1999 BMW 318i Family Wagon
Discussion
Afternoon,
My Fiancé finally passed her driving test a couple of weeks ago (at the grand old age of 30!), which means I can finally get rid of the horrible Mini Clubman I bought for her to learn in. We needed to replace it with something a bit bigger so we could fit all my Daughters stuff (pram etc) without having to use the back seat as well. We had almost made the decision to buy a new Skoda Yeti but couldn't justify paying out nearly £300 a month in finance payments. We are getting married next year so all our money is going towards that. I then suggested maybe we should just get ourselves something a little older to knock about in for the next year or so until we can afford something a bit nicer. She agreed that was a good idea so I started looking around at what we could get for as little as possible! I eventually narrowed it down to either an E36 or E46 Touring. Not too big that she will be nervous driving it but big enough for what we need. I have spent the last week or so looking at cars and very quickly realised that most E46's seem to be in a right state! I was also struggling to find many E36's that weren't absolutely rotten but lo and behold last Friday I spotted a nice looking 1999 323i Touring on eBay. I rang the seller to ask a bit about it and he assured me that apart from the rusty tailgate the car was in very good condition and although it had done 150,000 miles it drove almost perfectly. So on Saturday after work I made the 2 hour drive to go and view the car. It was in a right state! The tailgate was very rusty just as described, the bottoms of the doors were rotten, the rear arches were rotten, there was rust bubbling up around the windscreen, the bonnet had been resprayed badly and the top of one of the doors had also been resprayed badly and had lots of over spray on surrounding panels. As I had driven all that way I figured I may as well drive it and I must admit it drove very nicely, but unfortunately the state of the bodywork had put me right off! So that was a 200 mile round trip wasted
Fast forward to yesterday and I was scouring eBay whilst at work and came across a nice looking 1999 318i Touring. Advertised as only having 91,000 miles on the clock and it looked very clean and tidy from the pictures provided. I rang the seller and he seemed very enthusiastic about the car and was quite happy to chat away about it over the phone. I arranged to go and look at it after work last night and managed to rope my Brother into coming with me (and driving
). When we arrived I was very impressed! The car was exactly as described as was in excellent condition! I took it out for a drive and it was nice and smooth (if a little sluggish), and drove as well as some much newer cars I have owned. Needless to say I would of preferred at least a 320i but seeing as I almost never drive that car anyway I figured it will be fine for Becky to drive day to day. We had a bit of a chat about the price and finally settled on £800 including the 6 months road tax he had just bought. Annoyingly I didn't quite have enough cash on me so I am going back this evening to collect the car. It needs a couple of little bits sorting on it (new drivers side window reg and a couple of scratches on the doors where someone has keyed it) but apart from that its spot on!
Here are some pics from the eBay advert. I will take some better ones once I have the car.
Cheers,,
Sammo
My Fiancé finally passed her driving test a couple of weeks ago (at the grand old age of 30!), which means I can finally get rid of the horrible Mini Clubman I bought for her to learn in. We needed to replace it with something a bit bigger so we could fit all my Daughters stuff (pram etc) without having to use the back seat as well. We had almost made the decision to buy a new Skoda Yeti but couldn't justify paying out nearly £300 a month in finance payments. We are getting married next year so all our money is going towards that. I then suggested maybe we should just get ourselves something a little older to knock about in for the next year or so until we can afford something a bit nicer. She agreed that was a good idea so I started looking around at what we could get for as little as possible! I eventually narrowed it down to either an E36 or E46 Touring. Not too big that she will be nervous driving it but big enough for what we need. I have spent the last week or so looking at cars and very quickly realised that most E46's seem to be in a right state! I was also struggling to find many E36's that weren't absolutely rotten but lo and behold last Friday I spotted a nice looking 1999 323i Touring on eBay. I rang the seller to ask a bit about it and he assured me that apart from the rusty tailgate the car was in very good condition and although it had done 150,000 miles it drove almost perfectly. So on Saturday after work I made the 2 hour drive to go and view the car. It was in a right state! The tailgate was very rusty just as described, the bottoms of the doors were rotten, the rear arches were rotten, there was rust bubbling up around the windscreen, the bonnet had been resprayed badly and the top of one of the doors had also been resprayed badly and had lots of over spray on surrounding panels. As I had driven all that way I figured I may as well drive it and I must admit it drove very nicely, but unfortunately the state of the bodywork had put me right off! So that was a 200 mile round trip wasted
Fast forward to yesterday and I was scouring eBay whilst at work and came across a nice looking 1999 318i Touring. Advertised as only having 91,000 miles on the clock and it looked very clean and tidy from the pictures provided. I rang the seller and he seemed very enthusiastic about the car and was quite happy to chat away about it over the phone. I arranged to go and look at it after work last night and managed to rope my Brother into coming with me (and driving
). When we arrived I was very impressed! The car was exactly as described as was in excellent condition! I took it out for a drive and it was nice and smooth (if a little sluggish), and drove as well as some much newer cars I have owned. Needless to say I would of preferred at least a 320i but seeing as I almost never drive that car anyway I figured it will be fine for Becky to drive day to day. We had a bit of a chat about the price and finally settled on £800 including the 6 months road tax he had just bought. Annoyingly I didn't quite have enough cash on me so I am going back this evening to collect the car. It needs a couple of little bits sorting on it (new drivers side window reg and a couple of scratches on the doors where someone has keyed it) but apart from that its spot on!Here are some pics from the eBay advert. I will take some better ones once I have the car.
Cheers,,
Sammo
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