E30 M3 owners..

[M3 Dream's]

How reliable is your car? How much money have you spent on maintenance? Past M3 owners.. what were some problems and during what mileage? Whats the best mileage to buy a E30 M3?

[SG_M3]

www.s14.net

[Aimslu7]

They are expensive to maintain compared to an e36 m3 or any other bmw for that matter. They are going to be only as reliable as you maintain them, a general rule for almost any e30 m3 is you need to spend at least 15k, if not look forward to dumping some money into it. The motor itself is pretty picky, to go through a quart of oil every 600 miles is pretty common, these engines need a lot of attetion, which amounts to money. If you're not doing the work yourself, you can easily spend 400 dollars just on plugs/cap/rotor/ and a couple relays. Lets not even get into rebuilds or a 2.5, thats upwards of 6-16k. You'll also be paying for oem prices for new water pumps and other misc items but the benefit of that is you get oem EVO parts to hop up your ride. Most people who own these cars love them and put the money isuse behind them.

[Kevin]

some items that commonly go:

Water Pump
O2 sensor
Coolant temp sensor
Rear Shock mounts
Distributor cap and rotor
Intake Gaskets $80 a peice and you need 2 !!!
Damn Damn header studs

Labor is expensive especially engine rebuilds, but lots of well maintained engines have been known to be strong up till 200,000 miles.

Oil consumption varies. Currently my engine consumes next to no oil at all but I rebuilt it a year ago. Before the rebuild it burned about a quart every 500 miles

[tylerblue]

s14's love to spin rod bearings at any point beyond 100k miles. Mine spun at 170k miles and had to have a full motor rebuild. S14's are NOT reliable, do not buy one if you are going to use it as a daily.

[Kevin]

tyler

You running a aftermarket chip when you spun your rod bearing or multiple rod bearings?