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"Can I buy a cheap and reliable BMW" NO. that is all.

There’s nothing more expensive than a cheap bimmer

Sadly my wife never warmed to the 530i, probably a bit big for her so its up for sale. Those in the know will realise its Kyu's fathers car. It has 173k on the clock and is pretty tidy apart from a few scuff and chips. The interior is super tidy and everything seems to work well. The reversing camera was replaced but it has not been hooked up yet. Since we have owned it its only done about 3k. I replaced the battery and most importantly I replaced the water pump and thermostat. It has factory Bluetooth, sunroof (drains replaced), new Xenon bulbs. Pretty nicely specced from the factory. Tires are good, continentals up front. Any questions ask away, has been owned by 2 Bimmersport people and certainly cared for plus its a Touring so extra nice . Asking $8k

Few more little things ticked off the list. serpentine belt tensioner pulley replaced. Old one looked a bit wobbly and since the other one had gone dry figured might be worth doing it preventatively. Replaced the o ring in the power steering reservoir and it’s been dry for over a week now. New tailgate struts. Little thing but now the boot Swings open. What a luxury. Before it was going 3/4 so wasn’t awful but one of those things that makes your car feel old. I have been driving it pretty softly with these expensive gas prices but it has enough torque that it plods around quite effortlessly.

M3 and 530i on my buggy walk this arvo 🤤

CHEAP... RELIABLE... BMW You can have any two Cheers...

1st gen, they must quite easily be the worst built bmw I've ever had the misfortune of driving/fixing. Would rather drive a spoon up my *rse than drive another of those

$1000 E36 318Ti is where its at. But realistically, a cheap Honda Fit/Jazz. Reliable, cheap, hard wearing, cheap to run and spacious.

I solved my problem with fuel prices... I bought this: Makes our 2.0 and 3.2 Tourans look positively frugal! Even with their consumption combined🤣

+1 Japanese - Mazda Axela, Tidia, Jazz etc are far better choices. Balling on a budget never ends well for the average person.

$3,500 I would be looking at a mid 2000's Mazda Axela / 3. Good reliable practical cars, if a little boring.

After being out of the car scene for some time, I've decided to throw my hat back in the ring and create something fun to build and ultimately fun to drive. A user friendly budget would be a bonus but we'll see how that one pans out !! This will just be a fun street car so the aim is to have a mix of comfort, performance and looks. The car: A NZ new 2000 BMW 318Ci with 4 speed auto. Quite tidy generally with only a handful of the expected BMW "things that don't work no more" to resolve at a later date. Being under powered will hopefully mean no cracking around the subframe and minimal hard driving time etc on the body. The engine: A Nissan VQ37VHR from a 2009 Skyline 370GT automatic. 125k on it give or take so hopefully plenty of life left in it. Factory spec at 243kW which should be a solid upgrade over the cars stock 77 !! No plans for anything engine wise at the moment, must get mobile and legal first. Progress so far: The car is sitting with front end off, engine and driveline are out, rear interior and fuel tank etc removed. Have cleaned the underside to a reasonable standard and have welded in the CMP RACP reinforcement kit. Have cleaned and painted the 330 rear end components ready for reinstallation along with installing Powerflex bushes in most locations. Have created a rig to fire up and run the VQ37 on the ground which was a success and a lot of fun ... had the Nissan anti-theft (NATS) removed via UpRev and an ARC license installed at the same time. This was to validate that I can run the motor prior to install and working out the wiring later on when its more difficult. You can check the video here: Next Steps: REALLY keen to get the rear end back together so something is finished !! Will need to complete the welding in of the RACP to frame rails in the boot before the LVV certifier comes to check out my work. Once that's done I can get ready to stitch weld some other trouble areas then underseal and paint it all real pretty before installing the backend. Once the back end is together and looking slick I can finally turn attention to the pointy end and see if the engine is going to play nice. There will be a lot of work involved and a few options to investigate ... current thinking is it will be a custom oil pan and cross member at least. Steering rack may also be an issue. Some Pics To This Point:

More badges please 🙂

'That lovely Nissan' has an awful ride at highway speeds! And it's worse in town, crashing through potholes and the like. I dread to think what an early X3 would be like. 🤯

Prays he’s getting his actual wheels refurbished and only has one car to use with these as loners 😂

Got some nice options on it, 2.5ltr, manual, Tech 1 wheel, leather sports seats. But not sure about the body kit (maybe needs a few more badges..?) and those wheels are a big no for me, especially with the Linglong “no good in a..” Crosswinds on them. Pricing is relatively sane compared to many listings.

