E90 M3 saloon buying advice please!
Discussion
Hello to knowledgeable sages and hope I can pick some brains on a couple of points to help us decide if an M3 will work for us 
having suffered massive scope creep in replacing the wife's aging A6 Avant 3.0 petrol (10 years old this year) we've gone from a £15k budget to £20k+ and I find myself putting a mental price cap on searches at about £30k at the moment lol
We definitely want a saloon as our son is nearly 4 and this would be a daily drive for my wife - the only coupe he's been in he was physically sick in! Keener on the DCT based on experience comparing saloon and flappy paddle S4s, which my wife didn't warm to. Also want a facelift (LCI?) for the improved idrive.
I'm pretty confident in assessing cars privately but as usual there seems to be very little difference in prices asked by dealers and private sellers. A quick WBAC suggests a trade value of £21-23k for a 2010 car I've seen and like a lot where the seller is asking £31k privately - no mention of warranty or service plan remaining so I'm assuming none. Local dealer has a slightly more lightly spec'd car but a 2011 for about the same money! Can anyone offer views on trade/private/retail values on the E90 in the current market? Just wondering if it's one of those cars with little margin in them and WBAC just low-ball or if the reality is that the top-end price cars just aren't selling? Munich Legends seem to have some reasonably sensible prices on their stock which is also making others look over-priced.
Anyone got recent trade in experience vs WBAC/private sale options in terms of working out realistic private sale values?
Am I right in thinking the Competition Pack wasn't offered on the saloon, or just rarely taken up?
As for practical issues - we can get away with running something like this as a daily because my wife's commute is silly-short (I'd bike it - and I mean pedal power, it's that short!) so aside from the fact it'll see more than the average cold start/short run use and need more regular oil changes as a result do the engines actually 'suffer' for this kind of use or are they perfectly fine with it? Her current car has had this for 6 years and aside from a gunked up breather system once, needing clearing out, it's been absolutely fine. It will get a proper run at least every 2-3 weeks to clear it out.
We were also considering the 335i saloon, but they're rarer than a rare thing in saloon form!
Thanks
Adrian
having suffered massive scope creep in replacing the wife's aging A6 Avant 3.0 petrol (10 years old this year) we've gone from a £15k budget to £20k+ and I find myself putting a mental price cap on searches at about £30k at the moment lol
We definitely want a saloon as our son is nearly 4 and this would be a daily drive for my wife - the only coupe he's been in he was physically sick in! Keener on the DCT based on experience comparing saloon and flappy paddle S4s, which my wife didn't warm to. Also want a facelift (LCI?) for the improved idrive.
I'm pretty confident in assessing cars privately but as usual there seems to be very little difference in prices asked by dealers and private sellers. A quick WBAC suggests a trade value of £21-23k for a 2010 car I've seen and like a lot where the seller is asking £31k privately - no mention of warranty or service plan remaining so I'm assuming none. Local dealer has a slightly more lightly spec'd car but a 2011 for about the same money! Can anyone offer views on trade/private/retail values on the E90 in the current market? Just wondering if it's one of those cars with little margin in them and WBAC just low-ball or if the reality is that the top-end price cars just aren't selling? Munich Legends seem to have some reasonably sensible prices on their stock which is also making others look over-priced.
Anyone got recent trade in experience vs WBAC/private sale options in terms of working out realistic private sale values?
Am I right in thinking the Competition Pack wasn't offered on the saloon, or just rarely taken up?
As for practical issues - we can get away with running something like this as a daily because my wife's commute is silly-short (I'd bike it - and I mean pedal power, it's that short!) so aside from the fact it'll see more than the average cold start/short run use and need more regular oil changes as a result do the engines actually 'suffer' for this kind of use or are they perfectly fine with it? Her current car has had this for 6 years and aside from a gunked up breather system once, needing clearing out, it's been absolutely fine. It will get a proper run at least every 2-3 weeks to clear it out.
We were also considering the 335i saloon, but they're rarer than a rare thing in saloon form!
Thanks
Adrian
The car you describe was available from around a 59 plate onwards. I guess you could pick up an AUC (thats the only way I'd buy one) for around £25K with sub 30K miles. There were no changes to the car from that point to the end of production (other than firmware updates) so buy on condition and history not age. My choice was also DCT. Excellent box, and I'm guessing ideal for your wife.
Personally I wouldn't put any weight on WBAC valuations. Their existence is based on buying cars under value.
