BMW E30 | What To Expect, Common Problems, Required Maintence

[Music] [Music] oh [Music] if you're looking for uh an e30 is a daily what should you look for what are like major red flags major red flags if the owner doesn't daily it then it's not a daily because i mean the car can look cosmetically grey outside but once it comes down to like in the inside i mean it could be car there's some cars that just run like they look great outside but they just don't like yeah right yeah you gotta you know if you want it to be a daily you got to be prepared to throw some money at it because yeah everything's gonna fail like i mean if everything's all stock it's 30 years old things are going to go out definitely definitely nuts and bolts for us to know just got to be careful with these cars the main thing i've noticed is that like cars have owners every owner has specific things they want to do to that car so you want to make sure that the previous owner was someone that was doing maintenance preventative maintenance like maybe the subframe reinforcing it these cars aren't big on power but because they're so old uh they tend to crack in the subframe um sometimes even shock towers i've heard start getting bad so yeah and careful of course the ones the neglected ones that haven't been taken care of the rust has been let get to it those are the ones you have issues with and you know you said subframe reinforcing and stuff i mean it depends what you're using it for you know yeah you know if you're gonna go just daily it around you're gonna use rubber bushings that's fine but if you're gonna start you know throwing solid in there and go for you know something you can really abuse you know the more solid you mount it then you start having problems cracking some frames yeah right right most of everything is not gonna work right right what's my only complaint was that i was getting water in the back because of when i still was in the trunk so what was causing it was causing like a little short between the license plate light uh tail light one of them not both of them one tail light a license plate light and my uh cluster light so pretty much uh when it would rain and it took me a while to figure out what it was because i was just like what the heck maybe it's a short or maybe it's a fuse i kept burning a fuse and so my my cluster light would go out my tail light would go up my lifestyle it was until one day i opened it and had a little pool on the side not where the battery is but on the opposite side there's a little pool of water just drill a hole in the bottom well yeah but my ass is it's like three in the morning coming home from work so i'm like trying to figure out what the heck is going on and i finally see the little puddle oh that's probably it so i'm just throwing the water out with a water bottle right over there and i mean since then i haven't had any problems anymore i didn't drill a hole but what i did was i put a chamois super shammy huh so it hasn't okay it hasn't rained that hard not yet but the couple times that it rained in between i want to say may and june those two just chilling just before i left i'm just like okay put it back in yeah like a half inch hole in the bottom of each side the lowest point so when water gets in there you see i'd be willing to do that but my only problem with it is if i do that i'm scared i'm gonna either hit something like i don't know like a wire or something just doing that maybe like uh there's no wiring coming dude what about rust though um with the water no rust because i still have the liner i have everything in there and so with the water pretty much just like when you wash it because i when i would clean it like when there's water i'd make sure to clean it clean and make sure it was dry so even to the touch right and i mean i haven't had any rust and if i do have rest i'll just cut that out with a steel plate it's an easy spot to do you know just lift it or just start welding it right so uh when you're looking at these cars you know you're a first-time buyer you don't know you're scared everyone says that you're going to have heartache with this car what what what you got to look for what's a big red flag you want to totally avoid you know when you're looking at even like looking through craigslist and to see them say something what what stands out it has no title or it's been i mean non-op is different it has no title and they're trying to sell it to you that way i mean there's a reason why they haven't changed it or haven't fixed it i mean most of the time when you see that crap you just kind of want to steer clear from it if they're not willing to take care of the most basic things which is like the registration of your car how do you know they're doing the oil changes on time or even doing oil changes definitely i mean these cars can take a beating but just because they can take a beating doesn't mean they can do it forever 100 yeah like if you're if you're going to look at one to pick it up like look for look for signs of neglect like if you pop the hood and there's leaves and everything's dirty it doesn't look like anything's been touched you're just being prepared for like like you said the heartache it's you're one bubble one uh yeah if you want solo drive don't go into this is something you really gotta look for right right you know if it has if they can't even keep dirt and out of the engine bay then how like he'd like he said how well are they actually taking care of the car yeah another big one too would be you know steer clear from the dudes that are projects there's one thing when you run out of funds but when you when it's a project they're going to give it to you halfway done and if they got it