can, find another from a drier climate and Bimmer on ! Good Luck!
Replacing the whole diff is the easiest way to fix a pinion seal? What in the BMW is this?
I can’t relate to this problem at all. I have never had a car get worse during my ownership. I only buy entirely nonfunctional cars, and they only improve under my hands.
Getting sentimental about your vehicles will only lead to wrack and ruin.
I’m going to go light another bundle of 20’s on fire in hopes of fixing my Miata’s oil leak now.
Fix the mechanical stuff, and embrace the primer and touchup paint look until you find something better.
As long as you keep up with that and keep saturating the underbody with lanolin, you can delay the restoration almost indefinitely.
Either way, you’re keeping the money for the big jobs in your pocket until you know for sure.
Meet David.
David overestimates his free time to wrench on project junkers to the extent that GENERATIONS of wildlife have flourished in the shelter created by his neglect.
Don’t be a David.
Edit: This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
This is David.
David spends silly amounts of time and money wrenching on rusty s-boxes that should have been recycled years / decades ago.
Don’t be a David.
Edit: This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Hooptie heartbreak, I know it well. Promised myself the last car that I saved half an hour before the scrap guy showed up, and I put more work into than a reasonable person would, was my last.
Check your lug bolts with a torque wrench, sometimes it is improper torque causing braking vibration.
I hear you. Thankfully, I check lug torque along with a general suspension nut-and-bolt quarterly, and all seems to be in order there.
I agree, it’s your fault, but not for the reasons you’ve stated. It’s because you bought a BMW. 20 year old Japanese cars do not deteriorate like this. I continue to be amazed at how car people know this, yet they keep buying them.
I’d love to know where you’re sourcing your Japanese cars from. In my experience, European cars hold up the best to Canadian winters by far. My old G35 was far worse underneath and inside with 70,000 fewer kilometers, three fewer Canadian winters, and four fewer owners under its belt. And it was one of the nicer ones in the area.
I wasn’t necessarily referring to the rust, but my 1991 Miata has been through 20 years of Colorado winters with no hint of rust. Maybe not fair because despite the snow, it’s so dry here most of the time that things don’t rust.
I was more thinking about things like the fact that you’ve had to replace a steering rack on an 18 year old car with under 200,000 miles. That you’ve got a misfire on start. The sloppy shifter with teflon bushings is normal wear stuff, so I’ll allow that.
The miss on cold start is definitely odd, but it’s probably just the result of sitting around in press fleet lots so long that I really only fueled it up once every three months when it was exclusively on that duty. Funnily enough, we have two Japanese cars in the extended family that need new hydraulic steering racks, and one’s a 2014. My G35 needed one at 120,000 miles, but that’s just the way our roads and extreme temperature swings eat cars up.
Colorado winter != Canadian winter.
No kidding. My Accord currently has 280k miles on the steering rack, and all of the suspension actually. It has SUPER tight steering still.
We only started using Mag Chloride 7ish years ago, and even that mix is primarily beat juice if I’m remembering correctly. CO cars rust, but in the way that a GMT400 suburban can still be relatively rust free kinda way and the kick panels on a GMT800 are still okay. I lived in Nebraska for a few years and holy crap. I’ve never seen GM BOF trucks rust like that, even 2007+ eras has severe rust.
Thank goodness for the dry climate.
Does your local road department use salt? Where I live, the only NA Miatas without gaping rust holes are ones imported from a southern state.
Colorado uses magnesium chloride, which is way less corrosive. Our winters are also incredibly sunny; a mix of plowing, plow-deposited gravel, and sunlight tends to keep roads at lower elevations (below 7,000′) dry without salt interventions. My 1990 Miata is rust-free as a result, although keeping it parked on days that the roads really are snowy has obviously helped.
I feel like Japanese cars were specifically known for rotting away when I was a kid / teen. It’s why there are no 510’s on the east coast.
Or OG Toyota pickups. They all rotted at the bed seams, got turned into flatbeds and then, when the front fenders gave it up, they got sent to live with all the 510s, Coronas, Z cars and other Japanese stuff that rusts when you show it a picture of something wet.
Lot of ’00 Toyota Tundras, Tacomas, 4Runners, Land Cruisers, Sequoias, etc ended up in the scrapyard due to corrosion too. It’s an ongoing battle with my 2013 4Runner.
A co-worker in VT’s former (current at the time) husband (top that, mofos!) was pretty shocked when he went to trade in his Toyota pickup and got a buyback offer for almost his full purchase price because of the frame rot.
