I learnt how to fix cars on E30 BMWs and I have dealt with quite a few of them in my lifetime. It has been a while since I had one at my shop. Today pulls in this beautiful Alpine white 318is coupe. Needs some work. I talk to the owner and he says he wants all pending things taken care of and car be 100% operating. Okay, I took down notes and made a list. I asked him if he would go on a test drive to demonstrate some of the complaints such as rear end noise etc. We did that. After we came back, I asked him to stay a little longer and allow me to do a visual inspection on the lift. He said if it takes more than 30 minutes he rather have me contact him via phone.
Long story short after the due diligence on my end, I finished up the estimate.
Mind you, this car is very clean and relatively low original miles (63k).
I will not go through the whole list on the estimate but it came back a little over $3500.00
Now I am thinking, "mann, this might be too much for an older BMW". I called my customer, and told him if he is near by a computer there is an estimate in his inbox. We went over the estimate, and I got authorization to move forward with the repairs.
We then talked a few minutes about cars, and at one point, he said he intends to sell this car since they are becoming highly valuable. I was not aware of that.
After I hung up, went online and checked the prices....
Looks like E30 is the new thing. You can not touch a decent one under $10,000.00 and all the way up to $25,000.00 for clean cars.
Shocked.