X3 30d gets around 700km in town. $140 to fill up + RUC and it's similar to petrol prices. But you get v8 like performance.

Assuming it has decent history, I’d go for this. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/x3/listing/3395665885 It’s been on for a while, hit them low.

Cant wait until the 118i Alpina Edition comes out....

The spare tyre cover also falls through when you put a toolbox in the boot to do remote servicing on a rally. Quite poor.

@Eagle Nissan Tiida (Versa in the US) is a strong contender for least safe car on sale. They are absolutely the shittiest car I have ever had the misfortune of driving. Even an E110 / E120 Corolla would be far preferable. Jazz / Fit is a good shout.

cop car wheels? (holden 5x120)

The first gens suffer from CVT shudder, but its not terminal, just annoying. Can be masked with various additives. Manual ones are available too. Accident safety is no worse than any other car of the era. My sister was T boned at an intersection in hers, went through a fence, and walked away without a scratch. Probably safer than an E36, with better visibility.

I agree with the E36 Ti but hard to find a "good" one for $1000, you will end up spending another 1-2k to properly fix it up. still well worth it for a sub 3.5k car the older fit/jazz have/had transmission issues and also very poor accident safety. wouldnt recommend for a first time driver to be honest. but definitely cheap and otherwise reliable

There's only 2 in Christchurch, mate delt with Paul Smith for his m50e30 swap. Dont know about the other guy but at least Don Hoff is gone

Depends which generation of X3, the first was not great, the F25 was pretty bloody good, the G01 is awesome. Saw an X3 M40i out drag a modded Skyline from the lights on the South Eastern last night, the Nissan nearly crashed trying to keep up.

Those are the kinds of neighbours I like

E46 M43 318i.

Corolla, if reliability and cost are top considerations. Golfs can be “ish” but $1k/door central locking failures on Mark 5s, aircon compressors on 4s and earlier 5s, 1.6 manual Mark 5 transmissions fail. And maybe finding something that runs on 91? Nothing European in this price bracket will be “set and forget”, maybe find out what the post-purchase repairs budget will be and if you/someone else can do maintenance and tweaks? Might be being the voice of doom lol

for our household it’s looking like an additional $3.5 k per year , but might be able to offset 1,500 with working from home a couple days a week. kind of glad the car doing 20,000 plus kms a year is a turbo diesel running 6.5 L / 100 km verse the other option was looking at which would have be closer to 12 L / 100km. looks like we will be up for $20k per year to run / park / service the two vehicles.

depends on commute and diesel car type. I hoofed the Q7 very quickly as it was barely warming up ( peak covid lockdown traffic) so was being very inefficient, but the VW CC i had was sweet as I sat in traffic a lot then. with stop start systems and better diesels, it is possible to get far better mileage.

@adro that's great good to know about brake test, I've recently rebuilt my calipers and installed braided lines that comply to NZ standards. I might have to take it out and do a brake test myself, hopefully I should be OK.. I'm pretty happy with my brakes and how they perform. Defiantly understand re the WoF anxiety.. I've always wondered why no questions have ever been asked.. maybe just got lucky. @Olaf I have another e30 (318) that I've repowered with m20b25 so will need to go through cert with that car at some stage (next year after paint and panel). Re the purple tag swap.. I should invest in a Barina linkage, from what I've read my current setup (guibo delete) may not be fit for purpose. I had seen the UK kit but yes, it was very expensive for what it is. For my lines I approached a mobile hydraulic van (ENZED) guy in a car park, he was having his lunch.. told him what I needed done. He was at my house the next day and did the job for $200 cash all up - I was pretty happy with that. Rather than the local bakery, I'd be going to the local pub for a stiff drink to calm my nerves 😁 So from here I'm going to look around at what certifiers we have here in Christchurch, hopefully I can find one that has experience with older BMW's. This leads to my next question, anyone know a CHC certifier that they have used for there e30? Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Non SUV BMW 2.0d will comfortably do 5.5L/100k in mixed driving and probably <5 if all open road so shifts the equation favourably. No doubt in my mind a small capacity diesel is more economical than a petrol in the same vehicle (if you’re doing open road km), especially with any use of the throttle.

Has the price of petrol gone up or something? I hadn’t noticed, would have thought someone might have mentioned it.

Thanks @qube i did - tapped into the ashtray light wiring which will never be used again for its original intended use lol. All up took about 40min to do. No electrical shorts or fire so a very happy chappie 😎. Now just need to drive at night or early morn to get the full benefit haha 😁

Upgraded to a genuine ‘M’ illuminated gear knob for one of the e31’s - made it work and period correctish too! Not sure if its right to get excited about a gear knob, but hey, i am haha 🤣🤣🤣. Thanks to @qube for a great deal - top member!

