HHHHMMMMM.....what to do?!

[Gayle]

Your profile says you are on the central coast of CA. Where exactly are you going to school? You need some BMW buds to make working on the car more like recreation that a time suck. Liquidtiger and SCDavid are in Santa Clara. There are other forum members on the North side of LA. TC535i knows everyone in the BMW world in CA. Maybe we can locate a mechanic buddy for you.

[Anton CH.]

I wanted to trade up to an e39 a while back. The electronics and overcomplicated things steered me away from it. The problem is that old bmws don't have much status. Buy the X5 if you want status, keep the 5 if you want a solid car.

[BMW4LIFE]

Your profile says you are on the central coast of CA. Where exactly are you going to school? You need some BMW buds to make working on the car more like recreation that a time suck. Liquidtiger and SCDavid are in Santa Clara. There are other forum members on the North side of LA. TC535i knows everyone in the BMW world in CA. Maybe we can locate a mechanic buddy for you.

im going to cal poly...san luis obispo....

dont get me wrong i love to work on the beast but i need the dedicate the whole day if not a couple if im working on the suspension by myself...

but yea let me know...

thanks!

[SC David]

The problem is that old bmws don't have much status. Buy the X5 if you want status, keep the 5 if you want a solid car.

I've always thought this way too, but the average person thinks our cars are from the late 90's. People I meet always question how I afford my 5. Meanwhile they're leasing brand new Subaru's and Audi's and throwing down 4x what I do in an average month.

[DanDombrowski]

I was in the same situation that you were in not too long ago. The transmission on my E34 525 went and I wanted a new car anyway. I decided to sell the E34 with the blown trans and purchase a 2001 330Ci.

Overall, I love the 330Ci. Its a car that fits my lifestyle much better. Its faster and sportier and looks beautiful. Also spent about $15,000 more than I would have if I had fixed the E34 and done a bunch of upgrades to it.

My problem came in that I never sold the E34. My sister begged me to keep it so she could buy it from me, but she hasn't found a job yet and isn't coming up with any cash, and I STILL haven't fixed the transmission, so its just been sitting in the driveway getting old. Now I want to take it to track days while my sister learns to drive on the volvo, so I'm going to end up fixing the car anyways, which is even more expensive. If you do get a new car, don't fall into that trap.

[DanDombrowski]

Oh, and in the first 3 months of owning the 330, I had to replace the control arms, bushings, brake pads, door seal, windshield washer pump, and headlight bulb. I got a great deal and I expected these things from the PPI, but the work was still there.

[yy101]

I've always thought this way too, but the average person thinks our cars are from the late 90's. People I meet always question how I afford my 5. Meanwhile they're leasing brand new Subaru's and Audi's and throwing down 4x what I do in an average month.

I think e34 styling and shape can be described in one word: timeless.

A lot of cars you can look at and straight away you can tell which era its from, ie. the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s etc. But I have never had anyone correctly tell what decade the e34 was from (unless they already know). They have always guessed about 5-6 years later than what it is. When I tell them its a 11yo car and I only paid 18k for their expression is priceless

[BMW4LIFE]

Oh, and in the first 3 months of owning the 330, I had to replace the control arms, bushings, brake pads, door seal, windshield washer pump, and headlight bulb. I got a great deal and I expected these things from the PPI, but the work was still there.

no i totally understand by buying a "newer" car the problems were gonna be there but ive had this car for oh about 6 yrs now and have had many memories but everytime something goes wrong with the car i just wanna kick it!!

it sucks cause my dad has always told me honda honda honda...and for some reason i totally went the opposite way and i sure am paying for it...

granted you cant compare bmw to honda but it still would be nice if these germans can take a page out of the japenese book of reliability...

now the thing im stuck at is should i buy everything (thurst, control, link etc etc)

or should i guess and go with the symptoms from bmwe34.net and change the thrust and link and see what happens then?

ps. where is the cheapest place on the net to get lemforder....yes people i did decide on the better part...