My BMW e36 Journey

BMW e36 Intro
Got my BMW e36 last week, my first beemer or is it bimmer! Check out the photos...this car was first registered on Singapore roads on 4th of March 1992, the exactsame day and month my daugther was born almost 6 years ago!

The model is a BMW 3 series, 318IA. The previous 2 cars I owned were the Japan made Nissan Bluebird, 1.6 litre and Daihatsu Charade, 1.3 litre. After my wife stopped working almost a few years ago, we decided not to drive anymore.



In the interim, we relied on rental cars from Car Sharing Scheme, Whizzcar, public transport such as the MRT, trains and buses to get around.
Fastforward to late 2005, with God's blessing we now have the financial ability to support a car and thus a car hunt began! We did not want buy a new car and incurred any long term debt, so we decided to look into COE cars instead, I started looking at the much advertized Honda Civics, Nissan Sunny, Presea, and even Toyota Corolla in the Straits Times Classified.

How it all started?

Prices start from $14k onwards for a Sunny all the way up to $25k for a Honda Civic. Having driven Japanese and Korean cars all our lives we decided to take a look at some old Continental cars. Of course, top on our mind was not just the cost but also the running cost of maintaining an old driving machine. Bbeing the web guy that I am, I next looked for more cars on sale via the net and found a few very useful Singapore-based sites for buying and selling of used cars, one was SgCarmart.com and the next was BMW-Sg.com and it was through BMW-Sg.com that I found my BMW e36!

First Viewing

Before this we decided to visit one of the car dealers located along Beach Road in Plaza Hotel, Car Station, they were advertising the 92/93 3 series, with prices starting from $22k. When we got there, this guy took us to the multi-storey car park where 2 Bimmers were parked, both black in colour (our favourite color). He allowed us to test drive one of them, and quote us the price between $26k to $29k. Test drive was done within the car park which was really pathetic cause there is no way you can find out anything wrong with the car.

The viewing and testing took less than 30 minutes and we parted and went on to our second viewing which would eventually turn out to be our existing car!

Second Viewing

Our second viewing was at this Malay guy's house in the East. Needless we were extremely impressed with what we saw on the outside. Again Yusof allowed us to test drive the car around the car park within the condo compounds, again not alloing you to find out the real condition of the car. As tempted as were to say, let's close the deal, we decided to give ourselves a day or 2 before making any decision.

2 Days Later
During those 2 days I went around book stores reading up as much as I can about BMW especially the e36, I surf the web quite a fair bit too, found a few sites explaining technical stuff which was greek to me. Even though I was trained in Mechanical Engineering, it was still tough for me to understand which parts meant what and where...which was one of the reason why I decided to create this blog, to help us 1st timers see first hand, what the parts are and how to care for the 3 series bimmer, specifically e36.

The Close
One of the smarter things I think I did was pay a visit to my old mechanic, told him about my predicament, he assured me that it's not true that BMWs are hard to maintain, he said it's really up to how the previous owner has cared for the car. We were almost close to calling Yusof to close the deal, which I did but onkly if he agrees to let the vehicle to be inspected by my mechanic.

Verdict
Ah Lek, our car guy could not believe how well this 14 plus year old car was taken care of, he took me for a longer spin with all of us on board. He pointed out a few things about the car that could be a cause for concern. A rust inside the boot where the car battery was located, some minor oil leak and also a few other items. I mean it was an old car, what do we expect? We just want to know how bad was it. In the end he gave it the thumbs up. We are very sure there wasn't any conspiracy going on. ;) So bottomline, we closed the deal on that same day.


When we first started we had no clue or idea what an e36 was, I only knew BMW comes in the more popular 3 series, 5 series and 7 series. From hearsay, I gather that the maintenance cost of any Beemer is a killer when compared to a Mercedes. Hopefully our buying experience would those 1st timers. I certainly found this lacking in almost any forums.

Well almost 1 week into using this car, we are slowly beginning to experience the thrill of driving a Bimmers and also the price that comes with it. Just send our car for servicng today! And I hope to share the joy and 'pain' of owning my BMW e36 car with everyone who might interested in buying their first BMW or who is already a BMW e36 owner. Of course, all advice are welcome!

What's Next?

Come back for more updates, I will post pictures on the repairs done on my BMW e36 plus pictures of spares parts to help you get familiar with this car or any BMW e36.
So stay tuned to this site..er blog!