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Potential buy... M3

2K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  BBMW528i 
#1 · (Edited)
Alright, this is a tricky one. My good friend is selling his 97' M3 (pictures below - not great quality, something happened to my iphone, camera sucks)... that's the easy part of the story. Here is where it gets tricky:

The car has very low miles, however I can't be sure what they are because the last time the car was driven was 5 years ago. As you can see, the tires are no good so I would have to put it on blocks to take the wheels to get tires put on, change battery, get old gas out (somehow) and put some new in, etc. These are also the relatively easy parts.

The hard part is that there is a rat living in the engine compartment. I don't know what it has gone through, I didn't take a bunch of time to examine while in my work clothes. Over time, I know there are natural issues such as engine seals, but the rat could have done endless damage to wires and hoses, not to mention their is rat sh*t everywhere.

Other than that, the exterior doesn't look bad at all. Interior needs some obvious cleaning as well as some window seals and some other things, but those aren't difficult. The rat and anything else that would naturally happen to the engine over that amount of time with no use are my biggest concerns.

So basically, my questions are: What else should I check into on this car? In order to just get it turned on what steps do I take (right now I have... engine oil, gas, battery, what else?)? How do I address the rat and get it the F out of there? What would you value this car at?


 
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#2 ·
Does anyone search anymore?

Read this.

I would offer $4k and clean it all up. Best way to clean out something like that is to just tear it all out, clean it, then put it back in.
 
#3 ·
I would love to buy that car. If its been sitting for that long then they would prob sell cheap. Just like stated above I would tear out the entire interior clean it and put it back in. Regarding the engine I have no clue what should be done. I would pay upto 5k. That color is sexy as hell. Only e36 M3s can pull off yellow while being stock.

Sent from my PG86100 using Bimmer App
 
#4 ·
I did search... Was referring to this car and its issues in particular, especially the rat one (which isn't addressed in that link). Other than that, it is very helpful.

Since it is a friend and he obviously doesn't care about the car whatsoever, I was thinking of offering him $1k and attempting to get it back in working order. If I couldn't, I would just sell it for him in the condition I had it in, take my $1k back and give him the rest of the money. I would incur the expenses I take on attempting to get the car running. If I did get it running, I would throw him some more cash. It's a sweet car, just don't know what kind of damage the rat has done or how to even address that. I am thinking of putting on a hazmat and just tearing all the rat stuff out of the engine compartment (along with the rat).
 
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