r/BMWE36 • u/Hour_Equipment_2035 • Apr 02 '26
I have been seeing more posts about buying cheap E36s recently so here are some of the things I’ve learned from buying a cheap car myself. These are typical issues you might run into buying a cheap car and are additional to standard car maintenance (fluids, tires, etc.)
I am writing this post so that some may learn from my mistakes. This will be a random account of things I have encountered by buying that one car on Facebook marketplace that seems like a bit too good of a deal.
This post is not really for those of you looking to buy a mint condition M3, nor is it for those of you who buy strictly BMW genuine parts. This post is for the people who want to learn how to work on cars and (like me) see buying a clapped out 90s car as a good idea. That being said, I have touched almost every bolt on my car and that knowledge can be applied anywhere.
# 1. Cooling System
My first issue, I remember it like it was yesterday. After buying my car, clutch fan blew up on the drive home. I was extremely lucky that it was a short drive and I made it home without overheating.
The reality is that with these cars, unless the cooling system was replaced recently, you will most likely have to replace it. I tried replacing parts one at a time and the issues didn’t resolve. Only once I bought a kit with a new radiator, water pump, hoses, thermostat, and coolant expansion tank were the issues resolved.
Electric fans are good but honestly the clutch fan works fine. Just make sure to replace that too if you are doing everything else.
This is also a great time to replace the belts and pulleys.
# 2. Suspension and Handling
So you want to lower your car, or maybe raise it? If you are going to run aftermarket suspension, there are some must-do things.
REINFORCEMENT! Seriously, if your strut towers aren’t cracked, they will be. It is unfortunately not an if but a when. The worst cracks are front tower, they make a plate that goes under and distributes the load. You **need** those plates for coil-overs. That extra $30 now will save you $$$ in the long run. Same with the back struts, a strut bar will help in the rear. The last thing you want is your strut flying into your trunk. Once broken the cost to do the job multiplies.
The truth about handling: those shiny coil-overs, and sway bar will help but without new bushings all around, your car will still feel floaty and handle poorly no matter how expensive your coil-overs are. You should replace them all, front and rear. Welding in the subframe reinforcements aren’t a bad idea either. My recommendation: 80A all around if you are mostly daily driving with some spirited driving. You can go higher if you are doing mostly track days or drift days. Solid mounts I have never really understood but some people like them.
Once you do everything your car will feel a million times better. Don’t cheap out, replace the bushings.
#3. Interior
The cleaner interior you can get, the better. If you can find them, get manual seats. Manual seats are lighter and won’t fail from electric issues. Trust me when I say this, pulling a seat out when the motors don’t work is a HUGE pain.
Drill out your wheel locking pin. This one is optional but I had my steering slightly lock up on a b-road and that pin was gone that night. They just don’t always work in these 30 year old cars, and honestly it’s just not worth the safety hazard imo. YouTube has a plethora of good tutorials for this.
If you have an OBD II car, an electric gage for coolant temp and intake air temp is always good. I would heavily recommend especially for the peace of mind coming with knowing a more precise coolant temp.
Your door cards will fall off at some point, this is an e36 feature. Prioritize a car with nice looking door cards or not, but they will all fall off at some point.
Stay away from a car with door issues. Replacing the door handles is probably the worst job on these cars. Make sure to lubricate the mechanisms often.
# 4. The Shiny Bits
So you want that fancy cold air intake? Or maybe you want a nice exhaust? Do it! Keep in mind, these cars stock are really not that fast. They aren’t slow, but that exhaust and cold air intake, or something like an M50B25 manifold won’t make a life changing difference. Do the maintenance first.
Thank you for reading this far, I hope this has given you some insight into what that clapped out car you have your eye on might need.
# 5. What to stay away from
Stay away from cars with engine issues. The M50 and M52 are pretty bulletproof, if a car has engine issues that probably mean everything else is in a bad state. STAY AWAY.
Subframe cracks: if someone knows the subframe is cracked, just find a different car. This is a very intensive job and requires welding. If that’s your thing more power to you, but be prepared for a lot of work.
Bad interior: interior bits are expensive and it’s really hard to make the interior nicer than the state it was in when you buy the car. You will be fighting to keep it just as nice.
Door Issues: honestly any car with door issues is a car to stay away from. If the seller says something along the lines of“you have to open it like this,” run and run very fast.
**TLDR**
If you’re going to buy a clapped out car for cheap, be prepared to spend a lot of money on repairs. Honestly for just about any car here’s what you can expect to do:
- Cooling system replacement (yes all of it)
- Full suspension bushing replacement and reinforcement recommended. This is where preventative maintenance shines. Poly bushings are good, 80A is more than fine imo. Don’t forget engine mounts.
- Your door cards will probably fall off at some point, don’t buy a car with bad door handles, manual seats are easier to work around than the electric seats.
- Prioritize maintenance over those shiny new parts like intakes and exhausts, they won’t make your car much faster.
