I a word, yes. A ti with 130k miles on it, is way past due cooling system preventive maintainence, so there is a very good chance the overheating is being caused by a failure of one or more cooling system components. Likely suspect is the water pump. Overheating can cause of head gasket problems, but you may not have blown the head gasket yet. Signs of a bad headgasket: sweet smelling white smoke out the tailpipe, brownish white gooey stuff on the inside of the oil filler cap (coolant mixing with engine oil), loss of coolant (into the combustion chambers, causing the white smoke), contaminated coolent (engine oil leaking into the coolant system). There is a chemical test for this. At a minimum I would have the mechanic explain why he thinks the head gasket is blown and/or I would take the car to a good indie BMW mechanic for a second opinion. You have a very desireable ti in my opinion. Lovely color and a Cali top to boot. Good luck, John

If you do find out the reason for the problem, and it isn't a difficult item to DIY like the head gasket, let me know. I would then be very interested in purchasing this vehicle.

To others, do you know how much it would cost to narrow down the problem? Or is this more of a "guess, replace, repeat if still present" sort of procedure?

Hey Tom,

I replaced a lot of components in my roof (pretty much everything but the motor) and have a reason to believe that it might work as-is with just a good motor, so I will be willing to just buy the motor from you (to remove that it requires a removal of two phillips screws. If I had a good motor to go by, I may be able to make gears or design one that is easy to install inside the motor assembly for all to use later, as I have access to a machine shop and fairly neat materials like A286 steel superalloy for instance. (or if anyone else can give me their motor so I can make a gear for mine... thats all I really need - just a motor)

As far as your car is concerned, if you really like it and want to keep it, then a headgasket on a 4-cyl engine shouldn't run you much more than $1,000, and these motors are really robust and one shouldnt worry about its longevity with good maintenance.

I myself will be doing the same thing to my car shortly (head refresh + gasket), along with timing components to refresh the motor, before putting a DASC kit in it.

I love this little thing, and driving it side-by-side with an M3 and a newer E46, its a lot more fun as it is lighter and one can really throw it around. Its a very simple little car, so its fairly easy to work on as well. It does lack the acceleration, stopping power and handling characteristics of the M3 however, but that is mostly due to a larger steering wheel, smaller brakes, and smaller wheels with slightly softer suspension.

Cheers

Thanks for the great info, John. The main symptoms the car has been experiencing are:
1) very fast leakage of antifreeze (tank drains to about 2/3 empty within minutes of starting).
2) coolant dripping from tailpipe.

Sounds like you've got some good experience with this....would these symptoms suggest the head gasket to you?

I'll look out for the other symptoms you mentioned, which I have not specifically noticed. But eliminating them would give me some hope that the car does have life in it yet!

Thank you again!

Coolant coming out the tail pipe is almost certainly a blown head gasket. If you want to keep the car, take it to an established indie BMW mechanic, get him to look it over and give you an estimate for getting it in shape which would include replacing the head gasket and overhauling the cooling system, ie., new radiator, water pump, thermostat, probably new coolant hoses, and most definitely the two plastic coolant fittings, one at the back of the engine next to the firewall, and the other underneath the intake manifold. One or both of them often break sometime after 100,000 miles. Good luck, again. John

this is actually not a hard fix, The head gasket and the cooling system overhaul. The only part i think i'd dread is having to replace the plastic piece on the back of the block. Its a tight squeeze, but manageable. glws if you were closer to SC i would jump on this :)

My ti is just like this one, only without the cali roof which I would kill for. The challenge in selling the car is that it has to be repaired before it can be driven anywhere. Get a good cost estimate of the repairs then you keep the car and pay for the repairs or a buyer pays for the repairs and drives the car home.

Car still available?
 

Is there something wrong with the roof too? Any Rust?

We are interested-

I am also interested. If you can get a quote for getting the engine back into shape, I am willing to negotiate a price on the fixed car.

Any update-still interested

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Sent PM ans emails with no reply. Still available?