By my resume timeline that would have been before 2013 – but check. It could have been. VT was very salty back then before global warming (Lots of VT got 2’+ of snow in the last few days – not saying that means anything. We’re New Englanders. Every year is a whole new game weather-wise.
Yup, my cousin’s husband had his Taco bought back due to the frame.
I’m in Souther NE, I actually miss snow. We haven’t gotten much over the last few years, but they sure still salt like we do!
My extended fam used to farm in S NE. I went to college in the Tri Cities area. Holy crap some of the vehicles I saw… I’d never seen rust till I saw what yall deal with.
My personal anecdoteal experience is with German and Japanese cars as DD’s; VW and Toyota specifically
I drove VWs as.DDs for 22 years, in sucession 84′ GTI (4 yrs), 90′ GLI (6 yrs.), 98 Jetta TDI (12 yrs.)
Toyotas (04 Sienna have had it for 13 hrs. now) and 12 PHEV Prius (had it for 7 hrs now), both are daily drivers between my wife and I.
I try to do as much maintenance myself as I can and have since the 1st 84 GTI; of course I do use a trusted mechanic for big work I don’t want to handle like any AC work and I did have the Siennas Tbelt completed by my mechanic too.
In my experience w/22 years driving the 3 VWs, and now 13 elapsed years driving two Toyotas…
I quickly got in to a habit of having $1K per year set aside for maintenance/repairs which often but not always was used up each year. Common durable wear items like shocks, springs, brake shoes, pads, bushings etc… needed to be replaced approx. twice as often on the VWs as the same durable wear parts on the Toyotas.
With the VWs there was Always something that needed to be fixed each year vs. with the Toyotas, routine maintenance durable wear items have been replaced on schedule which only required 1x every Several years with many years in-between, for example the shocks/struts/springs were replaced on both Toyotas 2 years ago for the 1st time
Also for reference bf throwing in the towel on each vw….
I put 50k miles on the GTI (my mechanic estimated it had 260k miles bf I sold it
I put 120k miles on the GLI, it had 300k miles when I sold it to my vw mechanic for parts
I put 160k miles on the TDI before I sold it to a junk yard, it had just under 270k miles before I sold it
Oh and on the Toyotas…
The 04 Sienna, we’ve put about 125k miles of the current 226k miles on it
The 12 Prius, we’ve put 130k miles of the 228k miles on it
Nearly all miles for all vehicles, outsode of road trips, has been put on in the upper Midwest MN, WI, MI with some early years in IA and IN
I think I’d drive it for a few more years doing the least amount possible cosmetically, saving parts like your diff when you replace it, and start planning on turning it into a 24 hours of Lemons race car… But that’s just me.
The way I see it, it comes down to how much you love the car and how long you want to keep it.
If you don’t love it all that much and are thinking of replacing it, then just do minimal maintenance, let it get rusty and then dump it when something major breaks.
If you love the car and want to keep it indefinitely, then spend the money on getting the rust and everything else fixed. Yeah you may spend $5000+ doing it. But consider as well that you are delaying/avoiding having to buy a comparable newer car which will certainly cost far more than $5000… if you can find a comparable manual car like that at all.
Getting everything fixed will still cost less than car payments for a year on any new car.
Exactly. Love costs money. If you LOVE the car, you spend the money, make it as perfect as possible, and baby it. For me, I’d keep up on the wear items, treat what can be treated of the rust, and drive it until the wheels fall off. It’s a nice example of its kind, but not exactly rare or collector-grade.
I say keep it as a DD, replace bushings and whatever else you need to keep it safe to drive and reasonably reliable, and try to forget that the steel in every car you own (and everyone else’s too) is slowly trying to return to iron oxide. Thermodynamics will always win in the end. All you can do is slow it down.
That’s the thing, I absolutely adore it. I’m beginning to think the move is to just fix up the essentials, keep running it, swap all the bits I like into a California-sourced shell in a few years, then have that shell painted in the colour I want.
I’d bet your automotive connections could find you a fine California car…
I love junkers. As long as one of them runs. My ’86 quattro 4000cs was a blast!! Speed shifting a 120 hp motor and revving to red is a joyful experience. An added benefit is the garage lab where I invent new ways to keep them going. My RS5 is only half as fun.
The Audi 4000 and its VW Sister Quantum (I especially liked the utility and looks of the wagon) were both special engaging fun cars!
