My E30 shot in Film because 1980's

I was on craigslist one day with the only filters selected were RWD and manual which brought me to an ad of an E30 which then led me to search E30’s. After those hours turned into days, I finally decided to buy an E30. It was probably the best and worst decision I’ve made in my life. The small German box brought so much joy to me as a 23-year-old car guy with little to no previous fun car driving. I’ve only driven automatic front wheel drive daily drivers since I got my license in 2010. January 4th of 2017 changed the way I thought about cars. I was already obsessed with the car world by spending countless hours watching the Top Gear, One-takes, and how to build on YouTube along with subscriptions to 4 different magazine publications even though the good old internet can give me the same information and probably better, but hey I do enjoy a good read that’s why I’m posting this here.




I brought home an early model E30 convertible with a 5-speed, 373 LSD with a decent interior with a supposed 120,0000 miles on the car even though the dam odometer was broken like many pieces of an over 30-year-old German car would, nonetheless it was the “cleanest and cheapest” BMW that I could find on Craigslist in San Francisco.

My first picture after driving this car back in the rain from South San Francisco.


The soft-top was oxidized, the tan interior wasn’t too gross for my taste and it didn’t even come with the Recaro sports seats like it originally should’ve come with, but I just had gotten insurance money from a rear end collision from my valiant but dull ‘06 Hyundai Sonata. At this point, I just wanted a manual since I had already bought a broken Datsun 240z that just sits in my garage a month before I got into an accident.

I live in Sonoma County, located right next to Marin County, which both connect to highway 1. Highway 1 is basically NorCal’s version of the Los Angeles crest with the number of turns those back roads have. I bought the car knowing that needed so much immediate attention. I honestly couldn’t tell that the Bilstein shocks were worn out due to San Francisco having terrible roads.


Mt.Tam backroads

The first maintenance I did was to fix the security system since the trunk didn’t even have a lock to put a key into which meant that anyone could just go up to the trunk and steal my stuff as well as the back-right window not wanting to go up, which wasn’t good either if I wanted to get the full convertible experience.


Tearing the backroads is always fun but like I mentioned before the car needed work. On my way to SF State, right before driving through Robin Williams memorial tunnel, I heard a fat clunk that came from the front of the car and knew something had gone terribly wrong. I looked behind me to check if it was my valiance since it was zip tied on but then I noticed the temperature gauge was rising immediately. Since I didn’t want to be late for class I just ignored the signs and carried on as I drove to and from school that day. Luckily, I know a guy who daily s E28 5-series to work and happens to be a mechanic, so I ended up paying another unreasonable amount of money to get this car fixed when I could’ve just bought coilovers for the Z, but that’s just me thinking too far ahead. Driving every day in a 30-year-old car for over 40 miles might’ve been a terrible idea, but hey it’s the price you pay for a good time.

After 7 months on driving blown shocks and a clutch that was nearing its end, I decided to get a major suspension service done which included new shocks and clutch which made the car not painful to drive every day since the clutch was so stiff before.


Bimmer in Skywalker Ranch

It’s now July and the suspension is finally situated. I went on the Facebook marketplace to replace the terrible “comfort” seats that had a tear on them to not cramp while driving from Petaluma to SF State every day. Summers are also brutal since it doesn’t rain here often. I basically drove the car with the top down 95% of the time, so comfier seats made a huge difference with comfortable driving and failed attempts at heel-toeing. I ended up finding a pair of Recaro bucket seats that should’ve come along with the car but instead paid almost $100 for almost functioning seats. For some reasons, these seats are worth over $500 on craigslist which is very disturbing because that’s how much a new m20 engine ... nevermind. I just switched the passenger and driver side seat belts so I could adjust the seat since the driver side seat was so damaged that I had my buddy weld the chair for me. Here’s a bad video of my buddy below. The black front seats actually didn’t throw off the tan interior too much either it blended in with the black exterior so I’ll take the W wherever I can.



“New” Recaro bucket seat


Finally, everything is fine. I drive to the city and back. I drive to work in Tiburon, road trip and take pictures on Mt. Tam, which is one of my favorite places to drive because during the summer the fog becomes its own ocean. On my way, down from one of these drives, I noticed that I had to turn slightly more than I’m used to. Once again, I hear a noise that just doesn’t sound right at all. I check the engine bay and notice I have no power steering fluid, so driving down Mt.Tam was going to acquire lots of muscle. Which called for yelling challenge accepted on the way to the nearest O’Rielly’s to get some damn ATF fluid. What then brought me to question was why something this good has to break so often when the next day driving to work I noticed the steering rack felt empty again. Which then brought me to come to the realization that I needed a new rack. Luckily there are forums and according to every bimmer boy, Z3 E36 was the way to go for faster steering. So after a month of driving it and buying 10 bottles of ATF fluid, I found a guy on craigslist selling a slightly used one for only $130, which wasn’t a bad deal at all since it took me another month to finally go to A1 Autoworks to get the replacement piece installed.

