An M3 is an M3, right? Except when it’s a Cabrio. Or Evo Sport. Or Cecotto. – Total BMW
E30 M3? Probably one of the greatest cars BMW has ever built and one for which no excuses are made. It’s also worth every penny and you only have to drive it once on a track day to see why. But you’ve got to question the values of some older BMW tackle. 507? Yep, quite a nice car but a Gullwing 300SL Merc would slaughter it and get my £120,000, thanks. It was good enough for Elvis, after all, 40 grand for an M1? Er, no. For 25 grand it would be a nice thing to own, but no matter how well it’s supposed to handle, it’s still got 316 door handles. I’d rather have a dark metallic blue Ferrari 512 Boxer with 12 cylinders and six barking Webers – plus the small matter of 180mph.
Even after all these years though, the E30 M3 is still regarded as the car to have, and when three mates from Potter’s Bar all have one each we just had to take a look. We wanted to know how much, how fast and what nightmares come hand-in-hand with owning one. Prepared to be surprised.
It all started back in 1994 when Tony Grech bought his. Tony runs a tyre shop called Just Tyres and it’s fair to say he’s owned quite a few tasty cars. Tony bought this in 1994 as a nice, low mileage 1990 Evo Sport 2.5 in black with the usual bits, the wraparound seats being the most obvious. “They were too obvious,” Tony says. “Not long after I bought it, some scum tried to nick it. The locks were ruined and they stole the front seats plus a few other bits. It took BMW six weeks to get hold of new ones,” he adds. “When I bought it, it’d only done 70,000km and it was mint. I used to drive it quite hard as it was supposed to be, but these days I don’t” Tony says. Even now it’s only done 139,000 km (about 86,000 miles) and sounds as good as ever. Like most M3s, it’s got the distinctive and rather gravelly timing chain rattle on start-up, which can often be heard at idle too if the engine’s good and hot. Many specialists will put the fear of God into you and tell you that the chain will snap at 100,001miles, but this isn’t so, as you’ll see from our feature on page 67.
As it came from BMW, Tony’s Sport had air condition plus cruise control. Some would say the M3 needed an extra 200cc engine capacity to lug all these costly and heavy extras about and the M3s with aircon were given slightly uprated front springs to cope. Tony also replaced the original cross-spoke alloys with 850CSi wheels shod with 215/40 ZR 17 Continental ContiSport Contact rubber. Rear end breakaway? Not likely.
Running costs have been low over the last eight years. Apart from regular servicing, which isn’t expensive anyway, the car has only needed a rear exhaust box and basic stuff like brake pads. Like many owners, Tony finds that standard BMW discs and pads are good enough.
The 2.5 was all very well, but it’s reckoned that the 2.3 was a sweeter engine – cheaper too, as these are far more of them. Paul Travors is a technician at BMW dealer Specialist Cars and has been for six years. His M3 is a 1989 Evolution II Cecotto in Macau Blue and as you can see from the pics, it’s a stunner. Macau Blue was always one of the best M3 colours, especially combined with a nice set of rims. When it comes to M3 aftermarket alloys, your choices are Alpina, Schnitzer, Hartge or BBS. Nothing else is permitted – sorry. Just like you wouldn’t bolt a set of chrome Weller eight-spokes onto an E-Type Jag, modern alloys just don’t’ look right on an M3.
Paul admits that his car is almost entirely somebody else’s work and he bought it just the way it is. The previous guy replaced the original rims with 8X17 inch Type 1 AC Schnitzer alloys, shod with Marangoni Zeta 235/40 ZR 17 rubber, and the original Boge suspension was replaced with a full Koni kit – the adjustable gas dampers, lowered uprated coils and an alloy strut brace. Externally, it’s been enhanced by a gille eyebrow plus the blacked-out centre grille. I’m usually against altering the appearance of these cars, but I have to admit that it does look good and at least you can revert to standard in less than 10 minutes.
“I’ve had this car for about three years. I was really looking for Macau Blue,” says Paul. “This one was advertised for £9500 and it was fully-specced with grey heated leather, including the centre console and grey dash, a Momo Champion steering wheel, Scorpion exhaust from the manifold back plus a Pionner sound system with custom door builds,” he adds. The only problem was a noisy gearbox after 171,000km (106,000miles), but this was rebuilt with new bearings. All Paul did apart from servicing was to replace the German check panel built into the roof with a British one. It’s the same unit but it’s all written in English and you can find one in any high spec E28 or E30 in a breaker’s yard – hardly a rare item then.
Other nice extras include AC Schnitzer pedals and gearknob, but that grey dash looks weird. Totally original and not colour-changed. It looks like it might have been a dash made for US market E30s, but fitted to this car to match the special order grey leather. I like it and it makes a nice change from the usual coal mine black E30 interior.
