USED BMW E30 3 Series - The common problems and should you buy one? 

I once owned an E30 for 3 months & it was the happiest 3 months of my life. Then I sold it & was even happier. It's a great car, but you REALLY need to enjoy spend half your life wrenching on one in the garage to own one.

This was peak BMW design. E30, E38, E39

Adam's comments on smoking actually made me stop smoking. Much love from South Africa😂🇿🇦

I want to do a steam engine swap.

The real sleeper is the Portuguese/Italian specific E30 320is, which had a slightly detuned M3 engine, same LSD and gearbox, but with a much more subdued exterior. These can still be had for almost acceptable prices, at least compared to "proper" M cars, but they are in short supply and few are found on the market in Europe. Out of the regular line-up, late years 318is is an excellent vehicle too, and you could spec a rear LSD on that too as an option back in the day.

My mom had a 325e sedan as a company car in 1988, working for a US based parts supplier. It was a harrowing experience looking at the option list. Power steering was optional. Amazing car at the time.

What happened to Jim's intro? "Mechanically, what goes wrong? I can't tell you, because I am not a qualified mechanic..."

I used to have a 86" 323i coupe as my first car in 2007, AMAZING car, but a massive pain in the arse. Rust in the floor, in the firewall. steaeing rack was a constant issue, used piles of fuel until i had the whole fuel system re-done, allllll sorts of problems. Having said that , its the most fun I've had driving a car, ever. Unreal balance, not too much power so you can thrash it on a twisty road. I loved it, i LOVED it.

I bought a used one myself. A very.. very.. used one. Being the first driver since 1999, it had ONLY problems. It was the worst financial decision i've made, but all of the mechanical problems aside from some smaller things are fixed, and it has NEVER left me stranded. It is the most reliable daily driver I have ever had. The M20 is such a bulletproof drivetrain, efficient and easy to make power with if you're handy, and even the ZF 4HP22 automatic slushbox feels phenominal. (the autos are surprisingly great!) It shifts as if it's brand new, doesn't make any noise (aside from the classic e30 diff clunks and the TC locking at higher speeds). If you fix alot of the big issues like some wiring, water leaks, vacuum leaks, and fuel delivery, it'll get you from not only point A to point B, but also wherever else. I will only ever only the E30 as a daily as of now. This car is my entire life.

I agree with the styling comments. There’s no current bmw that stirs my hearts like the 90-00s bmws.

Knowing these cars inside out for the past few years, I can safely say you did a good job presenting this car and it's pros and cons. That shows you're a good, honest, hardworking channel that walk the walk and talk the talk. Best of luck as you have a great future ahead of you keep it up.

I’m NOT a BMW fan personally but they’ve made some cracker models. I visited the BMW museum in Germany 🇩🇪 and it was an eye opener some beautiful examples.

In order to improve aerodynamics, golf balls have those little indentations. That's why the roof lining actually has those rivets. Aerodynamics.

Great work guys. Excellent review as usual. Love to see an e39 review 😏

Found a e30 320i convertible 8 years ago for my father in law. $6000 paid. Fixed the lack of previous 10 years of maintenance and it was mega reliable. Easy to maintain

Loved you when you sold me my first Roland TD-12 and have loved you ever since. Best car presenter on RU-vid and a pleasure to watch. Best E30 review and we have one! Love your work

These videos really are nice to watch! P.S I think I saw you today (stuck in traffic...😞) while on my bike

Good to see some 80s cars on this.

Nice review Adam. I have an 09 135i MSport E88 with the same engine. All issues are fixed and there are a few. Plastic charge pipe changed from plastic to metal, electronic water pump replaced, oil filer housing removed and replaced with new gaskets/seals/o-rings (and it still weeps a bit of oil) and other oil leaks taken care of. I’m now waiting for one or both turbos to give up where I may swap to a single turbo and out in a bigger rad pack. 225kW and 400Nm are so much fun to potter around town with, but even more so on the open road. It pulls from virtually “any speed” to “way too rapid” in the blink of an eye. Lloyd

Review of the year

Nice video mate

Great video. Who remembers the check panel being featured on Sale of the Century back in the day?

600,000 Km’s! 😲 That’s impressive

My late father’s first BMW was a slightly used 1977 320i in beige!🤢 That was in 1978. Subsequently dad had several 3.0s models over the years & his last was a 735IL. Fantastic cars, all of them! No major issues & both 3.0s models had well over 350,000km. One needed new rings & surprisingly dad’s German born mechanic put in a set of VC Valiant rings!🤣👍🏼