Not happy with the regular starts, short journey scenario I'm afraid. If you take a look on M3 Cutters you will find multiple threads on battery discharge problems. My car see's little use during the week so gets hooked up to a CTEK on a regular basis. I personally avoid short runs simply from a engine ware perspective.
So far as I know you're right that the Comp Pack wasn't offered on the E90 but happy to be corrected. From what I can figure out the E90 accounted for less than 20% of UK E9x M3 sales so it's a rarer beast.
I've had mine for 2 years. It has been faultless. I would say it's the thinking man's M3 (unsurprisingly). Enjoy the hunt....
Personally I wouldn't put any weight on WBAC valuations. Their existence is based on buying cars under value.
Not happy with the regular starts, short journey scenario I'm afraid. If you take a look on M3 Cutters you will find multiple threads on battery discharge problems. My car see's little use during the week so gets hooked up to a CTEK on a regular basis. I personally avoid short runs simply from a engine ware perspective.
So far as I know you're right that the Comp Pack wasn't offered on the E90 but happy to be corrected. From what I can figure out the E90 accounted for less than 20% of UK E9x M3 sales so it's a rarer beast.
I've had mine for 2 years. It has been faultless. I would say it's the thinking man's M3 (unsurprisingly). Enjoy the hunt....
ndj said:
The car you describe was available from around a 59 plate onwards. I guess you could pick up an AUC (thats the only way I'd buy one) for around £25K with sub 30K miles. There were no changes to the car from that point to the end of production (other than firmware updates) so buy on condition and history not age. My choice was also DCT. Excellent box, and I'm guessing ideal for your wife.
Personally I wouldn't put any weight on WBAC valuations. Their existence is based on buying cars under value.
Not happy with the regular starts, short journey scenario I'm afraid. If you take a look on M3 Cutters you will find multiple threads on battery discharge problems. My car see's little use during the week so gets hooked up to a CTEK on a regular basis. I personally avoid short runs simply from a engine ware perspective.
So far as I know you're right that the Comp Pack wasn't offered on the E90 but happy to be corrected. From what I can figure out the E90 accounted for less than 20% of UK E9x M3 sales so it's a rarer beast.
I've had mine for 2 years. It has been faultless. I would say it's the thinking man's M3 (unsurprisingly). Enjoy the hunt....
Thanks for the reply - the example I've seen that I'm very fond of is a 60 plate so definitely in the 'right' era for the bits I'd like Personally I wouldn't put any weight on WBAC valuations. Their existence is based on buying cars under value.
Not happy with the regular starts, short journey scenario I'm afraid. If you take a look on M3 Cutters you will find multiple threads on battery discharge problems. My car see's little use during the week so gets hooked up to a CTEK on a regular basis. I personally avoid short runs simply from a engine ware perspective.
So far as I know you're right that the Comp Pack wasn't offered on the E90 but happy to be corrected. From what I can figure out the E90 accounted for less than 20% of UK E9x M3 sales so it's a rarer beast.
I've had mine for 2 years. It has been faultless. I would say it's the thinking man's M3 (unsurprisingly). Enjoy the hunt....
I have access to CAP and Glass's as well - looking at cars from different manufacturers that are ostensibly similar can be quite educational as some appear to offer the opportunity for a lot more dealer margin than others. I consider WBAC as basically the cheapest price anyone is going to offer, ever, to buy a car. Since they're now owned by BCA it's basically a cheap way for them to get some stock in to whack through the auction
and turn a quick profit on. On the S4s I've been looking at as well the gulf between WBAC and a sensible private sale is probably about £5k (also on a £25k example) so £12k gap on the M3 just looks odd, hence the query. Dealers seem to be offering examples from mid-20s but I'd be happier buying a nice privately owned example without being AUC which is newer/lower miles/better history that'd be £30k in a dealer.
Thanks for the heads up on battery issues - will have a read up on that. I'm not averse to fitting a new battery and at least with a 5 year warranty I won't be paying for a subsequent replacement if it's needed lol. Had to put 1 battery in the A6 in 6 years, but that did replace the original!
I recall a friend of ours who's Dad works for a local main dealer chain saying the saloon M3 was his favourite at the time, when he was running a succession as company cars.
The plan is to hopefully test drive one locally to see if my wife likes the drive - if so will put more effort into beating private sellers into sensible money territory!
Adrian
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