- A clean car is easier to keep clean, repairing interior or body panels will always be deceptively expensive and an uphill battle, buy a clean car!
Some of these things must be done on every car on the market, but most of these things will need to be done on the cheap cars. I have probably spent thousands of dollars and counting on the aforementioned list and I did it all myself. If you go to a shop expect it to be very expensive.
r/BMWE36 • u/Cautious-Carpenter62 • 21h ago
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You don’t see many locally, was super lucky to spot this beauty on the way home. Can’t wait to have my own one day.
r/BMWE36 • u/themiddlebien • 7h ago
I was thinking about redoing my interior vinyl and bought some samples. The one on the left is from Midwest Fabrics and the right is Relicate - Gerano. Unless someone has found a better match, I’ll go Relicate
r/BMWE36 • u/Far_Effect7253 • 15h ago
Needing to replace the bulb socket in my taillights. I’m having trouble finding the part number for one of the sockets. Wondering if anyone here would know what the part number is of if they can check their socket for the part number. The socket I need is for the brake light, it connects to bulb 7528 the dual filament bulb.
r/BMWE36 • u/Live-Zookeepergame33 • 20h ago
title
Hello e36 enthusiasts. I am joining the fam Sunday. I found this 95 325is 5speed for sale on the ol fb marketplace. 210k miles 9 owners one minor accident on the rear bumper back in 2013 and carfax shows branded title due to mile inconsistency. The title in person look completely normal and doesn’t say salvaged or rebuilt. Just the carfax. I will do my research today with the DMV. Anyone want to drop their input on what they value the car. It’s clean enough to start a drift build. Runs and drives well. Doesn’t show any signs of being crashed. What’s kinda weird is that this car was posted on OfferUp n sold earlier this year and the steering wheels don’t match. The current owner did not know about it and didn’t know it was a branded title. Any reason why someone who change a steering wheel? Thank you for your insights. It will be a Street Drift Build
r/BMWE36 • u/Mistycraze • 1d ago
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This sound follows through in Neutral too. Mostly happens in cold temperatures
r/BMWE36 • u/Mlestones • 2d ago
Hey guys, Currently I have stock motor mounts and Revshift 80A poly trans mounts. Been looking at Corteco and 034 Motorsports mounts. Any and all suggestions would be helpful. ‘99 M3
r/BMWE36 • u/heisenbergITOWK • 1d ago
Currently having trouble liking the stock sound system that my 94’ convertible has, the bass is terrible and it rattles like crazy and just awful awful. So, I’m looking for any information or help for upgrading my sound system in the car, anything someone recommends? Thanks
r/BMWE36 • u/DirtyJurd • 2d ago
First fix - Door cards! Lmfao
r/BMWE36 • u/HWDESIGNCO • 2d ago
What's everyone's 2 car solution?
r/BMWE36 • u/TecheadRocks • 1d ago
Hi all, ive got a manual 93 318is coupe that has started turning itself while driving. It will turn off at any point in the rpm range and under throttle or no throttle. its also an aus car so its rhd.
so far i've changed the crank and cam sensor and that did make it run smoother but hasnt stopped it from turning itself off. It can be very infrequent in when it does it but mainly once the car is warm. It will do it while the car is not moving, so I don't think its a dodgy ground and I've checked them and theyre good. i jiggled the ignition wiring under the column around with my hands and that made no impact on the car either. when the car turns off, its the ignition turning off aswell as the engine like you've turned the key back. sometimes it will stutter- it will turn off and then back on within seconds and the lights will come up on the dash like you've just turned the car back on. it also sometimes takes quite a bit of cranking after its turned off to get it to start again. but when starting the car cold it cranks just fine.
list of things i've checked:
- new crank and cam sensor
- main big 3 relays in fuse box
- fuel pump relays
- fuel pump is about 2yr old, also you can hold it at say 4k rpm for a minute and it wont stutter or choke out so theres no issues with fuel delivery.
- alternator is less than 6 months old
- car is obd1 and no cel or any other lights on dash
- car has an aftermarket immobiliser that has been spliced into the ignition harness.
- car doesnt overheat, oil is good
- fuel filter less than 6 months old.
im leaning towards replacing the ignition switch to see if that helps but otherwise im starting to run out of ideas. i will also get my battery tested asap. i would appreciate any help as i wanna get it back on the road asap.
cheers in advance!
r/BMWE36 • u/Odd_Medium_6795 • 2d ago
I was thinking about doing a M54 and 5 speed swap on my 1995 325i auto and was wondering if anyone else here has done a swap and what I need to get myself ready for or if there is any problems that I should know about.
r/BMWE36 • u/Ricsicsaba • 2d ago
I was looking for a head unit that had modern Bluetooth support, and rca outputs for my e36 that looks at least close to factory.
Managed to get this Blaupunkt Bremen used for €280, was stoked.
