Re: Envoy, Ferrari, Lost battles, etc...

[Scott Ruffner <jpr9c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Have to chime in...

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, bmw-digest wrote:
> similar miles is worth over $20 Grand. I've told people over and over, the
> reason I'm driving old BMWs and Porsches is because I can't AFFORD a new
> Civic! :)

And....

> From: "Ron J" <ron@domain.elided>
> Subject: Lost the battle...... Zen and the Art of BMW maintenance
> I have an 18 year old BMW with lots of miles on the clock, and there are no
> shakes and rattles, the car is reliable, fast, and has repeatedly outgunned
> mustangs and other assorted american cars..  I do the work myself, and there
> is no denial here.  However one should know that I built a 73 911 on my own,
> because I LIKE that sort of thing.

AMEN!  That's why I _love_ my E30.

> As the book states, there are some that prefer to do everything themselves,
> and learn the car/bike inside out, so they are informed, and therefore are
> ready, and prepared for breakdown, can fix it, and enjoy having the
> knowledge, and then there are those who dont want to know a damn thing and
> prefer to have the dealer do all the work, and expect it to be dropped
> off/delivered completely reliable, and when it does breakdown, they scream
> bloody murder since they expected it to work, but have no idea how to get it
> working.

This is what separates MANY (though by no means all) 'murcun V8, Toyota
and Honda folks from others of us.  I must confess some disdain for the
deliberately clueless, and certainly have no sympathy when they complain
about how they get taken/reamed/etc. by "stealers" - the real-world is
caveat-emptor.  There should be rules of fair play, but any and all
consumers have an obligation to inform themselves at least a bit and try
to avoid getting taken.

I knew a number of folks who had E21 and who had real problems: rust,
trannies, cracked heads, etc.  For the most part they were dealer-serviced
kinda people.  I just allowed myself to get sucked into the notion that
they were the representative demographic for this marque.  I maintained
the notion that these were just conspicuous consumption, status symbol
vehicles, and not good value cars.

Then, one day, the previous owner of my car, a friend of my wife's, and
definitely representative of the aforementioned demographic, made me a
killer offer on this car.  I looked and Consumer Reports, looked at his
mileage, priced some miscellaneous parts, and realized that these _could_
be both extremely economical and reliable for a DIY guy like me.  After I
poked around a bit on the web, I discovered a lot of birds-of-a-feather,
and some great information on getting the most out of them.

I know that for the guy who sold me this car, it was truly much too
expensive to maintain - he did maintain it well, and that's why it's such
a great value for me - even with high miles, it's not "ragged out."
However, for him, even the smallest, simplest jobs (say, replacing the
cracked radiator) involved a lot of labor charges.  He wasn't getting
ripped off, but he was paying premium dollars to his mechanic (or the
dealer) and paying premium dollars on parts.  The car is 16 years old, and
has 200K miles - it's going to have worn out parts.

I can do all of this stuff myself - most of it's trivial bolt-on/bolt-off
work.  The more involved stuff (bodywork and engine/tranny rebuilding)
that I don't really want to get into (I already have a frame-up project
car, thank you) are rock-solid.  The compression is excellent, the oil
pressure is good, and the transmission is quiet and the syncros aren't
shot - most of all: not a spot of rust on the original paint job.  By
tending to things as soon as they come up, the cost is spread out and not
noticeable (although I'm keeping a tab), as the previous owner did.  If I
had bought a new Detroit, even an $18K Taurus or some such, I'd have more
out in car payments, still not own the thing, and not have nearly as much
fun driving.  I would likely not be doing any repairs.

Both views of these cars are probably valid - just depends on who you are.
They can be quite reliable (well many of them anyway - it does seem that
there are some serious flaws with some of the early V8s), for reasonable
maintenance costs, as an old Taurus might be.  I would bet that both sides
would agree that unlike a 16 year old Taurus, there's something about the
car that makes putting in the effort more rewarding: you have a much more
fun car at the end of the day.

Scott

==================================================================
Scott Ruffner
Computer Systems Senior Engineer       Computer Science Department
ruffner@domain.elided                University of Virginia
(434)982-2219                    http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~jpr9c

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