My Beloved BMW 3 Series Has Become A Junker And It’s All My Fault

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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