Like Tony’s car, Paul’s hasn’t been expensive to run. In fact, it hasn’t really needed anything and as well as chipping the owner down to £8750, his insurance is only £900 a year, fully comp, which isn’t pricey for a 24 year old. If he wasn’t a mechanic, it would be even less. Like most M3 owners, though, Paul isn’t enamoured with the timing chain noise. But he was surprised to hear about the E46 mod – quite simply, you remove the somewhat marginal standard tensioner piston and replace it with and E46 M3 item which offers an instant improvement.
Now for the M3 Convertible, an oddball car if ever there was one. Neil McDonald’s Sterling Silver version is a minter, having covered just 90,000km from new – a mere 55,000miles. With BMW as the first owner in the German logbook, Neil flew to Stuttgart to buy the car and drove it home. It has electric heated grey leather and an M Tech II steering wheel and is a nicely specced car which will soon be for sale – about £12,500 should do the trick, although there isn’t a hard top with it.
Too many E30 Convertibles have become rattly old sheds these days, but one like this isn’t. Even so, the E30 M3 Cabrio is an enigma. One view is that it combines fresh air motoring with E30 M3 road manners, the other view is that without a roof it’s not as stiff as the hardtop and hardly a road racer. Either way, it’s a nice thing to own and very rare. “I’m selling it because my girlfriend doesn’t like riding in it on the wrong side. I’ve replaced it with a Mercedes Pagoda roof SL,” Neil says.
So, three E30 M3s, but not three financial millstones. Buy right and spend the money on servicing and upkeep, and it could be that an M3 is a very cheap car to own, as you’ll nearly always get the money back come resale time. The 2.5 might be the ultimate, btu a good 2.3 isn’t far behind and is a lot cheaper – the 2.5 isn’t £3000 faster, that’s for sure.
EXPERT GUIDE
So now you want to go M Power shopping but you don’t know your 850CSi from your M5? Here’s what you’re looking for.
It’s easy deciding to move up from 320i to M5 but it’s not so easy buying one without bankrupting yourself. As serious performance cars go, BMW’s M Power models are robust as they come, but they can still turn around and bit you in the wallet if you buy the wrong one. We’ve poked and prodded enough of these cars over the years to know where the bill come from, so together with advice from the UK’s BMW specialists, here’s a guide to avoiding disaster.
You’ll see we’ve ignore the car that started it all, but if you’re in the market for a £70,000 M1 then you probably don’t need our help to choose one – just ask your butler to get his hands dirty for you.
North American readers will also note the absence of the M6, but they rust and leak in all the same places as the European M635CSi as the end of the day. We’ve also avoided getting bogged down in special editions: after all, an M3 is an M3 regardless of whether it has a steel roof or Roberto Ravaglia’s signature on a dashboard plaque. One of the key factors that might put you off an M-Series is the potential cost of putting things right, or even just plain servicing. Now, BMW isn’t in the habit of turning out marginal tat but it has made the odd mistake in the past. What we’re going to explore is the truth behind servicing your Motorsport BMW. Some of it might well surprise you.
The Big Timing Chain Debate
Many specialists will tell you that you must, at all costs, replace your timing chain and tensioners at 100,000miles – or else. Stories abound of horribly mutilated engines where chains have snapped and valves and pistons have met terrible ends. But is this down to unscrupulous preying on your fear in order to extract a couple of grand?
The first Motorsport engine was the M1’s M88 and this was made until 1984, and although it looked like a productionised version of the M1’s motor, there was a significant change within – the reversion from a double-row (duplex) to a single-row (simplex) timing chain.
This change was sweeping across the whole BMW engine range and while it didn’t really matter on a roadgoing 528i that would rarely rev beyond 5500, it did matter on the M88, whose red line was in the 7000s. Up to 80,000 miles, the chain and its tensioners were OK, but at that mileage it would be eating into the lower gearwheel until the tensioner ran out of travel. The chain would then be running slack, both at idle (causing a chatter) and at high rpm. Given this kind of abuse the chain would eventually break. So, at this kind of mileage you really need to fit a new one and it’s also important to look at it’s sprockets too, particularly the lower one on the crank.
The fibre tensioner can suffer too, with a large groove cut into it by the chain. If the engine had been well-maintained with 6000 mile oil changes and driven with respect, you might be lucky and get away with just a chain, which on its own isn’t expensive. Very late-model M6s and certain catalyst-equipped E28 M5s went to eh double-row chain, which is far better.
The single-row chain problem also applies to the E28 M5, which has exactly the same unit. Reckon on £1500 to replace everything.
Now for the E30 M3. One of the main upgrades on this unit was the reversion to a duplex chain. This immediately makes the whole set-up twice as strong and much less prone to wear. We’d go so far as to say that if the engine has been well-maintained and driven with care from cold, you won’t need the impending doom chain change at 100,000 miles.
