|
OP, good for you to ask this prior to your purchase. Only if I've done the same...
I've owned my '07 335i for the past 1.5 years putting in about 40,000 miles, inclusive of about 10 track days. I bought the car with only 1 prior owner, who didn't do any of the recalls. Apparently, CarFax did not show the maintenance history in detail, nor did it show the accident repair at the time.
My first year of ownership was painful. I had to go through numerous trial and error with local BMW service center, replacing many different parts to make the car run well. Mind you, I did purchase my car with CPO, and I still have it until the end of this year, yet you should also know that CPO deductible is $50 only if they do manage to find out that the part in fault is in fact covered under warranty. Otherwise, you need to pay $135 for their inspection fee, while not getting the repair done. I did not know this either. All in all, I ended up spending about $5,000-8,000 in repairs and maintenance during my ownership.
However, that is not to say that all of it was spent on absolutely necessary repairs; I would say about half of it was to entertain my anal nature of over-preventative-maintenance. For the last 6 months or so, I haven't had to do any significant work to my car, and it has been running pretty fantastic, even at 90,000 miles with all OEM parts, also considering that most of my track days have been during this hot summer without a single limp mode or overheat issue.
Now, second: The N54 engine for these cars is very easy to get significantly more power. If you're planning on doing some power mods regardless of what car, 335i is definitely one of the most cost-effective cars out there.
Last but not least, you mentioned that you're okay with the purchase price of around $30k. I just want to note that the resale value for these cars are pretty crappy. I'd say the moment you sign the contract, your car's value plummets about $5-10k.
In summary, know what you're getting yourself into, and get ready to spend some money on maintenance as these cars react very well to them. If/when stars line up well, the car will give you extraordinarily-priceless smiles.
Common faulty items that may or may not be covered under warr/recall:
Injectors, HPFP, LPFS, wastegates, Vanos solenoids, waterpump
|