halfway doesn't mean that that halfway was right so the big thing with these two is electrical problems you have some guys that take off the dash and oh just because they want to make it look nice they try to tuck wires and whatnot but in between tucking those wires when they put the dash back or putting parts back they start pinching stuff and i mean that's that's a project and it's up because you have to chase the wires you have to figure out where the short is we're just doing it wrong in general like half the time people install radios in these they don't really wire them correctly there's just extra clumps of wires stuffed in there that aren't used or things are connected in jp squads or nobody seems to connect it right definitely when these guys break down is there like usually a common issue like yeah a common issue yeah yeah well temperature yeah temperature the temperature just one thing after another yeah you'll fix one it'll be something completely different next time okay yeah for my for my mine it's different i'd say for a four cylinder because my oil pan is right dead on the on the center of it so any little low speed bump or debris in the road i mean yeah it's an oil pan it's the number one thing to go for these little four-cylinder guys especially other than that i would say probably say temperature and uh water cooling system yeah cooling system timing oh man timing if you don't buy a car that's got like okay there's a difference between the timing belt failing like from where they're just like you don't drive it or it exploding if that explodes at the timing belt they ran until like it literally popped you're gonna go in through your head pretty much you're gonna redo the top end who knows how the bottom end is boys and your timing belts huh yeah yeah yeah 100 issues that go out when you're riding or if you break down not you're running out of gas i would say it's mostly cooling oil pan cracking um sometimes you have those wiring issues that aaron's talking about but other than that the car is pretty pretty dependable if if you don't neglect it and you do the proper things to maintenance it it'll last it will last you a good a good mileage on that odometer proper maintenance will be pretty solid what's these cars love to be driven as soon as you let them sit they're going to get lights on the dash lights on the checkboard yeah so like all bmws they hate to be sitting i mean you get garage keep it and whatever but at least turn it on and let it idle to warming temperatures if you're gonna not drive it for a while right so like what what do you guys do on the monthly what's the basic maintenance that needs to be done gaskets i would say is the number one thing for me manifold gasket is just their little german tanks they just like to leak a little bit of oil from certain places no matter how much uh maintenance you put into them so i would just say common gaskets simple gasket changes um seals quality parts quality yeah you know the gasket you don't use quality stuff exactly they're not going to last very long i've experienced that myself you know i started out as a budget builder and i use cheap stuff and you know you said monthly maintenance i'm going back i'm doing everything all over again slowly a little bit right right yeah just because i cheated out the first time you got to go just the right way but you get what you pay for it really does apply and you know you don't really need to go with the high-end stuff i would say yes the quality stuff but sometimes some of the basic oem stuff that they recommend for these cars is just the way to go if you're excited about how cheap the part is it's probably not the right one that's the sport but yeah you can't go wrong with these cars i mean i was when i got lucky the guy i bought it from he was a real enthusiast so he gave me a rundown of what he needed and what he had done so it wasn't a total shot in the dark um sometimes i mean being a 30 year old car you got bushings going out and sometimes those bushings you know they could be a pain in the ass get taken care of so for example the diff those bushings if you don't get them done your car is going to start climbing and i mean that's just one of those things that it's not necessarily basic maintenance but because of the car's age you're going to start looking into so from bushings to gaskets to seals anything from motor mounts yeah anything right even including the window seals sometimes some of these cars didn't get those seals changed and i mean that's something to look into because those door seals cost about i think 200 bucks on each side you gotta remember when you pick up these cars though i don't think the previous owners really took the time and effort to address those issues and have that maintenance yeah you know because these these these uh parts haven't been changed out probably since so yeah yeah i mean since the previous owner check on the stamps on the glasses on the side i mean not the front windshield or the rear maybe but that's the the door ones if you check them they still have the original bmw stamp so i mean it just goes to show you the craftsmanship that went into these cars it's definitely a big change from say the e36 chassis and even to the e46 and the e-90 chassis i mean look at the cars that you can compare to an e-90 now and the same gaskets and the same bushings are going to probably need to be changed just because i mean that's just how it is newer bmws neat oil pan gaskets done i haven't even done mine yet yeah i need to but i haven't done mine yet yeah i've seen them come in for service while i'm doing other stuff yeah i think these these chassis alone especially our models our 830s if you if you find one