The cost of fuel at the pump has increased dramatically over the last few months. There was the usual big money-grabbing increase before Christmas, sustained through New Year, and a slight drop in early January. Since then though, it's been an inexorable increase. 1c/litre a day looked to be an average at one point. Lots of the usual noise about how bad the NZ govt is at managing this, and the tax they're taking. Yes - it's a significant contributor, but if the fuel companies didn't increase price, the govt percentage wouldn't compound the problem. I've said elsewhere that a cap on govt taxation would be a way that the public can be helped. Take a time and price - let's say $2.50 per litre - and once the price of fuel reaches that, the government doesn't take any further tax. However, that doesn't address any transparency issues that the public may have regarding what the oil companies are making vs govt taxation. A better way would be a fixed amount. Without going through all the tax take calculations, let's say the govt takes $1.50 tax on a litre of fuel. A huge amount of money to be sure, but we could expect the govt to be able to say that 30c is spent on x, 27c on y, 2.6c goes towards wrestling mats for one-legged black lesbian mothers of three or more children, 40c goes towards... whatever. Fix that figure. Any change in fuel price is purely and simply at the behest of the oil companies, and is clearly calculable and obvious. It's also far, far simpler for the govt, the filling stations, and so on. It can 'hide' any cents/dollars per barrel taxation, but the public won't care about that. They'd have a clear view of the tax take. Refineries... Lots of fuss and blame being laid at the govt feet for the closure of Marsden Point, a privately owned entity. All the fuss about that, and the offshore barges - all private owned/used. No govt involvement. Should there be? Maybe. Australia is nearly 30x the size of NZ, and has 4 refineries for the entire country. From an Oz standpoint, an area the size of NZ doesn't warrant consideration, and certainly not it's own refinery. Finally... Profit. Oil companies are raising prices at a time when they are making ever-increasing profits. Oil companies are also taking subsidies from governmental institutions... And they're not paying a 'reasonable' amount of tax on the profits they are making - lots of offshore obfuscation around ownership and finance. Clever move by the petrol stations. Announce a price increase, empty the filling station tanks so they can fill right up while they can still get fuel relatively cheaply, and then hike the price up to what the new barrel cost is. There's a LOT going on in this area. A lot of behind-the-scenes long-term planning, all the way down to individual and corporate profiteering with taxation somewhere in the middle. It's incredibly complex.

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/nz BC are good value and feature packed but wouldn’t go any cheaper than that - cert adds $750ish so might as well get decent quality.

Had to take the pedal box out again along with the brake booster to install the rubber firewall grommet properly for the clutch low / no pressure line. Glad to have that part of the job ticked off !! Got the engine mounts prepared and tacked up which is another milestone kinda job ... will talk with the certifier tomorrow to see if they are happy for me to fully weld them or would rather I get them done by somebody else. Next up I can remove the temporary frame from the subframe and engine so I can complete the required measurements for the new oil pan. Progress !!

After a week away with the family we're seeing some solid progress ... more cleaning of parts to go back into the rear end. Installed more of the rear now with just the guard liners, shocks, brakes and sensors to go .... YAY.

Just a little more preparatory work so I can tidy up the under body properly ... removed the side skirts, front guard liners and the rear brake + fuel lines. The painting is going to be a bit of a drama as if I want to spray it, its looking like I'll have to do that myself and that involves investing in a fed air respirator as the only mobile painter isn't interested. Might try and roll / brush it still to see how annoying it is.

So it turns out the dry sump would be absolutely perfect ... on a left hand drive Just enough interference with the steering rack input shaft to be a no-go. Will turn the attention back to a custom wet sump. Some progress on the rear end however !! Certifier has been and inspected the welding so now I'm free to get the rear back together. Got supplies to do this consisting of light rust killer, wax & grease remover, 2k epoxy primer, 3M polyurethane seam sealer, paintable underseal and a 2k top coat (grey). Gave everything a final wire wheel and wipe down then applied the epoxy primer with a brush. You can get it to go on pretty nice but turns into a messy and painful job with the brush upside down. Will investigate spraying the underbody when the time comes ... something I didn't want to have to do 😕

My mate spotted my old coupe up in the North Island. I rather wish he hadn't... What the actual f**k are those wheels!?

That lovely nissan you're driving would have a much nicer interior and ride than an x3 though 😬 they are absolutely ghastly