€3,500 to spend, which Bimmer?

In cases like this the VRT calculator is a bit of an irrelevance.  The same calculator generates an OMSP for a same age, 65k mile e46 328i SE at euro2577, an e36 328i SE at euro2250 and an e36 328i Sport at euro9297.  If anyone can find me clean e36 or e46 328i SE's at this price I'll take two of each.  A better test is, what can you buy a similar car for in the UK and what that would gross up to on the road here after exchange rate and VRT is added.  Add in a few hundred for getting the car back from the UK and then compare that against the price.  Add in the peace of mind that you'll get by buying from a widely recommended specialist.  (I have no association with the seller!).

At this end of the market you buy firstly on condition, secondly on provenance and these guide the third factor, price.  As a general rule too (unless you are very mechanically capable), you get what you pay for.  Buy cheap and it'll cost you more in the long run. 

My last 325i was a great example.  It was a 1993 car, 1 owner from new car with a full main dealer history and 70k miles when I bought it.  Just over two years and 22k miles later it cost me the sum total of 2 main dealer services, a pair of rear M-tech shocks, a couple of ABS sensors, some tyres and about euro1500 in depreciation.  Total cost, excluding road tax, insurance and petrol - about euro35 per week.  If I was being really tight about it I could have saved a few quid by breaking the dealer history and cutting a few corners.  I could have spent a grand or two less up front but it wouldn't have taken long to put that back in to running repairs and maintenance of a neglected example - and there are loads of those.

My view is to never pay the full asking price, so a bit of gentle haggling should be the order of the day, but I'd say its not unreasonable if a couple of hundred were knocked off.  Its an m-tech spec - half leather sports seats, etc. Its had the block done - which means that the service history was good enough for BMW to put its hand in its pocket or else the owner spent a lot of money on the job.  Assuming the history since then is reasonable then it should be a good punt.  The only thing that might impact on that is the timeline you expect to keep it for.  By that I mean that by buying from a dealer you are paying a margin that you probably wouldn't get back if you sold it privately soon after.

The only other e36 on Carzone that might tempt me otherwise would be the one below.  Its a 328i Sport and the NCT date would suggest the likelihood of it being post nikasil but that should be confirmed with BMW UK (its an import). 

There is another 328i coupe for euro7k but I suspect its one that I looked at a couple of years ago.  If so the its a nikasil car and I had a couple of niggling questions about its history.  The description on the ad (no tax or NCT) would suggest the provenance hasn't improved.

http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car& carID=821073

Daveco wrote: Good info, cheers Diarmuid. That black 328 is a stunner, it would have to be up in bloody Donegal.

That's probably why its been there for a while and why the price has been dropped since first advertized.