that's like below 150 000 on it that guy never drive it usually i get chassis and these cars are 200 plus on them and they're just all opened up they run like champs so there's no reason they shouldn't last another 200 on top of that um especially in the california and california sunshine you know these cars are made to be driven in in in winter conditions i would say in europe in germany especially but you come out here and there's no reason that that odometer shouldn't crank over another 200. i'd say the only reason the only reason i need 30 that the odometer is low is because i feel like these cars are going to be driven no matter what even if you see grandfathers that are driving on the road they'll tell you that mileage and they're usually high but the only thing that's going to keep this mileage down is those uh the little gears in the cluster so they break and so after they break you're pretty much set mileage until you address come up with a number and that's your number exactly exactly when i bought this car the guy had said like oh on the chassis is roughly about i think he said 260. but he got the cluster rebuild and they set it at i think at 250. i don't think i ever wanted to reset my cluster i think it just landed rocking just stuck in time right there it rock if you turn the cluster forward it'll continue working with new gears but if you wind it back it's not break so it's like a trouble shooting oh if someone tries to like you over yeah you can't you can't do that with these cars so bmw is very uh specific about certain things so for example the 46s and even newer models i think it started with the 46 they had the tamper dot yeah after the tamper dot i mean most of the time they were meant to break because they were trying to avoid that type of you know grimy scummy type of maneuver i just jacked mine up and put it in reverse and try to you know yeah what's the gas mileage like i mean especially in the four cylinders it depends yeah if you want something realistic this one well for the most part uh this one i get about i want to say city 17 and and highway i get maybe like 25. i can really push it to even 40 if i don't step on it too much and the road's pretty flat give this the 318 uh no i have a 325 oh okay just the same that i think improved the the mileage or the gas mileage was the air filter uh the injectors i put were um i think what did it take 12 these take 12 right 12 pounds i believe the stock is 12. 12. so i have 14. i have 14. i have 14. 14 pound injectors in it i have the open filter my differential is a 373. so i get pretty my gas mileage i think just reflects on how i drive so if i stop on it i can get 15 on the lowest yeah maybe 10 but i mean on the freeway i'm pretty i'm i'm just chilling for sure all right well uh let's see so on a month you know we talk about the month monthly maintenance but besides the actual cost of these cars and the gas and insurance what is the like the maintenance cost mine varies per month yeah and i would like to say anywhere from nothing just gas maybe during the hot days if these engines do burn oil so maybe like 30 bucks for a big thing of oil just so you have it in there in the car but uh or even coolant because sometimes some cars stay leaky this one doesn't leak so i used to keep fluids when i wasn't sure yeah just to be safe when i was unbusy about it just to be safe but you know once you get to a certain point i think it just comes with the with with having these cars i mean i even have extra hoses in the trunk because i mean the fans uh sometimes these are on a belt so if a bearing starts going loose and then makes one of the hoses for the radiator you can pretty much change it there so if you have a thing of coolant and it's just a hose on the top you literally pop it off slap on the new one and i mean you're good to go so uh just it depends maintenance just it's a varies it can cost you a couple months like little to nothing and then you drop three grand yeah okay but monthly for me right now it's between like you said it's just from nothing to whatever i feel like putting into it well let's let's do let's say like say stuff that you might bring for example once you're learning the car pretty much like the distance of how low it is and and how much space you got um those bumps on the bottom when you park those little cinder block thingies that you can hit there's i've seen a couple buddies like break holes in their oil pan because of that so i guess what does that run usually like an oil pan yeah like m42 like 800 bucks at a good shop the m42 is a two-piece pan so the lower section that you break can be changed out those are like 80 bucks it's like 80 bucks the labor's like 120 is has 180 pan and that's the one that hasn't shipped on it later the m42 you can change the lower pan without anything it's completely separate yeah it looks like a brick oh okay oh i see it it's like it's that it's a batter yeah it's like a 20-minute job ah that's right on these ones it's on the six yeah it just depends it's how you drive it you know if you have money to spend drop a gear and crank that steering wheel man you want to jump here in the sphere yeah but if that check was short and you got a couple birthdays coming up and you don't want to spend any money you know just drive like a grandma and you're good

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Keywords: BMW E30, BMW, E30, BMW 318, BMW 325, bmw championship 2020, bmw i8, bmw m4, bmw e30 build, bmw e30 drift, bmw e30 m3, bmw e30 325i, bmw e30 318i, bmw e30 325i straight pipe, e30 m3, e30 325i, e30 318is, e30 325i straight pipe, 1989 bmw 325i, 1990 bmw 325i

Id: _0MBymULl1U

Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020