02-23-2012, 11:01 AM
D_Eclipse9916 Wrote:If your going to do a bmw, spend the 1-2k up front in maintenance, and then itll be dead reliable. If you want to just buy and forget, run....RUN FAR AWAY from BMW.
Fair point, mine sucked up a full 2k well inside the first two weeks of owning it. I also crossed the "spent more on maintenance/mods than the actual car" line sometime recently. That being said, at this point there isn't a whole hell of a lot I haven't done yet.
They are cars that can be owned cheaply, but it's going to be an old, cheap piece of crap unless you invest the money and time to make it nice. The bushings all wear out and make it feel like a 60's buick going down the highway, the rear end develops all kind of mysterious stuff to sort out, the cooling systems have a short half-life, the only thing that never fails on the variable timing is that it has or will fail at some point, etc, etc. etc. They have bulletproof drivetrains and rarely fail to get you there, but unless you're willing to spend a lot of money/time on it, it's not going to drive like you'd expect a bmw too.
Since you want to save money for the race cars, I'm assuming you also want to save your time for them, so maybe something Japanese is the best bet like DJ said.
Now: 07 Porsche Cayman S | 18 VW Tiguan
Then: 18 VW GTI Autobahn | 95 BMW M3 | 15 VW GTI SE | 12 Kia Optima SX | 2009 VW GTI | 00 BMW 540i Sport | 90 Mazda Miata | 94 Yamaha FZR600R | 1993 Suzuki GS500E | 2003 BMW 325i | 95 Saab 900S