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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Lincoln Town Car.
My 2008 328xi 6-speed was perfect the day I bought it for $6,000 from a BMW dealer in Mississauga other than a check engine light. Day 2 of owning it, I went to replace a faulty sensor and the car wouldn’t start. Dead starter, which was total pain in the ass to replace. A few months later, the steering rack started leaking badly enough I had to have it rebuilt. The valve covers leaked like sieves, that job was a nightmare too.
It was a fun car to drive but so fragile.
Yes! BMW’s are very fun to drive when everything is working….also the exact moment you should sell it on Marketplace before next problem pops up, clock is ticking.
My wife’s used E46 convertible blew it’s expansion tank the 1st week we owned it while sitting in the drive thru (Root problem was actually the intermittently functioning cooling fans). I was never so glad to get rid of a car. My wife still misses it.
Join the Borg and get a used Bolt. They have practically new batteries, have the value of a used Kleenex because they’re a small GM car and there’s little to go wrong.
“What I need is a rolling isolation chamber with a reputation for absolutely cataclysmic reliability, something that can do everything my Boxster can’t.”
how about an old Range Rover?
I was thinking a Jaguar would meet the criteria, but a Range Rover is better suited to the Canadian environment and has more things to go wrong for content.
Does anyone here ever buy a new Audi, BMW or Mercedes? If not, I’m in the wrong neighborhood.
I think I know a guy selling a BMW i3. California car, new battery. “Screaming deal,” according to some.
If only you had connections to a never rust state, qualified spotters, and a transport co.
And to make sure it remains in California-esque condition, the inside track on some sweet PPF would be a plus.
“ What I need is a rolling isolation chamber with a reputation for absolutely cataclysmic reliability, something that can do everything my Boxster can’t.”
You rang, sir?
-W8 Phaeton
Current E34 and former E39 owner here. When a BMW wants to die, no amount of time and money can convince it otherwise.
You need a Lexus……hard to believe how far things have rusted – fasteners completely melted away. Jeez louise……
Is the cost to repair more than the cost to replace?
That’s when it’s time to replace.
On any BMW, Merc, or Audi, the cost to repair exceeds the cost to replace very, very early.
Not so – not when it’s maintained consistently.
Sure maintenance is costly for my 15 year old Mercedes-Benz – I generally budget $2500/year. Some years are lower – some higher.
But it’s better than shelling out $25-30K for a pre-owned replacement.
Ok $2,500 is a lot more than the 50 bucks per year some cars get. Very rapidly converges with the depreciated value.
Sure – my car is worth less than $10K. That’s German Luxury Depreciation – which is how I purchased it CPO for 40% off MSRP when it was 4 years old.
But replacing it is a worse deal – as a newer Mercedes-Benz will still require an average of $2500/year in maintenance.
That’s why I garage it, maintain it and keep it as clean as possible – to keep it lasting as long as possible despite its 120K miles. It definitely has some surface blemishes after all these years – but it still drives as well as it did when it was almost new 90K miles ago.
I’m glad you got a couple-year old one, that was smart.
It sounds like you really love the 325i, otherwise, you’d have gotten rid of it long ago. I think you should sell yours and buy one that’s in great shape. The cost to swap shouldn’t be that much and your mechanical issues will be solved for awhile. I’ve never owned a BMW, but one of my best friends loves them. He’s told me, many times, that as soon as they start having problems, you’ve got to get rid of them or they’ll break you.
Given the issues, and the cosmetic condition of the car, you might want to consider moving on. Even if you do a bunch of mechanical work to it, it’s going to look the same, and you’ll still be fighting rust that has already set in. If you had a sentimental attachment to the car I’d say keep it and fix it. But as you said, they made a shitload of these. If you spend a little more money up front, you can get one that’s been taken care of. It’ll have issues too, of course, but rust won’t be one of them, nor will general neglect and lack of preventative maintenance, and you’ll feel better about putting additional money into something that looks as nice as it drives.
Yes, buy a Toyota. No, do not buy it in Toronto. A couple of days in Memphis or Nashville will pay off with a completely rust-free used-car purchase.
I guess the only problem is if Canadia won’t let you bring it in.
You can. The Registrar of Imported Vehicles just really ramps up the pain in the ass value.
Obviously the answer is an Econoline boogie van.
Eh, just pull the motor. Then it’s easy to replace every. .single. coolant hose. And, that manifold gasket will also be quite accessible.
Not that I’m recommending this process, mind: the ancillary, ‘while I’m in there’ costs mount quickly
For real though, it definitely needs an engine out service, one of the reasons why I got rid of my last BMW
I just did it on an E36/37, which convinced me I physically can’t afford a newer model. I went through a 50-count bottle of Advil in just weeks!
