These Are The Headaches That Might Force Me To Let Go Of My Beloved Cheap BMW

In the past, I’ve firmly believed that the right time to move on from a car is when you no longer love it. However, I still love my BMW 325i, so despite its recent round of annoyances, why am I thinking it might be time to move on? Well, part of it is due to the recent round of annoyances being extraordinarily annoying and mere leaks in the dam, and part of it might be that every so often, we all decide that we’re ready for new experiences. No shame in that, right?

I’ve previously detailed the somewhat unfortunate state of my beloved BMW 325i, and while some of the minor annoyances like a slight brake pulsation are side effects of a life left behind in manufacturer lots, I didn’t exactly buy the best example. It had a laundry list of previous owners, obvious damage, mismatched wheels, and several lights on the dashboard including an airbag light. One of the airbag codes was set by a crude homemade bong stuffed under the passenger seat, which means it’s probably a bad idea to drive this thing across the border. Over the past four-plus years, it’s been pretty good to me, but rust issues that were there from the start will prevent it from ever being truly nice, and despite efforts with the wire wheel, phosphoric acid, and specialized coatings, it’s still spread. However, it’s also developed some new maladies since the last update I wrote.

What do you do when you think you might have an exhaust leak but don’t immediately have the time to get under the car and check? That’s right, you smack that rev limiter like it’s picture day and see what happens. As it turns out, what happened in this case was the gasket between one of the exhaust manifolds and the mid-pipe blew out completely, and since the N52 uses one exhaust manifold per menage a trois of cylinders, the result sounded like the world’s angriest Geo Metro. YouTube-certified diagnostics, am I right?

Later on, crawling underneath the car revealed that the flange was also, to use an industry-standard technical term commonplace in shops from Nunavut to Nevada to Nottinghamshire, fucked. No doubt a result of many Ontario winters, because with a good set of engine and gearbox mounts, it’s pretty hard to make part of an exhaust flange just disappear. Alright, once the impending round of press car bookings was done, I’d just book it in at an exhaust shop, right? That’d be all fine and dandy, except I said seven words that no BMW owner should never say: “I dunno, my cooling system’s been fine.”

*Brrrring!*

Up on the little gauge cluster screen popped a charming little light, letting me know that indeed, something in my cooling system had shit its entire ass. Automatically assuming that my expansion tank had popped open like a can of terrible, terrible pre-made croissant dough, I popped the hood, only to find nothing immediately amiss. Figures. Oh, and in the weeks since, while repeatedly poking around with a torch, filling up the reservoir with distilled water and concentrate, and repeatedly trying to find the damn leak (seriously, I can’t bloody find it), the exhaust really started smelling like raw fuel at idle. Huh, that would explain the miss. Add in the possessed door locks, the litany of dubious stains, the fact that second gear doesn’t really exist in the cold, the weakening air-con, and oh yeah, the rust, and the objective value proposition of fixing the damn thing is really not great.

At first, I found myself trying to justify keeping this thing around. It still looks good if you ignore the damage on almost every panel and the rust and the dead insect in the gauge cluster and the dubious stains on the headliner, and it has a shockingly good sound system. Then came two realizations that changed everything.

The first is that BMW made — and I’m not kidding — 1.8 million of these E90 sedans, meaning if I ever want to buy another one, this time a top-of-market example, I can always just do that. The second is that a sports sedan is a great one-car solution, but one-car solutions are always compromised. You always end up giving up a little bit of lightness for a little extra luxury, a little bit of compactness for a little more practicality, a little bit of feel for a little more comfort. In the past, my criteria for car buying has always been whether or not it provides an experience. At this point, I’m not sure if having two cars that serve extremely similar purposes is that enticing, especially when one’s in far worse shape than the other.

The easy solution is to pull a Jason and buy some sort of large Toyota product. They’re great vehicles — robust, smooth, spacious, but there are two downsides. The first is that in Toronto at least, they’re theft magnets. The second is that everyone wants a used Toyota, so even if you make it up on the back-end if you keep it long enough, you’ll have to pay through the nose for one that isn’t rotten. Also, this is The Autopian. Sensible reasoning is for new car reviews, and little else. No, what I need is the complete opposite of a manual 2,800-pound sports car. What I need is a rolling isolation chamber with a reputation for absolutely cataclysmic reliability, something that can do everything my Boxster can’t.

Don’t worry — nothing’s set in stone yet, I still have the 325i, and I still haven’t quite found the right replacement to fit the bill. However, cogs are turning, and before winter sets in, I’m ready to avoid past mistakes while making entirely new ones. It’s gonna be great.

(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal)

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