You have used this car. Pass it on. This is not worth the effort and cost to keep it alive. It is literally the most ghetto 3-series ever with its “I wish they were as premium as a Honda Accord’s” tail lights.
Sell it while it runs or go broke trying to keep a mediocre example of an unloved car alive only to eventually sell it for scrap value. You got 180k miles out of a 3-series. Slap yourself on the back. Also, get the F out before it’s too late.
Your definition of a Junker and my definition are pretty far apart. This would classify in the top 50% of cars I have daily driven. If you are just trying to justify a new ride, then fine. Otherwise, fix the brakes and get it aligned and be done with it. I would not throw money at it to get everything fixed.
You missed an option, buy a better condition version of the same car. Once you are familiar with the platform and know how much you like it replacing a car with the same thing in better nick is an underrated move if you ask me.
This pains me so much – because it could have been prevented.
Parking in a garage – or at least under a carport or a car cover – with frequent washings is essential to keeping your vehicle rust free. Leaving any car to rot in open lots is exactly the opposite thing for longevity.
If your 3 didn’t have the body damage from neglect- you’d be fixing the mechanical bits without a quibble.
Take proper care of your possessions and they’ll take care of you.
Did you not read the part where he has to leave it where the manufacturer is handing out press cars? Also, I have an outback that has been garaged its entire life and is still developing rust blisters on the hood. It happens. If you live with road salt, it’s guaranteed to happen – or at least start before 150k miles.
Yeah, my dad’s LX570 was bought new and spent its entire life garaged (and not being driven that much) but it was so rusted out underneath when we just got rid of it that it’ll probably only be good for the engine and interior. Road salt sucks.
Practical counterpoint, he could have gotten a ride or taxi/urber/lyft…
Yeah, but are you supposed to? It is bad form for an automotive journalist to show up in an Uber to pick up a press car? I feel like automakers are pretty big on personal vehicle ownership.
That’s a fair point, i.e. not wanting to rock the boat w/possible automakers expectations, since the auto makers are providing a pretty nice perk for the auto journalist, even if for the automakers it gets written off as a marketing expense.
If thats the case, that would be a perfect situation to purchase an inexpensive reliable shitbox dd that you don’t care about, like a 30 year old camry/accord/civic/corolla or Buick/chevy/Olds w/the 3800 etc…
As I’ve heard people w/911s say the best accessory (for a 911 or other nice car), is an inexpensive reliable shitbox….
I like lousy examples of good cars, so this car seems almost perfect to me (my idea of a perfect 3 Series would be 20% lousier than this car). It is nice to be able to enjoy a car without worrying about damaging it or lowering its value. If this were my car, I would do the bare minimum required to keep it in good mechanical condition and drive the hell out of it. Even cool cars end up in the scrap yard sooner or later. You may as well enjoy the car while you can.
Cars I’ve scraped after loving them for years: 1989 CRX 16i16 (7 years), 1992 MR2 GTi 16 (9 years), 1989 MX5 turbo (6 years, I made so many parts for this). Sometimes it’s just not worth fighting rust as well as everything else when the cost of that dwarfs the cost of buying a whole new car.
If I’d fixed the MR2 I’d never have had the money for my Elise. I sold that to fund my GT86 and Z4C (great two car garage with less overlap than you might think).
I’ve also scrapped 2 RX7s, a Nissan Silvia turbo, 2 mk1 MR2s, 2 E30 3-series, an E34 535i (that still hurts), an E36 323 Coupe and a mk3 MR2.
There’s some great cars there, but I’d never have owned any of them if I’d kept my second CRX on the road.
I’ve had my ZX7R for twenty years. It’s now got a bunch of miles on it and is worth nothing. I’m probably going to sell it this year, I don’t have space to keep it as an art installation. Sometimes you have to sell a dream thing to make room for the next dream thing.
So that’s where all the cool cars went……
At the time they weren’t cool, which I why I could afford them, and also why they weren’t worth saving. I feel terrible about it now, but a lot of them were disposable cars.
My good RX7 was 600 quid, and needed 900 quids worth of welding to get an MOT. It wasn’t worth it. That’d be a 12k+ car in the UK now. I wish I’d had space to store them.
The art of doing alignments is as dead as the dodo. None of these kids working in shops these days has any clue what they’re actually aligning- they just follow what the computer says.
It’s actually better to just do it yourself. It takes all day, and a lot of patience, but once you get it right it’s a very rewarding experience.
