This was a great little e30, had great handling, excellent feeling brakes but always seemed
to be lacking in power until 3000 rpm, which only left 1800 rpm until the redline. It
handled winter roads without a hiccup and was a great car for going up to the ski hill in,
that is if you could fit your skis/snowboard into it if you didn't have a ski rack. The
automatic transmission was my only real complaint, but only because it was an automatic.
The interior was excellently laid out, the three different control sticks for operating the
headlights, signals, cruise control, etc. made for easy operation even when wearing gloves
in winter, however the great heater ensured that you didn't have to wear
gloves for long. The exterior's only real flaw was the plastic/fiberglass front fender skirt
was prone to become loose (at least on mine) and it eventually broke loose while driving at
65 mph, destroying the plastic but luckily nothing else was damaged. This car was really
easy to work on for all normal maintenance (oil changes, replacing the brakes, replacing
the lower control arm bushings, etc) but was also a royal pain when more serious things
went wrong. The starter was a bugger to replace, as well as the water pump and oil pan.
Another random thing that went wrong was one of the wires on the starter came loose
while driving, causing all of the gauges to go out. This was a pain to diagnose along the
side of the road in the dead of winter, but a real easy fix. All in all though a great little car
that I really would like to pick up again, however I would probably go for its sister, the
1988 325is instead for the manual transmission, higher revving engine and body color
metal front fender skirt.