1988 E30 The Real Deal

1988 BMW M3 Description

I admit it: I am biased and anything but impartial when it comes to selling my car. I have owned it since June 1988 and it has been an incredible car to drive. But it is time to turn it over to someone else to take care of it and enjoy the way it handles.
The question is how to remove my bias from the sales pitch?
If you are looking at this you probably know the history of the legendary BMW E30 M3. You will know how many were built and how many were sent to the US. There are enough of them for sale, but how do I get you to buy mine? I have looked at the M3s for sale on EBay and I can tell you that they do not compare to this car.
First I offer the car history. I leased the car for six years starting in June 1988 and purchased it at the end of the lease in June 1994. I put just over 36,000 miles on it during that time. The low mileage was because I spent much of the time out of town for my job. It was garaged and well cared for. You can see the report on this listing.
I did not always get the car serviced at BMW. The dealership moved in 1990 and was less accessible. It also became a big business. I remember that the brake rotors warped several times the first few years because of the change to non-asbestos brake pads. I did get the car serviced there until 1992. The last time they damaged the cover for the spark plug cable tray, as well as wearing through the masking on the buttons for the trip computer by using a buffing machine when they detailed the car. That damage is still there. They also decided it was necessary to replace the sparkplug cables every 30,000 miles, which was a very expensive proposition. I used to have good service records, but they got lost in one of five moves.
The only non-oem part that I know of is the exhaust. The stock system was not available at the time (2001?) and I ended up with what I believe is a Stebro, although that is testing my memory.
When I decided to sell it last spring I had some cosmetic work done. I had scraped the lower passenger bumper a few years ago and the clear coat on the wing had deteriorated because of water sitting in the low point of the wing. I had those painted. Otherwise the paint is original. I also had the side panel of the driver seat recovered because of a rip. This is a regular problem with these seats. In fact there was a BMW from early 2000s with the same issue when my car was in the shop. In addition I had BMW remove 3 small dents using paint-less dent repair techniques and repair paint chips on the front and hood. I replaced several of the emblems because they had weathered; the driver side headlight because it was cracked; the lower bumper air dam; gear shift knob and boot; glove box latch; and the door switches for dome lights. The later caused the battery to fail, so that was also replaced.
Finally, I had BMW do a Pre-Owned Vehicle Inspection report last week. The only note on that was that the valve gasket cover needed to be replaced, because there was evidence of a leak. In fact that had been replaced last summer.