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Thread: Is it worth spending a large percentage of car's worth on exterior mods?

  1. #26
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Houston
    Posts
    1,344
    My Cars
    LS e39, LT e53
    A dealer doing a ppi is good for both parties. The person looking to buy the car will get a detailed estimate of everything that tech sees. Duuuur ask for someone who has 5 years experience ... If u just take your car there it's a possibility you could get a 1 month newbie trying his best. And the dealer cause it might get the business. I can't tell you how many customers I probably piss off with my 4k+ estimates.. I don't care if they get pissed or whatever since it's my job to look at the car and write an estimate. In my cases I could show them the labor times in the computer and not even sweat it... A most of times they buy little here and there.. Other times they trade their cars in.
    2006 X5 L83 5.3 6l80 swapped in progress
    1999 528i 5.7L 4l60e swapped w/ 31 spline 8.8 cobra diff
    2007 ZX-10r - sold
    1987 R-10 SWB L83 5.3L 6L80e swapped

  2. #27
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Minnesota
    Posts
    255
    My Cars
    E46
    Just buy an M3. No matter what you put into your non-m coupe will you always have //M envy or even ZHP envy...

  3. #28
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Lawrenceville, GA
    Posts
    4,329
    My Cars
    VW TDI and Dodge Dart
    Quote Originally Posted by Aestheticus View Post
    I never considered purchasing from a private party, again, because I'm not so mechanically inclined and feel like I'd get suckered into buying a car that has its own little hidden problems I wouldn't be able to catch. I guess my mindset was if a car was being sold at a dealer then there would be a better chance of it being in good shape than if I was buying from a private party.
    Depends on the dealer. When it comes to getting suckered into buying a car with hidden problems, a bad dealer is a pro at this. With a private party, you're more likely to be dealing with amateurs. As others have noted, if you're not good at inspecting the car yourself, have an independent BMW mechanic check it over.

    Some M3 specific parts are a little bit more expensive, although a lot of the things are going to be indentical to a garden-variety 3 series. The amount of labor is going to be the same, and I wouldn't expect a major difference in reliability.
    Matt Cramer
    1997 BMW 328i convertible, 1972 Chevy C10 pickup, 1966 Dodge Dart slant six
    BMW - where "Why doesn't everybody build cars the way they do?" meets "Why can't they build a car the same way everyone else does it?"

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