How Expensive Is It to Live With an E36 M3?
As it turns out, it’s actually very expensive to live with an E36 M3, if you buy the wrong car — as illustrated in the CarThrottle video below. They’ve spent quite a lot of money restoring and maintaining a relatively standard E36 M. Unfortunately, they purchased a car with rust issues, which is your first major no-no in E36 shopping. As a result, the rust repair was responsible for the lion’s share of the costs over the course of the last year. While repairs and maintenance have added up to nearly $800 U.S. dollars on their own, the rust repair accounted for about $2,600. If it were my car, depending on how structural it was, I could probably live with a little rust here and there.
In any case, these nutters have now got almost $3,500 into repairs on a BMW they purchased for about $9,000. It’s true what they say: there is no BMW more expensive than a cheap BMW. In the long run, you’ll end up spending more on repairs than you would have if you’d bought a better one in the first place. If you can do all of the work yourself, that’s one thing; but paying a shop to repair your car whenever anything goes awry, the costs mount up much more quickly. Perhaps they should have found a nicer E36, or just broke down and got the E46. In either case, they’d have ended up ahead.
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>
Via [CarThrottle, TheGarage]