Now so far, I’ve just mentioned all the things that have gone wrong and believe me there’s more to come when you get to the end of this story because it’s kind of funny if you’re a JDM or Muscle car guy because so far this seems like 10 reasons why not to buy an old BMW but I’m not a click bait kind of guy. Yet.




the Marin Headlands by the old bunkers

I’ve never had so much fun driving. Driving the E30 after the clutch was fixed made it amazing. Redlining at 6500 always brought the biggest grin on my face and the raspy aftermarket exhaust that was in the car just plain fun to drive. I can’t even recount how many times people would look at the car and just smile, nod, or give me some thumbs up because of how cool it is. It may not be the most satisfying thing to look at since it’s shaped like a box but the car isn’t so serious either. I really do thank whoever ordered this car back in 1989 because they weren’t trying to take themselves so seriously there’s a certain joy you get with owning a convertible. This car that was meant to either cruise or shred through the backroads doesn’t even have a cup holder, it wants you to rev it out, to be BMW driver who doesn’t use their turn signal. When the E30 has no check engine light it’s just such a rewarding fun car to drive.


Picture I took in Bodega Bay

Now I wasn’t finished on what went wrong this lemon because there’s still more to this. On my way back from carpooling, I was turning left to get on to 19th Avenue in San Francisco which means I was about to go up a bunch of hills. I decided to turn left really fast to avoid sitting at a red-light for 5 minutes and as I shift into second, the whole gear lever just broke. The damn shift knob and lever just broke off. I couldn’t believe it. How many times can this car break before it dies? So, the way I made it back to Marin was by dethatching the knob from the stick and somehow managing to use only 3rd and 4th gear until I made it over the bridge during traffic hours without stalling so I didn’t have to get it towed. I brought it to a shop the next day because my buddy had an extra shifter in his garage. This wasn’t the most expensive or scary maintenance/ problem and it was just a reminder that I should probably buy a newer car or a daily, but college forbids that. And why not daily? An almost 30-year-old sweet convertible that sounds and looks awesome.


Another thing I want to bring up is how ridiculously expensive it is to maintain and keep an E30 going. I don’t necessarily have the time to do it myself. If I did I would’ve had a lot more money and my Z probably would’ve been on the road by now, but given the circumstances and opportunities I have by staying at home and commuting 40 miles to college, it was basically my only choice. It was either try to fix it in a day and not get school work done while taking a bus that could take up to 2 and a half hours to get to school or simply pay for the maintenance. I put myself in a position where I had to make a choice where it was either I try to wrench on my car or sleep. I chose sleep because I still don’t trust myself to work an E30 and expect it to run fine. All I really know how to do is change my brakes and oil.


All good things must come to an end especially a convertible with a fat tear on the soft top. After going on a shoot near Bodega Bay, which is another gem of the outskirts of Marin County, I decided to let my girlfriend at the time drive the car. Now, she knew how to drive but on the way back right next to her house she managed to get the car stuck in a ditch. The ditch wasn’t too steep but it was almost impossible to get it out of the situation which required me to eventually borrow a tow from a friend around midnight after trying to get it out for 3 hours. The valiance had fallen off and the car earned some new scratches in the attempts of trying to get it out myself. After that night, I noticed the engine would run a little hot but didn’t think too much of it until it was too late.

Near Big Rock


A few weeks later I drove up to work and put the emergency brake on in front of a cement divider. As I walk out of the car I noticed it roll down into the divider. I managed to jump in and stop it from going any farther but the damage had been done. I was also running late for work so I had no time to stop and check if everything was ok since it was at a full stop before it moved into the divider. After the shift, I check the ground and it was fine and when I tried cranking the car up I saw the wretched check engine light. When I tried cranking it I heard an even more disgusting clank. After attempting to turn it on I decided to stop and get it towed. I got it towed to a shop nearby. On October 31st, 2017 Jorge the mechanic had told me that a rod had gone through the block and it was totaled.



Death the Dirty 30


At this point, summer was basically over, everyone gets overly dramatic when the temperature goes below 60 degrees and people stop showing up to eat where I work. Anyways, I wasn’t making enough money and still had 2 months of the semester left so from the shop I decided it was time for the dirty 30 to rest in peace. Instead of parting out the car which would’ve taken longer and cost me another tow I decided to donate the car to Wheels for Wishes since I’m a server which means we usually get doinked on taxes because of tips.

It was tough to see my first sports car go away especially since it basically left me stranded every other month but the fun, sound, smell and good times it had brought me was priceless. I even met probably one of the funniest car guys because of this car my friend even let me drive his E46 M3 and I can thank my E30 for that.

E30’s will always have a special place in my heart. Hell, I might even fancy a wagon or an M3 soon when I need a fun daily again or even when my Z is all finished. Overall the E30 is a rev happy cornering machine that did everything right when it worked.