Carl's auction bonus

[dodgyvinyl]

Just a little ramble for your entertainment...

Sue's Frontera had become such a bottomless pit for money that I have said enough is enough. Tax wa due and it needed another £400 or so spending on it.

Having not planned a car purchase, cash is as tight as always and we don't do credit...so off to the auctions for some more bangernomics.

Went to Arrow auctions in Redditch, they had 4 E36 bmws in so I figured they would go cheap.

The least molested but worst presented one was actually the first car to go through of about 120 so decided we would have a punt on that one up to £500 then maybe bid more on the later ones.

Anyway, got to the start of the auction and the place was really quiet, about a quarter of the usual crowd... this was last Wednesday, when England were "playing".

Auctioneer started the bidding at 900, went all the way down to 300 before anyone bid and I bid 350. Seemed like an age passed where he was "talking up" the car but nobody else bid.

The auctioneer said to me as I walked up to pay the deposit..."you got a bargain, I guess everyone else was still asleep".

6 minutes after the start of the auction, I had paid and was off to get the keys.

Got to the car, looked about and was happy, started it up, all good but fuel gauge right at the bottom. I said to Paul "typical bl00dy auction car, no petrol!". Off to petrol station we went (with pause for Paul to kill the engine and pretend we had run out of fuel on the way... yes, very fracking funny mate) and stuck some petrol in.

It took £9 before spitting petrol back at me. Figuring it was blocked, we carefully drove it home. I removed the back seat, disconnected and removed the in tank fuel pump (after testing the gauges and fuses)...to find a full tank of petrol and a snapped wire on the sensor.

Bonus!

1998 Black BMW 318i
156k FSH (dealer to 110k)
£65 of petrol
2 months tax
7 Months MOT

£390 including premiums.

Drove it to West Wales at the weekend. Faultless and 38mpg round all the country lanes.

I was begging for England to get to the Semi final so I could go and get another bargain...there were literally more cars than people there!

Nice to get lucky once in a while.

Hope you enjoyed my little story .

[MikeMedford]

Bargain.

I quite fancy a E36 coupe, nearly bought one a few years ago but got offered the vitesse.

Ironically I chose this as I heard older BM's are money pits, 3 years on and I still find things on a weekly basis to fix / replace...

[Manalishi]

Oh dear. Bee Em Trouble You. This is what will happen if you own a BMW:




No just kidding, they are very good cars, maybe the best? I did look for a 328 of about that vintage when I found my Vitesse. (Thank God!)

[syzsounds]

Make sure the cooling system is in tip top shape ... And that the fans work.
I'm seeing no end of older beemers at the side of the road with steam pouring from them just recently.

[Manalishi]

Isn't that mostly an older 6cylinder problem? Old Bimmers with warped heads? And no, don't shave your head on the garage floor.

[syzsounds]

No idea ! I just see loads of broken Bm's ...

[metelmickey]

yeah, they had a big problem with the water pumps packing up, but the good thing is you can take the engine out and drop a decent v8 in there with very little problems a nice 7.8 chevy makes them go quite well

[Lord Sterling]

A couple of years ago I was borrowed a Black R-reg E36 318 Compact from a mate while he was abroad.

Nice car to drive, very fluid. Not alot of get-up-and-go but it was fine motor to chunter around in. My mates thought I was some sort of 'Don' in it, but then again they dont generally know anything about cars.

When he came back he "offered" the car to me for £1500, I told I wouldn't entertain even giving him £700 as it wasnt the most looked after example.

I've seen lots of broken down BMs of recent, including an E39 M5, broken down on the M5 (Ironically) and an 09' Black 540D broken down at a petrol station, had to move my car back for matey so he could push it out of the way to wait for recovery.

Lord Sterling

[RoastBeef]

Bargain.

Ironically I chose this as I heard older BM's are money pits, 3 years on and I still find things on a weekly basis to fix / replace...

Dunno, who told you that they are money pits, rubbish!
Obviously not someone in the know. I've owned many old BM's and Mercs and if bought right, they are very cheap to run and so are Jag XJ's, despite what the so called magazine 'experts' say.

However, I do contend the Rover 800, P5, P6 and SD1 has something the german cars don't, im not certain what it is, but there is... something.. that has, for a long time, made me badly want an 800. Still haven't been able to find the right car though, at the right time. But, I will..

[RoastBeef]

The E30 is much better than the E36, in every way and the Compact was a comprise anyway, designed only, to make BM's more affordable to those that could not really afford a proper one.
You may have seen a broken down E39 M5, but I think we all have seen every type of car broken down at some stage, perhaps it had been badly maintained and was the owners faulty? I've seen broken down Ferrari's on the hard shoulder, but, I would still like one!

Imo, the E39, in any guise is certainly one of the best saloon cars ever - the M5? Well, having driven one, I can say it is near faultless, incredibly fast and enjoyable in real world driving, yet also relaxing, when needed.

I also used to own a concours winning E28 M5 and that was also, a near faultless car. So I speak from experience.

[RoastBeef]

Oh dear. Bee Em Trouble You. This is what will happen if you own a BMW:

No just kidding, they are very good cars, maybe the best? I did look for a 328 of about that vintage when I found my Vitesse. (Thank God!)

There was a problem with Nikasil linings on the E36 328. Jag, had same issue with the v8 in the XJ8, from 1998-2002. Better, off with the 320, unless it has had a replacement engine at BM 's expense (which many have).

[MikeMedford]

Dunno, who told you that they are money pits, rubbish!
Obviously not someone in the know. I've owned many old BM's and Mercs and if bought right, they are very cheap to run and so are Jag XJ's, despite what the so called magazine 'experts' say.

Actually, the advice was given by a load of BMW owners, I was looking at lower budget E36 coupes and the advice was avoid the cheap ones like the plague as they tend to have lack of history and have usually been ragged to high heaven which generally leads to lots of potential things to replace which are generally much more costly than the vitesse for example.

[rover2.7]

i own an e36 3 series 97 p reg 325ise had it over 12 months now done nearly 114k i bought it with 105k ive only had one problem with it being the radiator due to when i bled the cooling system the bleed screw snapped and pretty much messed the rest of the rad up.

it has some service history up to 3 years before i bought it but has been maintained well paid out 1000 for the car and all in all i think i got a good deal as its mint condition nearly and has the alpina wheels on it and all the extras leather air con etc

they are good reliable cars if well looked after from my experience so far i cant plant a thing wrong with it