E36 M3 Evo vs. Non

The thing here is (or one of them) that you probably could do most of the servicing/maintenance yourself with a bit of mechanical aptitude and some spare time. The M3 is much the same as most other cars in most respects, just with (some much) higher parts costs which will be dependant on what you buy and where from. Another thing is that the car will costs ~£5k to buy for a half decent one. It's not like you'll be losing a massive load of money doing it yourself anyway, and come resale time if you keep it a few years yes, you'll put off a far few potential buyers, so you will have to adjust the asking price to account for this. In turn this'll mean that an even bigger knuckle-dragger will turn up to buy it, but you know what? Who cares!

A BMW isn't some mystical beast that requires an undertanding of some ancient magical rituals in order to work on.
 
danza said:
A BMW isn't some mystical beast that requires an undertanding of some ancient magical rituals in order to work on.
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No, but neither does it have the running costs of a 318i as long as you have a Halfords professional socket set. Some stuff breaks. Some stuff is a faff to repair. Parts can cost a fortune. People (including yourself it seems) underestimate how much things like this cost. You assume that its just a £5k car so its cheap to run. This is why there are so many nails out there. It's every bit the car it was 15 years ago, or indeed 8 years ago when neafart had one with a warranty and it STILL cost him a fortune.

If I'm wrong why are you wasting your time driving around in a Type-R Honda when you can have M3 Performance for the same money?
 
Firestar_3x said:
Haven't we had a thread like this before, can't remember the OP might have been you but they then went on to argue the people who know the costs have no actually understanding and it's actually going to cost £2.56 per year to run....
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And i refer you all back to the 5th post in this very thread........
 
But the only people that knows the costs seemingly took it back to the dealer for everything? I'm not arguing that I know better, just that there is another way.
 
Unless you have loads of money it'll be expensive and break and you'll wonder why you have it.

The parts cost alone of running my 330i was high, and it wasn't unreliable - I'd hate to think what it would have been on an M3 Evo.
 
yes you can work on them yourself, no its not ridiculously complicated.

theres nothing scary about the 3.0 and 3.2 lumps but its not a straight forward thing to be playing about with

if you have a good understanding of cars and are handy with the spanners then i dare say its more than feasible to self maintain/service one. BUT i certainly wouldnt be buying it off you in a few years time, i dont know you and i dont know your abilities


theres plenty of information available on how to maintain them both in the form of workshop manuals and on the interweb, so by all means diy one but be prepared to hurt your resale value. If this is a route your planning on taking then your as well buying a car without history in the first place and saving many pennies :)
 
[TW]Fox;17577487 said:
No, but neither does it have the running costs of a 318i as long as you have a Halfords professional socket set. Some stuff breaks. Some stuff is a faff to repair. Parts can cost a fortune. People (including yourself it seems) underestimate how much things like this cost. You assume that its just a £5k car so its cheap to run. This is why there are so many nails out there. It's every bit the car it was 15 years ago, or indeed 8 years ago when neafart had one with a warranty and it STILL cost him a fortune.

If I'm wrong why are you wasting your time driving around in a Type-R Honda when you can have M3 Performance for the same money?
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Where did I say that an E36 M3 would be cheap to run? It will obviously cost more to run than an EP3, there's no doubt about it. If it didn't I'd have had one by now! I'm under no illusion of the potential costs of running and maintaining one, but you can obviously save an awful lot of money by DIYing and careful shopping (for which you admittedly might spend a lot of time doing). For that reason I won't own one, at least not for a while. I just don't have the free time to waste.

If I was in the market for one, I'd do my level best to make sure I bought something at least in very good order. And have a couple of Gs in the bank just incase. And the time to work on it. Etc etc.
 
Maz said:
Yeah, with two tone black and blue seats :eek:

Think I'm getting old, because I really fancy an Oxford / Fern Green E36 M3 Coupe with that biscuity coloured leather :o
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Saw one of those on PH a while back. Quite a rare combo but really does look very good - its almost got that italian look to the leather.

