Is an e34 worth spending money on?

Depends on whether you want to keep it forever or not, i love e34's so id be spending money on it but form experience you wont ever get it back so decide carefully!

Contrary to popular belief at the mo i find irish cars of this age in much better condition bodywise, my 92 has its fair share of rust underneath and ive seen a lot of similar uk cars (not just bm's) with lots of rusty arches etc from the salt so if you can get an irish car thats been looked after your more likely to have a structurally sound car. Pity i cant say the same for suspensions and general mechanicals!!

Congrats on it passing the test, one less e34 in the scrappers can only be a good thing!

 

I've been having the same considerations about my own 91 E30 same mileage 165K.. No rust even though it's an english car originally, i think it only spent a few years in the UK, 2 max. It really deserves a re-spray.. what to do what to do..

The conclusion i came to is that i'll look after the chassis, steering and suspension as much as possible then when the engine expires (no sign of this happening yet) I'll source a rust bucket from the UK with a nice unabused engine and do a transplant

If it costs you 1 to 1.5 K on parts and servicing per year your doing well.. depreciation on a newer beemer would cost you the same...

Yup! Good luck with it!

ETA: I'm hoping to get all the niggling bits on mine sorted this year - stone chips, carpark dings etc. With that and replacing the rear shocks she'll probably hit me for over 5K this year.... but worth every cent!


Edited by Derek M5

keep it

Keep it, but don't go nuts on the spending, keep the car mechanically 100% and you will not go far wrong. There's still plenty of good Irish E34s out there and unless you're going to hold it for the next 5 to 10 years I wouldn't bother spraying it...  Well done on the pass...

Did you ever have a girlfiriend who you knew was fundamentally fit? You knew from experience how well built she was and you also knew that she'd do pretty much everything you'd ask of her? You knew she was reliable and you got pleasure from the fact that other blokes fancied her?

But every time you saw her in the morning light you couldn't help noticing that she wasn't as young as she once was, had a few pock marks here and there and her underware wasn't as fresh as it used to be?

If you could afford it wouldn't you want to spend a few bob on a bit of derma ebrasion, a fake tan and some new clobber so that she'd keep looking fit as a butchers or would you rather she stayed on the slippery slope of aging and lost what it was that attracted to you to her in the first place?

bty: this is a car were talking about!

That's my e34 dilemma!

If you plan on keeping the car for a good few years and you are sure that the mechanicals are not going to fail in the next year or so then it might be worth it. However you will not get a penny of what you spend back since the milage will be the biggest factor in the cars resale value.

Normally I would say don't spend any money on it other than to keep it road worthy. Save your cash and put it towards your next car in a few years time. It is up to you though. If you really expect to keep the car for another 4+ years and mechanically it is still very strong then I don't see why not. 

I'm with Peter Fenwick on that one. Unfortunately this is probably the reason there are noticeably fewer E34s on the road today compared to a few years ago

But by all means keep her going, you love her!

ivanovoitch wrote: this girl does about 100miles a week of stop start stuff. Is 20MPG a reasonable return?

I got 20MPG out of my '94 E34 530iA V8 in mainly commuting Dublin traffic. About the same in my current '96 E38 735iA V8. So, no, that's not a reasonable return imho. Or perhaps your right foot is very heavy :)

Think my old E30 320i did about the same mpg, Not the best engine I was led to believe, specially in a bigger car anyway - better economy with a 525 but a lot better than the 1.8 (or so I was told).