looking at 1998 318ti
 

Just joined the site and love it.
I am a young college student and love BMW's and the idea of a ti.
I have been looking for a 318ti for about a month and have found one that seemed interesting. The only problems that I face I think that the car is over priced and that It may have a mechanical problem with the motor.

Here is a link http://www.automotive.com/1998/65/bm...Result&index=4

The car seems good I test drove it today with 3 people in the car and it was fun to say the least. M package and California soft top are nice but the car has some dents and dings. No service records, I saw a after market air filter and i know it need a new serpentine belt. Has newer Michelin tires. thats off the top of my head.
If some one could run the Vin. that would be very helpful: WBACG8329WKC83516

?'s
Hows gas mileage at 80mph all day? seemed like it was almost out of rpm's at 80 in 5th gear
Am I being reasonable on saying its over price? The lot seems like they want 5000 firm and I know the car was from an auction.
Also any one know where a good PPI shop is in or around Sacramento?

Thanks much
Jesse

Hey there Jess, welcome to the site. Since the car is at dealer, I would definitely talk them down in price. Offer 4300 and settle around 4500. It looks nice, but what makes you think that it has a mechanical problem? 4k rpms @ 80mph sounds about right. Also, if the car was bought at an auction, there's a good chance that it's been wrecked, so look it over closely.

There was a knocking sound from under the car after I drove it. toward the bottom of the motor. I will talk them down depending on the inspection and vehicle report.

Thanks for the info
Jesse

Any one else out there to answer ?s

well if it has a knock MAKE sure you get it looked at by a shop. get a pressure test and certain places can do an oil analysis and then that helps tell you what could be going wrong or if the motor is sound or not

I thought that only the 96 came with the cali top, that site says it's a 98. I could be wrong but I thought that the cali top was one year only.

96 was when it was just the first year they did the top

in 96 it was part of a package (which i have). in the years following, the cali top was an option.

i second the idea of taking it to a bmw shop for a pre-purchase inspection. $100 or so upfront could save you a lot later (either avoiding the car altogether or being able to present the issues and get the price down). i would also run a carfax on it to see if it's previously been in an accident. does it have a clean title?

doing highway speeds most of the time, you should get 30+ mpg.

after i bought my car i drove it back and was doing about 70-80 the whole way home and got 32.4 mpg (coudnt complain about that!)

and as much as a hassle it may seem to be and how it may not be worth the money in your mind to take a car to a shop and drop up to 100 dollars on it when its not even your car.
it is completely worth it!

think of it this way.

you get it checked out and then you decide there arent to many bad things (but still some) you then know what you wanna fix before it gets worse. and you tell the guy and get it lower in price and that 100 bucks goes right to the price of the car

now if it checks out bad and isnt worth buying it. you saved however much the car was gonna cost minus about 100 bucks.

and then you can put all that money towards the next ti

really if you end up buying it and you blow the motor you are down a car and how ever much you paid!



so get it checked out.

other things i forget to put in there ... belts are cheap (like $20 - $30) and would be in the routine things i would change when getting a used car anyway so that shouldn't be a big deal. take it to a car wash and check that there are no leaks with the cali top.

telling the dealer you want to take the car to a shop for an inspection will also tell you something :) if they don't want you to or get worried, then they may know something they're not telling you.

Thanks for the helpful information every one!
I am definitely not going to move any further tell I get a PPI. I was told the title was clean and I haven't seen a carfax report, but he said it was, I don't know what the dealers word is worth
Is a leak down test included in a PPI or do I need to ask for that as extra?
Thanks again

if you want it done, ask about it specifically. in fact, i'd ask what all the shop will do as part of a PPI that way if it differs between shops you'll at least know what all they'll be doing.

I am planning on have a PPI tommarow after noon at http://www.schatzandkrum.com/
for $93 and I am not going to get a compression test. Depending on the results i am going to try to cut a deal. The dealer still wants $5000 but am going to try to lower the price.
Thanks every one

I am not buying the car as of now. The PPI inpection turned out that it had some major changes and problem like auto to manual tranny and needs new power steering pump extra. I dont have the inspection sheet so i cant elaborate
So it was worth the PPI definality but will see how it turns out

good save! glad we didnt hear from you later on with all the problems it had you didnt know about