Coolant hoses are not much of an issue in E9Xs, unlike E36/E46s. The exception is the small one from the reservoir to the radiator, and even then, the hose nipple breaking off the radiator is more common than the hose itself failing. The reservoirs rarely fail. Radiators will wear out and leak from the end tanks like every other composite aluminum/plastic radiator on the planet, but they last a LONG time and at least for N52s, are cheap. N51s have the stupid “environment sensor” and are a LOT more money to replace properly, though there are ways to half-ass it. The common cooling system issue in these cars is the electric waterpump and electronic thermostat, but the chances of a 325i still having the original short-lived ones are about zero.
I have a pair of this generation, an e91 and an e88, they are very stout cars with a few very well-known “they all do thats”. But one of mine has literally never seen salt, and the other only for the first two winters of it’s life and never since. This example has just spent too much time in the salt and too much neglect to want to deal with getting it back up to snuff. Shouldn’t have been allowed to get in this state to start with.
The Mickey Mouse flange is also a common failure point.
Not as common as the trifecta of oil leaks, but it certainly happens. I replaced both of mine with the aluminum version pre-emptively. At this point, given how well known the various issues are, not dealing with them BEFORE they happen is just being either stupid or cheap. And that flange is what $15?
But compared to the cooling system issues of the previous two generations of 3-series, the e8x/e9x really don’t have any. The e36 and e46 really were THAT bad given replacing literally every plastic bit that coolant touches every 80-100K was SOP on those cars.
Well I have an E46 and have replaced the entire cooling system, so I’m there with you. I’ve also replaced the entire cooling system on my N52 equipped E83. That was a lot more expensive and time consuming that on the E46, but the components do tend to last longer, with the exception of the water pump.
The previous owner attempted to replace the Mickey Mouse flange on my E83 with the aluminum one, but didn’t check to make sure the old o-ring was out of the block and shoved it in there with two o-rings. It was leaking like crazy. My poor E83 was very mistreated before it came into my loving arms.
Other than the water pump, routinely replacing hoses and other components on these cars just isn’t a thing. Even that flange is a 10++ year part. I’ve owned my wagon from new and my e88 for five years and am very active on the forums – it’s just plain unusual to have to replace “the whole cooling system”.
Of course, now that the oldest of these cars are pushing 20 in the US, anything is fair game, but on e36s and e46s people were doing that on *5* year old cars with relatively low miles – the plastic parts were just epic junk on them. And abuse is abuse, I guess if you NEVER replace the coolant things aren’t going to last the length of time they should.
I must disagree, although I suspect this may have more to do with the model of BMW and the way in which they are used. On the E83 forum, whole cooling system replacements are somewhat frequent. However, my E83 is 17 years old, had 202,000 miles on it when I got it, and was neglected and abused for many years. Those common oil leaks did a number on a lot of the lower coolant hoses. Radiators with plastic end tanks are due for replacement with such high mileage imho, I had to remove my intake manifold anyway so I figured I’d replace the heater hoses, I had to do the water pump and thermostat since I had no idea when, if ever, they were last replaced, etc.
So in summary I’d say that every cooling system will eventually need an overhaul. However, the N52 definitely does not need an overhaul nearly as frequently as the M52/M54 cooling systems.
There’s also the Mercedes solution: Double-down and buy something that’s even more of a handful. Maybe an 850i or a 750iL?
your issues are very similar to why, just this year and after 11.5 years and 130,000 miles, I sold my 328 6-speed manual wagon and replaced it with almost the opposite – a 2021 M550 – where I anticipate in a few years my headaches will be even worse but g-damn that twin-turbo V8 is so much fun.
Buying a used BMW is masochism at its finest.
Preach!
[facepalm emoji]
Hey, I’d join the self-flagellation crew myself if a 5 Series wagon showed up on the hella cheap…not gonna lie…pain and pleasure rolled into 2 tons of gorgeous wagon glory…
…and by hella cheap, I mean no more than $2000 so I’d have the money to fix it immediately after purchase.
I have exactly that, 06 530 6sp. But, $7k. These are particularly rare. Even with the issues it has.
Yeah, sadly, I’m aware of the cost…le sigh.
Wasn’t Mercedes’ BMW wagon right in that price range? It didn’t last long and there was a little bit of rust, but maybe she can put you in touch with the buyer so you can pick it up when they’re ready to trade.
Yup, but the one thing that really can’t be fixed, only glossed over, is rust, especially on load-bearing structures. Look, willing to spend money, but not for THAT…I know, my dreams are never going to come true, but not all dreams do. 😉
Preach brother. I’m in the church of the E46 M3
I wouldn’t say an E90 is worse than its competitors to live with (unless it’s a 320si that’s somehow still working) It’s not that difficult to DIY on and as they sold so many parts are easy to get and not expensive.
