Every now and then a gem rolls through my work and I am fortunate enough to stumble upon it before anyone else does. A few weeks back a 1998 BMW 328i made its way across my path and I could not resist. I've been looking for a while now for a car to tinker with. I pulled the carfax, did a double take at the odometer and was sold. The car is a 1 owner, no accident, 104k miles (166,000km) with all the original body panels and no bodywork ever done. It is not perfect but it has lots of potential. I know this isn't a Honda or Acura but I love these forums and would rather post this here than any other car forum.

The Bad

-Scrape on the front bumper
-Some deep and light scratches on the passenger doors
-Some door dents
-Front/Rear rotors and pads both need to be replaced
-Tires expired in 2003 but have 90% and no weathering or cracks/bulges
-One brake light out

The Good

-A brand new BMW transmission was installed 5000km ago
-The history
-The chassis and suspension are spotless
-No smoke out the back, no dash lights, no issues
-Drives extremely tight, shifts butter smooth, pulls hard
-The oil change sticker with the shop that serviced it was in the window

First thing I did was call the shop to ask about the service history. The shop owner instantly knew the car and told me it was well serviced. I felt bad because he knew he lost his long time customer and the car. He let me know the vehicle has been running full synthetic and not the factory mineral oil. This is a positive since there are no leaks on the motor at this point which means continuing to run synthetic won't be an issue. Onto the future plans for this car.

Plans

-Oil service (Complete)
-Brake fluid flush (Complete)
-Cabin filter (Complete)
-Fuel filter
-Complete brake job (Complete)
-Door handle gasket replacement
-Tint (Complete)
-Wheels/Tires (Complete)
-Paintless dent repair (Complete)
-Bodyshop repair on the front bumper scuff (Complete)
-Full paint correction (Complete)
-Bluetooth Audio stereo (Complete)
-Extensive detail (Complete)
-Rear lip spoiler (Complete)

This is about the extent of my plans for this car. On to the pictures!

The car when I found it







The side scrape









After a quick car wash





The day after these shots were taken I had our tint guy show up and do the rear 5 windows at 35%.



It's hard to tell but there were about 10 small dents on the door panels, a crease on the hood and 3 creases on the passenger door panels where the scratches are. Nothing paintless dent repair couldn't fix! The panels now look like glass and retained their original paint.





It had been my lucky week. Mere days after I picked this vehicle up we took in a much rougher 328is. This 328is however had new tires manufactured in 2018 with the Style 42 rims. I asked my boss if I could swap them over since we were wholesaling the 328is and he said go for it. New wheels and tires and a cleaner look! The catch, I had to swap them myself that day before the car was gone (gladly). Tire swap in dress clothing. My other boss took a picture to share with my coworkers lol.

Donor car



Mid swap



Much better



The car was picked up today for the front bumper work. It should be back early next week along with the remaining parts required to finish up the servicing. I'm really looking forward to the detail and paint correction. Updates to come!

 

Got a little work done over the last few days. Managed to get the entire car clay barred in prep for the paint correction. I cleaned out any contaminants on the side swipe damage and spent a good 30+ min carefully painting in the deep scratches with colour matched paint. I'll begin the wet sanding and polishing process in a few days. Afterwards I installed a rear lip spoiler and my new deck.

How it looked at the start



After touch up paint. I think it turned out really great. Most people might look at this and think "dude, that looks pretty far from great. Actually it looks pretty shitty" and they wouldn't be wrong to think that. But after a little more elbow grease i'm hopeful of the finished product. More to come in the following weeks on this front!





The trunk has a few dents that the PDR guy could not pop out. Not wanting to shell out money for the body work I opted to distract peoples attention away a bit with a lip spoiler. I was hoping to find a clean, low lip spoiler that wrapped a little around the back but nothing exists on the e36 chassis like on the e90 trunk lips. The end result I think is still better than nothing.







On to the most important part of the vehicle. The new stereo. I did not overly want to install and aftermarket deck into the center console as they look really out of place with the era of vehicle. I did some googling and stumbled upon a seller on ebay that installs bluetooth audio transmitters into factory decks. They convert the AM radio button and frequencies into BT audio frequencies. I was a little skeptical on the condition of the deck that would show up. Would the buttons be worn off, broken or would the transmitter work and sound great. I was extremely happy after the install to discover it is crystal clear with zero static or that hallow reverb sound of an old radio. With the upgraded HiFi sound system in this car it sounds greats.

Old deck



New deck compared to old



Sync'ing up to the phone after pressing the AM button and inputting the new stereo code



Music working perfectly!



I'm going to be starting on the interior detail this week. I started doing some steam cleaning and leather cleaning last night but still have some ways to go. More pictures to come!

 

Just a few pictures of the front bumper repair. The body shop ended up repainting the whole bumper instead of just the spot repair I was expecting. Very happy with the end result.

 

Last night I spent 7 hours finishing the exterior detail. This included wet sanding the side swipe, polishing the entire car, paint sealant treatment followed by a full wax. Afterwards trim was dressed and door jams carefully cleaned. The repair went well, not as perfect as I was hoping but over i'm pretty happy with the results.



















Finished product







Interior detail to follow!

 

Successfully completed the brakes. New BMW stamped rotors and pads and sensors. The rears were sitting at about 40% pads while the fronts were about 15% and just about to trip the sensor. Rotors on all 4 corners were below spec and had huge lips formed on them. When I drove the car (the few times) the brakes felt like they were missing 30-40% of their stopping power. The pads and rotors that were on the car were aftermarket (and worn down). A quick drive around the parkade revealed that stopping power was all back and feels how it should. Next step is to pop the wheels off to fully detail them. I plan on cleaning the barrels since they have what looks like a few decades of brake dust then wax the wheels.

 

Had a productive last few days and finished everything for now. Managed to replace the cabin air filter, pop each rim off and clean the barrels and spokes of all the brake dust. Sadly I ran out of tar remover so I was unable to get a bunch of speckled tar off the rims. That will be a project for another day. Detail is finished and the car plated! Overall pretty happy with the end result.

 

Looks good!

Are there any E36s left in Vancouver area for decent price? Or have they all gone into $10k + territory?

 

Thanks, it was fun cleaning this car up. Everything is through the roof right now for pricing. Most of it makes zero sense imo.