Rig up parallel string lines using jack stands or jugs of liquid. Place the string exactly 6″ from the rims and use a 1-foot ruler with a hole at 6″ to fine-tune. The hole lets you get a better read, just perfectly bisect it with the string.
Once you get it as close as you can in the garage, throw two wrenches in the car (for the tie rod and the locking nut) and go for a drive. Pull into a parking lot, tweak your tie rods by a quarter turn or so, and repeat. After a few tries, you’ll find the sweet spot.
I dread even taking in my simple solid axle Jeep for alignments. It’s not even the cost that’s annoying. They just usually get it wrong the first (or second) time, which requires me coming back and is a huge hassle. The steering wheel is always off kilter and it tracks worse than before I brought it in. Meh.
Yup, this is why I started doing it myself.
This. I figured out how to easily straighten the wheel and just started doing it myself. I owned it for like 12 years and only had it aligned once, twice max.
I have a shop that loves racing and will do custom alignments – or spend the time it takes to get a stock alignment right. If not for them, I would just ride around with a poor alignment because I am not spending a day doing this.
Note: the string method does not work if your car has a different track width front and rear.
Anyways, totally unrelated, guess how I found out my car has a different track width front and rear?
I usually just align it measuring from the center lug if the tread to the center lug on the other side. It is really fast and easy, and I’ve had very good results doing this.
Actually it does, you just divide the difference. It’s an old surveyor trick.
If you know the difference, you can do that. And I guess it wouldn’t have to be complicated to measure the difference, but it’s easier to just not.
A Google search does wonders.
My vote goes towards you getting a big honkin SUV just to tick off the cyclists and city hall.
But then the rest of us get our revenge by voting Liberal or NDP… both of which are in favour of a higher carbon tax… as well as raising other costs such as parking.
Hell yeah brother.
Is that a thing in Canda? I love to ride bikes, and I also drive a honkin’ SUV.
The main difference is that Canadian Escalade drivers say sorry after they purée you and your bicycle.
As a pickup truck driver, SUV driver, and owner of many bicycles, frig off with that dangerous bullshit. I can’t count the number of times needle dicks with a vehicular homicide fetish have tried to run me off the road.
The Toronto mayor is a cycling advocate, and has my full support.
All I said was go buy an SUV… nowhere did I suggest any dangerous behavior. Maybe you read kick instead of tick?
Well… If dangerous behaviour wasn’t implied, you’d better clarify what you meant by ‘tick off’…. Why else would a cyclist would be upset at a driver?
Idk people get ticked off at stupid stuff all the time! Look up “Tyre Extinguishers” a group in the UK slashing tires on SUVs and trucks purely because they believe the trucks are gas guzzling earth killers.
At this point it’s probably better to ignore the cosmetic stuff and focus on the mechanical if you want to keep it. Stuff like the hood can wait, the alignment cannot
Yeah, that’s more or less where I’m at. Funnily enough, it tracks dead-straight and a chalk pattern looks excellent, the steering wheel angle is just off in an annoying way.
Maybe pulling the steering wheel and just reinstalling it one spline further clockwise? You might get lucky. Uhh… of course, I’m assuming BMW uses simple splined steering columns like 50-year-old Fords. Apologies if they’re more sophisticated than that.
Yeah, one spline further on the rack’s input shaft might be the move.
I’m stationed out in Ottawa, so I know the pain of southern Ontario winters and the salt we generously spread.
I was in a similar position with my genesis coupe in 2018. I had to decide between about 4k worth of parts to fix up a car with 256k (I owned it since new), or just trade it.
I lifted the trunk carpet and saw nothing but orange in the spare tire well. Leaking tail lights saw the rust demon hit my trunk pretty hard. I think it was about 2 weeks before I’d traded it on an F150.
I miss that car, but the neglect built up over the years as yours has, and I decided to cut my losses.
My vote is either you fix the bare minimum to keep it rolling, or offload it. It’s not worth actual investment at this stage.
I know the pain. I recently waved goodbye to my E46 325XiT as it was towed away by the scrapper.
The big question is whether this car is your automotive soul-mate, or a long-term and joyous dalliance. Given what you wrote—and your job constantly exposing you to other mates—I tend to think the latter. Spend $3-5k now, and save the other $10-12k for whatever catches your fancy 5 years from now.
Well… it’s not going to improve with age. I think you’ve answered your own question. You just have to come to terms with it… Love hurts!