Total Money Spent No Fixing Car Problems...

[Night_kid]

Hey im new to this board and bmw's ...dont know if this is the right place to post this, if i posted this in the wrong section sry :P ....anyway...im looking at buying this used 1992 318is(manuel trans.) and i've noticed that some have issues. i was wondering if you could post the total amount of money you've spent fixing problems on your e36 and miles it has cause i dont want to end up spending loads of money on fixes i cant afford... preferably the model im looking at but others are welcome...thx

[willis]

haha where would i begin, even after having my car for like 8 months ive probably spent over 3,000 dollars in repairs. though i do not regret a penny of the money ive put into this car. i cant even remember every little thing i've had to repair on the car, but the biggest problem ive had with the car is the heater core that was torn-it cost 1000 to get the part plus labor, which involved removing the dash and what not. you'll definitley face a few more problems which are more expensive to fix that a honda or a toyota, but its well worth it

oh my car is a 93 325is

[SpeedInfusion]

well. wats wrong with it, ive spent like 5-6 fixing my 1992 325is..list problems and i can tell u the rough costs

[Night_kid]

Originally posted by SpeedInfusion@Apr 12 2005, 01:35 AM
well. wats wrong with it, ive spent like 5-6 fixing my 1992 325is..list problems and i can tell u the rough costs

[snapback]330635[/snapback]

well nothings wrong with this bmw that i know of at least...but i was reading some faqs online and it just made it sound like its common for them to have problems. so i wanted see how much ppl are spending on fixin them on average before i buy this car....i guess what i was really trying to ask, is it common for older bmw's to have problems..this one has 132k miles btw and seems to run fine...and thx for the reply's

[thekid]

When I bought my car it cost about 1k to get it back to mechanically perfect condition. Since then, no major repairs have had to be done, just belts, tensioner, things like that. In the past year I've spent less then 2-3k on maintiance and upgrades (because several of the upgrades were done as maintiance, like struts ect.)

[aheath]

Depends on how good in shape the car is when you buy it. The advantages of buying through a dealership is that the maintenance of the car is normally updated before they put it out on the lot.

I bought my 96 328is with 34k miles for 15k. They spent about a $1,000 fixing things through out the car before they even sold it to me. I've had it for about 3 months, put on almost 2,800 miles. No problems so far.

[ridikuledind]

I seem to be spending alot of money lately on fixing my car, but now it has so many new parts on it...it's almost a brand new car and it seems to be a lot better then paying payments every month.

[rsn48]

This is not the best forum to ask your question as most here are "rabid" fans of the car. And to a rabid fan, what's throwing many thousands of dollars on a well designed car with prestige and excellent driving ability. Anything that can go wrong on the Bimmer you are contemplating can and will go wrong, even on the Japanese miracle cars. Every car, if kept going long enough (not the garaged cars of collectors) will go through a standard list of parts that are very predicable.

If you are like me and have to learn many of life's lessons the hard way, you'll realize that if you flush your rad every two years, you probably won't have a head gasket problem. If you flush your auto tranny every three years, the trans will last a long time.

The question for you is this: is the car meaningful enough in your life to be worth throwing a lot of money at it? For example, if you throw $10,000 at the car, you'll have a brand new looking car outside and inside, with many engine components replaced and new tires; is it worth it to you? At resale time, you probably won't get all the money you put into the car.

If you buy Japanese, you'll have the same concerns. I owned a 92 Mazda Protégé, which I really drove long and hard. In the end, I had to replace everything except the engine and the tranny. Some items were replaced a couple of times, like the rad.

You will have problems with any older car you purchase, until all the items that "wear" are replaced.

[Night_kid]

Well thx for the info guys and "rsn48" , what you said made alot sense so thx for your 2 cents...anywho i decided to buy the car, so now im a proud owner of a 92' 318is B)

[WarNox]

Originally posted by SpeedInfusion@Apr 12 2005, 12:35 AM
well. wats wrong with it, ive spent like 5-6 fixing my 1992 325is..list problems and i can tell u the rough costs

[snapback]330635[/snapback]

ok i have one 4 u...

to replace the seals on the sunroof? the stupid thing leaks nd its goin into the roof and if it rains long enough it starts dripping into the passenger seat (front left part of it).

let me give u my 2 cents 2...i bought a 93' 320i about a month ago (about 150miles on it) nd i had to replace the water pump, thremostat and things that go along with that ($450usd inc labour) oh nd the radiator got fixed in tht price too. now i have 2 fix tht sun roof as winter is coming, the heating doesnt work, i think those r the bigger things but i also need to get the two screws tht hold in the cluster nd replace the indicator light bulb inside the dashboard! so there u go, when thts all done ill have a perfect car...appart from tht i want fog lights and a few dents around it need to be fixed too

good luck non the less, i dnt regret buying my car btw!

[SILVERSTAR]

PROBLEMS hahahahahahahahahaha a
ask me,,, my first week 1000 dollars. my alternator broke down in my way to PA and i had to tow the car back and that shit is a lot of money compared to my ford probe. i paid 500 dollars + towing + 200 tune-up
then last week i noticed that a bunch of hoses in the bottom are leaking ," common probem" power steering so i changed all of them for around 300 w/ labor
so do the math.... it sucks but i love my car