Happen to be taking some time out in my E30 when this popped up. Been waiting for this to drop since seeing your posts on the groups. Rust is definitely a problem on old cars, but in my experience these have better corrosion resistance than Australian and Japanese cars from the same era. I think the thing that eats / kills these is shitty mods when they were cheap hacks. ‘Should you buy one?!’ ‘If you’re going to do shitty mods and destroy these great cars - NO then you should definitely NOT buy one’. Also what goes wrong ‘literally everything is prone to failure on these due to age’. They’re quite reliable and simple cars, but age and neglect get to everything. All the bushing and other bits will need replacing. The auto boxes have a design fault where if they are revved in park or neutral they build pressure and destroy the box. The M40 engine in the S2 318i is a bit crap. Not terrible but the worst of the engines. Some parts are simply NLA and make sourcing some things tricky, BUT there is surprisingly good support for them on the whole. Seats also rot and fall apart in Australian climate, sport seats cost a fortune even in terrible shape. Centre consoles bubble. This one interior is in good shape because the owner(s) clearly care for it and replace dodgy bits. Those front seats are from a coupe. The interiors do hold up pretty well on the whole though. Fun fact, they weigh about as much as many MX-5s, while being a lot more practical. The touring wasn’t offered here and you didn’t include the TC Baur (which is different to the convertible). All of the Z cars have been based on the 3 series platform / underpinnings. The Z3 on the E36 (with E30 rear end), Z4 on the E46. 2nd Gen Z4 on the E90 and so on. Simple, surprisingly reliable engineering in a light, RWD chassis that was made in huge quantities with a massive cult following. Beautiful, simple, understated design that made the Germans so good to start with. These were criticised when they came out for being ‘old fashioned’ and not cutting edge ‘trendy’ design. They were distinctly a BMW. Like when cars were a design evolution, not trying to reimagine the brand ‘face’ every generation. Like what Porsche does with the 911. Iconic, not brash and overt. Just a brilliant, brilliant vehicle.

Would have saved so much time to just point out where it doesn't get rust.

Excuse me you didn’t say (what goes wrong with them, well I’m not a qualified mechanic, I can’t tell you, luckily Jim is ), please don’t forget this iconic line

e30 trailing arm suspension is reliable but BAD for performance. e36 update trailing arm is peak trailing arm design.

the cup holder shoe got me off guard as I am just rewatching Married with Children :) .....this is a damn good review, rare this day and age!

My new favourite episode, and of all the cars reviewed, maybe the one I most want to buy

Not me already considering one for the past 3 weeks. N you make one of these videos about it ❤️

That wagon tho 😍

As much as I'm aware of how big cars have become, it's hard to wrap my mind around this being the same size as a Mazda 2 sedan.

NIce video. Just to add, the 333i we did was cool. but our 325iS was way better. was a 2.7 (worked 2.5i) with 155kw. we couldnt get an M3 so made our own one.

That parking pole is so JDM vibe

One of the best episodes in awhile 🤣

love the cup holder

E30 M3 needs a feature here!! Would you also be interested in reviewing a Clubman JCW?

Also another thing worth noting is that it can be hard to find affordable parts in Australia.

E46 after this, please

Nice shoes Adam 😅

Love these. I have the younger cousin, the mk3 golf, which I doubt will ever be reviewed on this channel as they are rather rare in Australia. I would still prefer the 'what goes wrong' to be later on in the video like it used to be :)

Al Pyna, Ack Schnitzel, Hart G, Hoffmeister kink... maaateee 🤣

Imagine a Lexus LS 400 from 1993 and comparing it's build quality versus this BMW. Still, we appreciate the retro review ❤.

Well I mean I am looking to get a GS 300h from 2013 soon. Its listed for 15000€ or for aussies its 24k with 82k miles or 132k kilometres.

i have a 1992 with 45k miles. drives like a dream and i can drop the top. its my daily.

Will definitely admit it is a good looking car the E30 wagon but the ride height of your review car would most likely get you canaried over here. I'm honestly suprised how many kms on the clock she had and bar the dashboard was in pretty bloody good nick. I definitely didn't expect the visceral reaction to an electric motor swap Hullsy had though I do agree unmolested is best. Good work as always guys and look forward to Sunday's video as per usual 👍

Nice boots Adam!

Funny thing about the power windows on the front. My old 2007 B7 had exactly the same setup, power on front, manual in the back. The car was loaded with options, but still no power windows in the back. Just doesn't make sense to me.

I am a little bit in love with the presenter. He is great !

oooo the cv pro's very nice

My dad bought me my first e30 325i convertible when i was 16. Being into cars and loving all different types, the only car for me is an e30. My dream is to engine swap it and give it some more power. id be just as happy maintaining it and keeping it nice stock. Buying a new car today just doesnt appeal to me.

Do a redriven on cortina mk3

I want a current version of THIS car. Keep the size and shape as it was, just new motor and some rudimentary modern technology.

Yes this was the best designed BMW. But they are very old now and the only way to fix one of these is a total rebuild. Total rebuild, every nut, bolt, rubber, glass and sticker.

Zip ties are underrated...especially the stainless steel ones🤣

If you're ever up in QLD, I have a bone stock 1M, and a very highly modified 1M

If you can come over to Perth, I have a car you can review.

