BMW 320d Touring (E90) | Shed of the Week
How tatty is too tatty?
A lifetime spent at the wrong end of randomly rebounding garage tools has given Shed the sort of craggy facial features that only a mother could love. Actually, that's not strictly accurate. The postmistress has often spoken admiringly about his crevices, a compliment he has been happy to return.
Craggy is not a look most of us want in our cars, but if you're one of the special few who do then this week's shed should be right up your Strasse. It's the first E90 3 Series to appear in Shed Of The Week, mainly because up to now they haven't come anywhere near close enough to the financial depths required for qualification.
Our E90 didn't start out as a craggy car. In fact many would see the gen-five as one of the best looking of all Threes. That’s a good start. Then we see that it's a 320d, arguably the best daily 3 Series engine, and a Touring, arguably the best 3 Series body. Next, we see the agreeably low mileage of 116,000. Our smile widens when we see it's an M Sport with the big fancy wheels, extending leather sports seats and pano roof. Then we note the registration number which on its own could be worth £1,500 to someone. Finally we see the other-worldly price of £1,300, a figure which the mathematicians amongst you will confirm not only sits well within our new '£2,000 or less' bracket of SOTW selectability but also inside our old sub-£1,500 limit.
A quick glimpse at UK classified sites reveals that a 2008 320d Edition M Sport Touring with this sort of mileage should be at least £4,500, and more like £5,000. So what's the catch? Well, for those of you who can't see very well, let’s just say that our shed has had a hard life. If it was a donkey it would be the one they would put at the beginning of the TV ad asking you to stump up some cash to improve its lot. And yet, cowering underneath the scrapes, stains, grime, non-factory panel gaps and actual holes in the bodywork you've got a low-mileage E90 M Sport Touring with nothing more alarming on the last MOT test in November than a non-excessive oil leak.
Shed can almost hear the furious keyboard tapping from his man cave. Ever the gent, he is offering to save wear and tear on your index fingers by providing you with some handy phrases to copy and paste into the forum. 'Look at it though, it's a piggin' wreck!' 'I wouldn't touch that with somebody else's bargepole!' 'What's the likelihood of it ever having been serviced?' And of course the ever-popular 'this thread is meaningless without pics, I call custard!'
We do have pics though. They'll be striking fear into the hearts of most. But are these fears fully founded? Could this debut E90 shed be the bargain of the year? Well, maybe so and maybe not. There's some validity to the old saw that modern cars respond well to hard use, but you'll need bucketloads of bravery to buy into this particular lab experiment.
Delving back beyond the last MOT takes us into a dystopian world that will scare PHers of a nervous disposition. This car has been driven hard and fast and with zero cares for the consequences. A classic company car, you might say, but with great big hairy knobs on. The Swiss peage ticket in the window and the 'lots of damage to the front windscreen' advisory in 2021 suggests a rushabout lifestyle of foot-to-the-carpet motorway motoring. Cut, damaged, cord-exposed tyres, damaged suspension arms and not one but two fractured wheels suggest that big potholes were never knowingly avoided. Non-standard reg plate fonts eight years ago tell us – well, does Shed really have to say what they tell us?
Those oil leaks reported by the MOT tester do at least indicate that some oil was put into the engine at some point. Any potential buyer will certainly like to see some documentary proof of occasional top-ups. They might also think it wise to check the smash and grab information resources to which Shed is too mean to subscribe, to see if there's any reference there to ram-raiding.
Once you've satisfied yourself that all is well, or at least as well as it can be, all you'll need then will be a fifty-quid valet, an entirely optional £300 wheel refurb, a roll of Sparkling Graphite gaffer tape and a belief that life is life and everything will be just fine. Or you could just short-circuit all that and adopt the same devil-may-care mindset as the previous owner. Maybe that's the way forward. Anyone up for a game of hand-grenade tennis?
That is of course if you’re prepared to take the risk on the N47 and hope the chain doesn’t need doing.
Could be years of battered motoring for £1300!
Great car, mechanically spot on, minor cosmetics commensurate with mileage, full bmw history, sold for a song to avoid the tyre kickers.
Damn shame in hind sight, but the only miles it was doing was to get MOTd each year.
I enjoy light restoration projects but that damage is well out of my skill set.
As someone who is used to viewing secondhand cars that look 10x better in pictures than in the flesh, alarm bells are ringing very loudly on this one!
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