I certainly think so! I work on a variety of BMW’s and European cars at my shop, and the E34 really does seem to be the best-built out of all of them.

Rust isn’t even remotely a problem here in Arizona. I exclusively buy cars from the Southwest for that reason.

I mean that’s a fair point, or they could take the Apple approach and just completely copy whatever technology is established in a few years and perfect it. It’s not always about being first to market, it’s about doing it best.

I’m seeing a similar thing happening with older BMW’s... a lot of enthusiasts are getting sick of how computerized modern BMW’s are, with electric steering, endless electronic modules, and excessive driver-assistance nannies. That’s why BMW’s from the E28, E30, E36, E34, E39, and E46 generation are starting to go up…

I may not love BMW’s recent vehicles, but I do respect their dedication to sticking with gasoline-powered engines (aka what they do best) instead of just hopping on the wave of electric adoption. It’s a pretty smart strategy from a business point of view, since electric cars are still in their relative infancy.

I may not love BMW’s recent vehicles, but I do respect their dedication to sticking with gasoline-powered engines (aka what they do best) instead of just hopping on the wave of electric adoption. It’s a pretty smart strategy from a business point of view, since electric cars are still in their relative infancy.

I love that feature, it makes me lots of money (I run a BMW shop).

It started out as a car review, and ended up being a very convincing argument for not having kids. Not sure how I feel about that.

I’ve got another prediction: I will continue driving used BMW’s from 1995 or older, with little regard towards modern technology.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather sit in traffic in my own car than have no traffic and be squeezed in with people in public transit. I grew up in NYC and spent most of my early years taking the bus/subway, and I really grew to hate it, to the point of where I bought a car and dealt with all the expenses of owning…

It’s a nice, simple car that’s big enough to actually seat more than 2 people comfortably. It can be had with anything from a mild V6 to a screaming supercharged V8, and it can still be had with a stick with just about any engine, which is lovely in an age where only base model cars get the stick anymore (looking at…

Fair point, I should have written “Chrysler products” instead of FCA, but the meaning is the same.

Ah, that makes sense. Here in the US, Diesel has generally followed the price of gasoline fairly closely, so with the higher upfront cost + higher maintenance costs of diesels (since less people work on them) it’s not always a clear choice to get a diesel.

Not sure if trolling. Have you ever driven a decent BMW? I agree that the newer BMW’s are ugly, heavy, and pretty crap to drive, but BMW’s from the 80's to the early 2000's were pretty universally praised as being wonderful cars to drive.

Haha, fair enough. I was joking more than anything. I agree though, uncommon manual variants of cars are definitely a cool thing to see. Weird how these American vans ended up with diesels and manuals for Europe.

I would love to get a V8-powered BMW wagon again, that’s something I feel I’ve been missing in my life since I sold my 540it a few years back. Current plan is to find a slicktop (aka sunroof delete) E34 525it wagon and swap an M60B44 V8 in.

You’re in a place that’s known for its wonderful manual diesel wagons (BMW, Audi, Mercedes, etc) and yet you’re still looking at FCA products? You truly are a Michigan man, through and through.

Clearly y’all haven’t been paying attention to the E46 wagon market... manual E46 wagons are going for pretty good money these days, particularly in AWD form which is desirable to many people in the US that have the misfortune of living in a place with winters. Under $5k for a very clean manual E46 touring is quite a…

I’m a mechanic so these are easy to maintain for me. I owned a 2003 330i5 for a while and had no major issues with it, along with a dozen other BMW’s from the era. Currently driving a 1994 525i/5, which has been lovely.

I sell about half a dozen vehicles a year on Craigslist, it’s always been the platform that works best for me. I do post on FB Marketplace and Offerup, but the people on those platforms seem to be very flakey and non-committal so I’ve never actually sold anything on there.