Personally, older performance cars need a lot of looking after and need to be treated well or theres no point. I sometimes get tempted by E36s but then they are going to need work. I'd really like another classic Impreza but I just don't have the time to look after it properly and I don't have the time to have a "special" car for the weekends. Even the cheap to run cars like a 205GTi or Mk2 Golf GTI will cost far more than some modern cars to keep in the condition they really should be kept in.
 
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Stick with the 3.0

The 3.0 can take a good kicking all day long. The 3.2 is always a worry. The VANOS, the 6 speed box, the suspension, disks and pads are all a lot more expensive on the evo than the 3.0

The 3.2 also generally by now will have lost most of that extra edge it had over the 3.0, there well known not to make the power they should do. The 3.0 holds its power longer now things are getting old.

Also, the 3.0 is more usable every day, the 3.2 evo loves to be revved right out, as thats when the vanos kicks in. They can be dead down low until that kick comes. where as the 3.0 has the power from the word go. The 3.0 gearbox (5speed) is far nicer in design and if it breaks is cheap. A 6 speed evo one on the other hand is very very sloppy and loose, if it breaks expect to pay a fortune, there also dual mass fly wheel i think so changing one of them is a fortune,

3.0 all day long.
I have had one of each.
 
Also, decent oil in there and buy one with as many service stamps as possible thats HPI clear. You do not need a m3 that is not going up the road straight.

A good one will really make your day.
A bad one. and your stuffed, sell it.

Most have had there arches blown in by now. If the rear arches are completely original then generally the rest of the car should be half decent shape.

Tires on the back make a massive difference to the drive. My 3.0 had eagle f1 on the back and sometimes i left a junction with the idea of sending the tail out and they just gripped. And that was me trying to send it out with experience of rwd cars before. Another i test drove on the other hand had bad well worn tires and just taking off in a straight line the car was snaking
 

fella over here (lol, i say that like its a one off, thats the norm over here) That got a good kicking fairly often he wouldnt do it otherwise and never gave any bother
 
There's some good advice in this thread.
Me personally, I wouldn't touch an E36 M at £5k with a bargepole, unless you can totally verify it's history, hasn't had a long string of owners, has full documented BMW SH. ANd you get what you pay for, a £5000 M that cost how much new? - that's cheap.
From what I've heard the non-Evo's aren't massively off the power of the Evo so consider one of those if you really want a cheap M (Evo's rarely made the power quoted and there's less to go wrong in the non-evo).
I'd save my pennies longer and pick up an E46 M3, a much better car all round.
Someone I know had a cheap E36 M a few years back (not sure if it was evo or not), it was no match for my more expensive Z4 3.0Si, proof there that you get what you pay for. The Z4 had a better top end (I gained on him between 5000 and 7000rpm), the E36 must have lost some power over the years.
Ultiamtely, even with full SH and all the rest, with an older car especially you just don't know how it's been driven over the years so it's always a gamble. Ie, was it driven hard from cold? Did it cover many city miles? Most people buy cars based on milage but IMO that's wrong especially with older cars.......10,000 miles mostly around London for example doing loads of stop-go journeys would probably age the mechanicals more than a 50,000 mile car that has done for example two 60mile each way trips a day along the motorway.
If buying a 5grand M I'd say also to be prepared to replace the most expensive part of the car in a worse scenario. If you can't do that(can;t afford to or wouldn't want to), don't purchase.

SOme M's really are becoming a bargain though. At the moment you could if you're lucky pick up a Z4 M - 2006 to 2007 for £15,000. Sounds like a lot of money but they're not that old, use exisitng E46 M technology (well developed since 2001 so not much goes wrong) and has the fabulous S54 enigne. Price is low due to a combination of time of the year, current economy etc. Faster than the E46 M3, yet better value
 
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David _b said:

fella over here (lol, i say that like its a one off, thats the norm over here) That got a good kicking fairly often he wouldnt do it otherwise and never gave any bother
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Why on earth would any **** do that to a car?
 
danza said:
I must admit that that video doesn't exactly instill a great deal of confidence in the E36 M3 market.
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I think a lot must have fell into the hands of idiots, i suppose you have got to find one owned by someone the last 10 years to avoid all that.
 
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