Depends on the BMW.
I bought my ’11 328i wagon new. To date my sole out-of-pocket repair in 13 years is a new battery. I also have an ’11 128i convertible that I have owned for five years that I bought used obviously. My out-of-pocket repairs on that have been, er, none in that five years. That car has had the three “typical” N51/N52 oil leaks repaired before I bought it – I blame the fact that it was a Texas car living in that sun-baked hellscape. Just routine maintenance on both cars, with a bit of preventative maintenance thrown in for things that COULD be an issue. And I replaced a sun-damaged radio antenna and sidemarkers on the 128i. Stay the f away from any BMW with a V-anything engine, an S-anything engine, or an early twin-turbo and they are quite reasonable to run. The fewer doodads to break the better, so give 6s and 7s wide berth too. The closer the car is in spec to an e30 the happier your ownership experience will be.
Mine are relatively low-mileage cars, but as with any used car, buy the absolute best one you can if you don’t want surprises. You can pay up front or you can pay in installments. When I bought my 128i, it was the second most expensive one for sale in the country – and I didn’t buy the MOST expensive one only because I called on it five minutes after it already sold (and probably dodged a bullet as it was a 135i, but I would have embraced the pain as it was stunning and fully loaded).Mine was absolutely mint with full dealer service history, and being sold by a BMW dealer. Rare for a then nine year old car. Still is mint five years and 25K miles later.
I love the depiction of the coolant system malfunction light!
I know BMW isn’t exactly what it used to be, but at least there’s bits n pieces of the old ultimate driving machine – a enthusiast would immediately understand what system that light is referencing.
Time for a reverse Shitbox Showdown!! Let’s all go find something we think TH should buy!! Let’s assume he can spend at least a couple grand over what he could sell his current ride for.
So, what? Eight grand? Make it a nice, even ten, how about that? I’m gonna rule that it does NOT have to be in Canada, but if it ain’t, it must be priced accordingly to get it there.
GO!!!
I’m already violating my rules, but I saw this. If he doesn’t buy it immediately, we should all disown him.
https://www.facebook.com/share/B7eeD4FzWK5bJBKy/?mibextid=kL3p88
That’s incredible! I thought they all rusted away! A family member had one and brought it to me Dad to fix.
Every weekend.
6 year old me learned so many bad, bad word that way!
So awesome. I’ll be happy to pick it up. I’m in Arlington. Nebraska plates on a Montana original, now in Texas.
That is gorgeous. Not quite going to fit the “isolation chamber” criteria, but hey.
But you could drive it far away from everything, and then the world is your isolation chamber!
In Canada, you say?
https://nanaimo.craigslist.org/cto/d/salt-spring-island-1980-citroen-cx/7773988607.html
Ooooooo….
For reference sake, Salt Spring Island is roughly 2700 miles from Toronto. Toronto to Miami is about half the distance.
True, but the ferry ride from Tsawwassen is nice.
Departure Bay is nicer, but you have to go through all of Vancouver, which sort of sucks. You can choose either one from Nanaimo. Never mind Salt Spring itself, which is another ferry, and the escape place for old money millionaires and rich hippies.
I’ve never tried the ferry out of Horseshoe Bay as it’s a bit less convenient from Seattle because of, as you noted, all of Vancouver. I like the passage between Galiano Island and Mayne Island on the Tsawwassen routes anyway, as it feels like the ferry is ponderously running a slow-motion slalom.
Anacortes to Sidney was great from Seattle too. Damn pandemic!
It’s gorgeous! If I wasn’t looking for a daily, I absolutely would. I’d just feel so bad subjecting that to Toronto winters.
I skimmed it, but it sounds like your solution is a land yacht. Maybe an LS430.
Having sat in TO traffic leaving Oblivion, I was very comfortable in my w126.
It really does seem like he has a Lexus on the brain, with the caveat that some people around here have much different definitions of reliability than I do:
The reliability is why I suggested the LS430. The LS400 is getting real old now, so it has old car problems. Like my diesel w126, the drivetrain is solid, but other stuff will stop working due to age.
The LS430 is newer, and I heard the 460 that followed had less than stellar reliability.
The good news is you’ll always have writing material if you keep the car. The bad news is well known- you always pay twice to own a BMW. Once when you buy it, and again in maintenance and repairs. But they generally are fantastic to drive.
This immediately came to mind:
https://i.redd.it/7xble5wd2gl91.jpg
I’ve found that the time to let go of a car has always been when the overall pain of owning the car exceeds the overall love. 51% love to 49% pain, she’s a keeper. but tip that the other way, there’s only two options. Take her off the road and put in all the time and money and effort (and pain) to tip that scale back, or walk away.