[Bluewater328iT]

The holy grail for most wagon enthusiasts is stick shift and sport package, but it is very rare, especially with low miles. My wagon does not have sport package, but it is rare in that it has manual shift, seats, rear view mirror, and only 26K miles, but I am not selling it yet.

BMW drives much better and is much more refined than a WRX, and I once had a 2005 WRX wagon. I thought the thing might flip over on dry pavement with a quick flick of the wheel, but it did stick like glue in rain and snow. A Subaru feels like a noisy and rough car, in some ways good, but also annoying, but it is a very safe, reliable, and fairly inexpensive compared to BMW.

With BMW, it helps if the car has maintenance records. 71K is not too bad, especially with records. But if it has not been maintained, there could be a backlog of things that need to be done or will be done just to make sure they have been done. Any dealer can pull the records if all maintenance was done at BMW, but if it wasn't, that will be a mystery.

You can pay about $200 or so and get a pre-purchase inspection done at a BMW dealer, and if you want to do that, I would negotiate a dealer subject to car passing that to your satisfaction, or you could buy the car from a BMW dealer.

I am not a fan of the BMW E90 automatics. They shift a little sloppy, but you can get used to it. They are also more expensive to maintain, and not nearly as much fun to drive as the manual. They don't make the manual RWD wagon anymore, so that has potential to appreciate or hold its value more than an automatic. RWD has less maintenance and repair cost than the AWD.

I am not a fan of extended warranties. The N52 engine (some have the N51, the SULEV, which is not as easy to modify) is very good and will run quite nicely as long as you maintain it very well.