3 series vs 5 series (2007)

[[TW]Fox]

I don't understand what the trade value of your car being being £5.5k has to do with the idea that a £4k 2007 5 Series offered for sale to the public is probably a nail

A car with a trade value of £5.5k would retail for at least £6.5k...

 

[Rilot]

No, I'm not looking for a 5 series anymore, I'm going to go for a 3 series with around 60-70k on the clock, but I want to check with some of the guys here they stopped me before buying something 'fragile'. so I wanted to see how good a mid milage 3 series would be.

I don't like the look of the Mondoe, I've searched through a lot of cars but I keep going back to the BMW.

It depends on what 3-series you are looking at. You'll get a tidy 318i from 2007 onwards for that sort of money. It will be reliable ish but it's not going to be fun at all and to be honest, it's not worth bothering with unless it's only the badge you care about. If you want a decent engine like the 3.0 you will be looking at the older model and will be back at 2004 ish before you start finding tidy examples for that budget.

So, ask yourself what you want from the car? You have to really go by the old measure of: Fast - Cheap - Reliable ---- Pick 2.

 

[BiGT-]

Ill be honest, when I meant fun, I may have exaggerated, I just don't want it to be slow, I know a 3 series isn't slow, coming from rubbish cars, most newer cars will be fast for me.

So I mainly want reliable, if I don't have to fix something major for like 2 years (I know, nobody knows when something will break) then I will be happy.

 

[slick rick]

Ill be honest, when I meant fun, I may have exaggerated, I just don't want it to be slow, I know a 3 series isn't slow, coming from rubbish cars, most newer cars will be fast for me.

So I mainly want reliable, if I don't have to fix something major for like 2 years (I know, nobody knows when something will break) then I will be happy.

If you want reliable then an older cheapish BMW really is not the best idea in my personal opinion.

 

[joesmith]

Buy one of these.

And buy two of these.

Then replace those two oval things on the front and back with those two round things.

There, all your requirements fulfilled.

Or you could just buy something sensible and not worry about the BMW badge.

 

[BiGT-]

Hilarious. I don't care about the BMW badge, the only reason I'm looking at the 3 series is because I like the look of it.

 

[BigT]

Am I imagining things, or didn't you used to run a CL and then a Z4M roadster?

That was me.

£4K would probably buy my old CL, which just like a £4K '07 5 series, would be a bad idea.

 

[Voxination]

OP, buy something like this.

Every E46 is at least 10 years old now, so hunting out low mileage examples will be hard and sellers will attempt to charge a premium that's not really justified for a low mileage car. Whilst the photos aren't the best for that car, the things you can see look to be in good condition (like the drivers seat, still looks quite matte) and the MOT history of the car looks solid. What's important to remember is you can go out and buy the best example of an old car you can find, but fact is things can and do go wrong (mostly the cooling systems), flip-side is these cars have been around for so long there's a wealth of knowledge out there about common issues and how to fix, so if you or a friend are handy with a spanner they can be maintained without too much trouble.