Have so many questions, like what is Adam doing with a sparkly high heeled disco boot 😂

Not in the market for any BMW. Here to listen to anti smoking health messages and to see which shoes Adam is wearing 😂

If it’s got a standard system. Leave it the heck alone:)

Nice shoes

My brother had an 1987 325is, to this day he misses that car.

How i would like to see an Evo 325is even mk 3 vr6 or Opel boss, yeah I'm from South Africa (Soweto)

It was an incredible value when they were less than 10,000. Now there are fewer good examples left they’re not worth the inflated price.

I have a turbo na8c eunos roadster if you want to use for a review

A bit unfair with the rust everywhere comment, if I remember rightly the body work on these cars could outlast most other manufacturers from this period, especially Japanese which were notorious for rot in the 80's (although mechanically and electrically better than most). Any vehicle this age will require a complete tear down and all perishables and consumables replaced (ruɓbers, seals, hoses, even some wiring and connectors) to make properly roadworthy and less troublesome like Jim said, regardless of manufacturer. These do rot, but were above average for the time in terms of longevity. BMW and most of the other premium German makers did have reasonably good factory body preperation techniques and protection for this period compared to most other manufacturers, Volvo were also good. Australia is odd compared to the rest of the World when it comes to the value of older vehicles, maybe because the climate is kinder to sheet metal in certain areas, although the fierce sun degrades plastic, paint and rubber rapidly. Vehicles of a certain make, type and age that would be extremely cheap or worthless in Europe seem to hold value better in Oz. Australians seem to hang onto vehicles longer (which I like), in Northern Europe the average life span is 12 to 15 years, anything older is a rare survivor, manufacturers do not expect 20 year life spans out of vehicles. Great videos, get to see vehicles I remember here in the past that are very rare here now. Would be interesting to see a video on journo reviews of vehicles in the past and if the journo hype of the time stands the test of time today?

Car review suggestion: Maserati Ghibli. They're now incredibly affordable you can tell everyone that you drive a Maserati 😄

Love the content mate. It would be great if you stopped insulting smokers every video (no I’m not a smoker). Yes, people smoke (regardless of how you feel about it which is evident given the constant remarks). People also used to smoke in the 80’s, 90’s and every other era you review too. Looking forward to the next video! Cheers

You make this car look tiny and to be fair in today's terms it is.

E34 is the smart mans E30

A while ago I asked you to review a Brera hoping you’d convince me not to buy one. Well I just bought one, come review it and tell me it wasn’t a heart over head choice 🙏🏼

Beautiful car, but a beefier engine swap would possibly make it a perfect utility vehicle. I prefer the 80s & 90s BMWs visually.

@0:27 72k for an example with that mileage? I can tell the previous owner did a lot of work (and got ripped off themselves) but that still seems like a rip-off.

Soooo... E39 next?

These things are at an age where You shouldn’t be asking what goes wrong? Instead ask what do I need to do to keep it on the road & in a decent enough condition?Chances are pretty much everything will be needing some form of attention. The fuel system, brakes, suspension absolutely bloody everything. However the biggest killer of these cars is RUST.

The safety is terrible by today’s standards but it was decent in the day. I always wanted to own one of these but sadly I think they are just too old now. I still love them though.

In hey guys got a 2020 RS3 Stage1 probably Australia’s lowest klm which you can review

An E30 M3 Evo 2 might be nice 😨

Hi Adam, what is the go with the late up load? Normally your videos appear bang on at 6pm but the last couple of weeks they have been running late. The cog for the speedo disintegrating is a common problem on the VS commodore as well.

better than all the cliched looking modern bmws, or majority of modern cars for that matter

04:15 AL PINE A 😂

2.5 could not carry petrol till them 318.is not bad on petrol

3 series design has actually progressively gotten better...until the G80 M3 when it fell off a cliff. Regular G80s aren't bad looking considering what BMW did with the 4 and 7 series, but the M3 is an eyesore.

Great safety section tbh

Mate Rimac did an EV swap on his E 30 and look where is he now owning Bugatti

It’s too bad you didn’t have Tony Longhurst to show you how to drive it as intended.

My first car was an 1987 325e coupe. Was bought off a family friend for $1200 and then I sold it for $450 because the gear box gave me problems and kept slipping. Overall a good 1st car bit it was so expensive to maintain. I had an aftermarket sound system so driving this around was cool

Lol i bought my e30 with a blown motor for $500 I decided to barra swap it😂

You can test my 850R wagon, unlike yours it will not catch fire.

this era bmw was the peak and anyone who tells you their unrelible, just bought a shitty one now their painting all cars with their bias brush

Did you smoke in the past?

It's 'Alpeeena'

How in the hell does that e30 have 600,000km 😭

Ford Taunus '72

607k on odometer O_o

I love my and its a nightmare.

you guys pay howmuch for an E30 ?

It’s pronounce Heart-Ga

Al-pine-ah? Nah m8, Al-peena