Specialists like Hartlake, Nigel Moseley at Moseley Motorsport and Pete Walsh at PMW told us they have never known an M3 chain break and Moseley has probably seen more E30 M3s than anybody else in Britain. It is important to get it looked at, though. Also, the cam sprockets wear much faster than the crank sprocket – being at the top of the engine gives it slightly less lubrication. Any significant wear on the cam sprockets and you’ll need to get it done. If the teeth are still good and the engine is quiet, forget it. Fir an E46 M3 tensioner piston and get on with enjoying the car.
Some specialists will show you worn-out cam sprockets and say it could happen to you unless you spend £2000 now, but it’s really just a case of looking first. M3 timing chains don’t just snap. First, the engine has to be a knackered, thrashed nail, with enough timing chain noise to wake the dead. A noisy chain on an E30 can be cured cheaply by fitting the chain tensioner plunger from the latest E46 M3, which bleeds quickly and can silence a noisy chain.
It won’t silence a tired chain and worn sprockets, though. Should your car need any chain work, the head doesn’t have to come off and the engine needn’t come out. If the compressions are still good and the car doesn’t burn oil, you can leave the head on.
Finally, the M3 E36 and the 3.6 and 3.8 M5s. These all use twin-row chains and no, there’ s no suggestion that they need any chain replacement. Even so, you must investigate a noisy chain and if you do have to take the head off, fit a new chain anyway. The Vanos variable cam timing unit on the E36 M3 can get growly and that will cost a grand to replace – the unit alone is £700.
Servicing
When it comes to regular servicing, a Motorsport BMW is like any other. It’s no harder to replace the plugs or change the oil so don’t be fooled by that sharp intake of breath. Bridgegate BMW in Chesterfield was the first BMW main dealer in Britain to put M cars on the Four Plus servicing scheme, which means that even big services don’t cost that much. As a result they’ve had owners travelling from all over the country to get a service and a BMW stamp in their service book, so expect other dealers to follow suit.
At the end of the day, an older M-Series like the E30 M3 or M635CSi is a simple car by today’s standards and new Compact is more difficult to work on. The only thing a BMW dealer can’t do is fit non-genuine parts, so don’t go strolling in with your Koni suspension kit under your arm. There’s one area where an independent would get one over a dealer, though. “An Inspection I from us includes a valve clearance check. Not all dealers do this as it’s not on the job sheet,” Phil Crouch from Hartlake says.
Parts
When it comes to parts, in most cases you’ll either be using BMW originals, high spec equivalents or having your head examined. There are no cheap aftermarket engine bits anyway, but when it comes to brakes the original parts work well and aren’t expensive. E30 M3s use the same pads as an old E28 518, but don’t be tempted by cheap pads. Having said that, aftermarket ones with a known name such as Ate, Girling and Ferodo are fine, but BMW stuff is good.
Exhausts are another area of debate. There aren’t any cheap pattern exhausts and if you’re fitting an aftermarket pipe then stick to a quality brand. Think about the noise aspect too, especially with the E30 – many M3 owners have fitted a big bore system and taken it off after 100miles, fed up with the noise after about 20minutes.
Dampers were made by Bilstein for cars like M635CSi and M5, but the E30 M3 uses Boge gas dampers, which aren’t overly stiff but give a nice ride quality. Aftermarket companies do dampers for the M3 and the Koni damper/Eibach spring combination is known to work well without destroying the ride. More and more M3 owners are going back to the original equipment, though.
Bilsteins for the other cars can be bought through alternative sources, but you’ll save about 10 pence if anything. Bilstein does restrict the sale of BMW equipment dampers and at least with BMW you can get them next day for the more popular applications.
Repairs
We hope you don’t need them, but nothing lasts forever. Of the bunch, the 3.8 M5 is the most expensive to repair. Should you need an engine after a track day disaster, a second-hand one at least £2500, but they do seem to last forever. Expect about £1500 for a known E30 M3 motor with history and provenance. The electronic dampers on the M5 3.8 aren’t very funny to replace, though.
If you buy a good E30 M3 with a proper history, it should be cheap to run. A new clutch costs less than £450 for example, but when you’re having a job like this done it’s wise to replace other bits – gearbox mountings, a propshaft coupling and a gear linkage bush or two will only cost £100.
Bodywork is as good on the M-Series cars as it was on any. The M5 panels are inexpensive and even M3 panels aren’t horrendous. With parts like bootlids and still extensions, though, you might be better off with good used. The exception is the M635CSi. The early Karmann-built 6-Series gained a reputation as a rust bucket and although the later cars, including the M version, were better, they still like to rust.
The front wings are the regular casualty and they cost a fortune new. The ludicrous £450 each is condemning a number of otherwise economically savable cars.
Second-hand wings are rare and the only alternative is having them removed, sand-blasted and rebuilt with new metal. M3s seem to rust around the bottom of the screen which is bonded in. Bridgegate’s bodyshop has repaired these and it’s not easy.
Related posts:
November 24, 2008
2000 - 2008, Articles