It's the worst nightmare for anybody hoping to run an old car on a shoestring: you hop in, turn the key in the ignition, and get nothing but a cough and a click.
After several trouble-free weeks of almost eerie reliability, it threatened to take the shine off the ownership experience of my endearingly shabby P-plate 328i Touring, a former SOTW star where I'd actually put money where my online mouth was, and gone and bought.
It looked like a severely dead battery - the way the electrics weren't working was the clue there - that wasn't giving the starter motor enough juice to engage properly. At least, that's what I desperately hoped it was. But a jump-start attempt using the ever-dependable PH Fleet Landie (the under front seat battery position on the Defender and the rear-mounted job on the BMW made for some interesting manoeuvring) muddied the waters somewhat when it failed to breathe life into the 328.
328i cuts a sleek figure compared with PH Landie
Fortunately salvation came in the form of Steve from National Rescue. Apart from being the world's most polite chap ( he could not have shoehorned in more 'sirs' into his sentences if he'd been an Edwardian butler), he diagnosed a flat battery immediately, whacked a heavy-duty charging pack on and had us on our way before you could say 'your car's ready, sir'.
Better still, he had the very same car himself and spent a good five minutes enthusiastically telling me how brilliant E36 Tourings are. He departed leaving me with a working car and a nicely massaged ego - rarely has an encounter with a breakdown service gone so well.
My car now has a brand new battery, the diagnosis from battery specialists CPC being that I was lucky the old one (which, oddly, was intended for a VW) had lasted so long, and has worked flawlessly since (touch wood).
Provided you remember to pump up the front nearside tyre every 10 days or so (the alloy is slightly mis shapen, presumably a legacy of an encounter with a kerb), my Boston Green Bee-em is so far proving to be a fine companion.
It provides comfortable, almost wafty performance in town, some proper fun of the sort that Garlick and his wobbly old Merc W124 can only dream of when you hit an empty country road, and it'll manage comfortably more than 30mpg even on a moderately brisk motorway run.
Peeling lacquer seems to be spreading...
It is, in short, bloody lovely and for 870 quid I can forgive it its dents and scratches, Although I plan to do something about the spots of peeling lacquer and intend to get the rear doors replaced for some less crumpled items.
Next up, however, is the MOT and, although a spot of research confirms that the stuck rear door will not constitute a failure, I'm still as nervous as I would be if I was taking an exam myself. Wish us luck...