basedspider's Slow Auto 318ti
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Last week I had a customer come into my work and they asked me if we worked on foreign vehicles. I said "Yeah, I dont think theres really anything were afraid to work on." After talking to him a little while longer I found out that he wanted to schedule getting a radiator replaced in his 96 318ti so he could list the car for sale. I told him that I might be interested and asked how much he'd be looking to get out of it as it sits with a bad radiator, and he told me he was looking to get $2750 for it as is. I then asked him to bring it by so I could take a peak.
The car shows up and it is pretty beautiful, one of the best condition 318ti's that I have seen. At only 120k miles, the boston green glistened, the dove leather interior was damn near spotless, and the A/C was ice cold. It was a southern car almost its an entire life, and was a one owner vehicle until the PO bought it a little over a year ago. It has a small rust spot on the rear quarter and one of the jack pad areas, but the rest of the car was extremely clean. I took it out for a spin and aside from the coolant leak the car drove phenomenal. We shook on $2700 (including a new radiator and hoses), and I drained my bank account and brought her home.
Drove the car around for a couple days and so far I have been pretty happy with it. The car is currently under the knife in my garage at the moment waiting on some new intake hoses that ripped during disassembly, and it turned out the radiator hoses he supplied were some cheap bright red ebay silicone hoses that fit horribly so I am also waiting on a set of all new OEM rubber hoses from FCP.
Current plans arent anything crazy, just want to get the car squared away so I can have a comfortable and quirky summer daily!
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Great color. What do these do for fuel economy? I would imagine pretty good.
According to the EPA 23 city/31 hwy. I plan on driving the car pretty easy and aiming for the 30mpg mark when possible. With gas prices now and dailying a truck that gets roughly 14mpg, itll be nice to save a couple bucks driving something a bit more efficient.
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Instead of sitting in an endless state of project car limbo, I actually got some work done and cranked out a new radiator, hoses, and intake boots for the E36. Peep the wonderful mess of oil, atf, and coolant it left all over my floor. Got the system all bled, refilled the trans with ATF, and now it drives better than ever and hasn't leaked a drop of coolant.
Also spent a little bit of time last night throwing in a new Bluetooth radio so I can listen to my own music (I cannot stand the radio) and also got some pics of the interior for everyone here to see. Still needs a detail, but overall in really good shape and is just about as comfortable as it gets.
As far as the future goes, I noticed the car has a pretty big oil leak by the bell housing (praying its not a rear main) and a minor gas leak from one of the hard lines. Hopefully gonna get that diagnosed and dealt with soon, but in the meantime I am just gonna enjoy the car and enjoy the gas mileage!
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Update on the 318ti. My girlfriends car was down for the count for a couple weeks so I let her borrow it and she put almost 1k miles on it. The oil leak I found is coming from the timing covers and oil is just pouring out, to the point it destroyed her parents driveway every time she parked it lol. Sold my mercedes and ordered all the parts to re-gasket the timing cover, replace the water pump, and replace the sway bar end links and bushings at the same time since the drivers side bushing is completely junk.
Also remembered that I had these wheels from my E46 just chilling on my shelf at home. Threw them on the car and it looks 10x better.
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Been radio silent on this car for a few months now, figured I should probably give an update.
Since my E46 has been either under the knife or waiting for parts since it got returned to me after being stolen, I have been dailying the ti rather than getting 14mpg riding around in my truck all the time lol. About a month ago I went ahead and replaced my blown ass rear speakers with some Pioneer 5 1/4" replacements with brackets my brother had 3D printed off for me. Sounds a bit nicer but my rear tweeters are still blown so I have to get around to replacing those. Recently had a taillight burn out so I went ahead and replaced all of the taillight bulbs, and both lowbeam bulbs.
This thing is pretty due for an oil change now, so I have that coming up this weekend. Since doing the headlights/taillights my cruise control has stopped working only when the headlights are on. I suspect a bad brake light switch, going to try to replace that as well and go from there. Other than that it has been treating me pretty well and has been a good and comfortable daily.
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Minor update today. Put 5000 miles on the car since I bought it so I stayed late at work and got an oil change done. 5W-30 Liqui Moly and a WIX filter at 125k miles.
This was my first time using a WIX filter on one of my BMW's but I was able to get it at cost through my work. Anyone had any problems with aftermarket oil filters like this or have recommendations for ones I should use in the future?
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