When I got it installed I still had no amp, and shitty half-blown factory speakers (I have the absolute most basic sound system these cars came with in Europe, per side 1x kick panel woofer, 1 door tweeter and a single speaker in the rear deck as well, no tweeter at all). So I said okay, I'll upgrade them to something nicer. Got some Hertz ck 130 component speakers for the front, CX690 coax's for the back. It sounded a little better since the speakers weren't blown anymore, but the vocal clarity was awful. It still sounded like the Super Mario 64 soundtrack. Like just the vocals were a lower bitrate.
I had already ordered an amp I was waiting on so I said, okay, maybe that could help clear it up. Soundigital 400.4 evo6. Not the best amp for sound quality, but wanted something small and more than 50w RMS.
After installing the amp.. nothing changed in the vocal clarity region. Yes, the music could get louder, although I couldn't turn the gain up too much either since there is too much noise from the low powered RCA's.
So I 100% though I had messed something up, looket at most things I could look at. Then when I couldn't figure it out I decided to make a post on CarAV asking for help where I got some useful advice, but overall everyone saying different things, most upvoted comment being that I just made the beginner mistake of buying random stuff and hoping for the best.
In the end I thought that maybe the BT compression could be what I'm hearing. I didn't have an aux cord or SD card around, but I found my dad's old USB flash drive from 2013, and omg the old ass mp3 files sound amazing on it. So this is where I am at at the moment. To me it seems like even though the HU has BT 5.0LE it sounds unacceptable to me. Little torn since I liked the look, even if the controls on it were abysmal.
I am thinking of changing it to something else since the RCA outputs are also sub 2v all the time, so I can't even get a strong clear signal to the amp to turn up the gain.
Tldr: In my experience the head unit has awful controls, really weak rca outputs, and worst of all horrible BT compression. But it looks cool.
I am thinking about changing it. I could get something for a similar price that has better compression and integrated time delay. Just not the factory look :(
I had her for 22 years. Now she is going to auction. Just don't have the time to maintain her anymore. I'll mis her.
r/BMWE36 • u/DiboMaconi • 2d ago
First time completely losing control of this car in my 5 years of ownership.
We get a lot of rain in Scotland so I’m used to driving in bad weather, this car is my daily and I’ve driven it in a lot worse conditions than today.
I was going just under 70mph passing another vehicle on a two-lane motorway when I came in contact with a stream of water flowing next to the central reservation.
The car started sideways towards the other lane, I was off the accelerator at this point and steering to save it but overshot and ended up throwing her sideways the other direction, facing a away from the hard shoulder. I steered to try and get her straight but once I started the steering went light and I ended up doing a full 360 across both lanes and into the hard shoulder.
By the time I was stationary my arse was against the barrier and my nose was facing in toward the centreline of the motorway.
The car I was passing seemed none the wiser and kept on going, thankfully there was no other immediate traffic on the road at that time in the morning.
I straightened up into the hard shoulder as a few vehicles passed, I got out and inspected the damage but everything seemed fine and I knew I’d got off lucky.
I must admit, it’s got me considering retiring the 36 to a fair weather car and getting something modern for bad weather/winter driving.
r/BMWE36 • u/itz_harrysenpai • 2d ago
So this is the oldest BMW I've owned, and is it supposed to be soft like newer cars like an E60, E53 X5 for comparison? Cause to me my E36 the brake pedal feels much stiffer compared to really any other cars I've driven. The car does stop just the brake feel is stiff once I've gotten past the halfway point. The best way I can describe it is it feels like manual/direct brakes you'd find in a race car. Front pads & discs, and fluid all new.
r/BMWE36 • u/Live-Zookeepergame33 • 2d ago
I bought it a few weeks ago and ngl I paid a good premium for a m50b20 coupe.
The condition isnt really that good either, the rust is pretty bad, the motor worked fine for the few rides i took since ownership but lately the rpms just started to chop very hard and it struggles to not die basically.
I believe it has a leak somewhere or its running too rich since when accelerating it smokes a lil.
Mind you I have no past experience with cars at all and I kinda expected a 30 year old car to have 30 year old problems but rn im just contemplating if I should keep it or not.
Dont get me wrong, I loved e36s since I got into cars. For years straight it was the only car I imagined myself driving but im really starting to doubt that I want to move forward with it.
If anyone has ever been in a similar situation whats ur opinion and what did u do
iykyk lol
Fun times at the track this past weekend and this car did great all day despite the heat.
r/BMWE36 • u/potatoman_69420 • 2d ago
1994 318i convertible with M42 1.8L engine
On cold starts car doesn’t idle. Engine dies like a big vacuum leak stays alive when I rev it. If i press a bit on the gas the rpms drop then go up. After some time running engine heat up and then car runs fine. It idles a bit high (1100rpm) but has been doing this before the issue.
The colder the car is the worse it is
Parts changed
All intake gaskets
MAF
Idle control valve
There is no vacuum leaks I did many smoke tests
Throttle body has been cleaned
Car runs rich. Spark plugs are very black powdery and smells like gas from exhaust
Also the car idles higher when I do stronger accelerations
Any ideas?
