Just purchased a 2004 325xi 5sp for my son. why are values so low.....

[90turbo1]

I have been out of the bmw game for a few years now, was a master bmw tech, moved to home state and am no longer doing that. its been several years since I purchased a bmw and my son wanted on for his first car. found a 2004 with "clutch out" in overall good shape but have typical bmw problems, trim, windows, leaks ect. well turned out clutch is not at fault the pass front axle was not engaged in the diff. ha ha drove it on trailer.

paid 1700 for car. has 160k on O.D.O.

looked up KBB value and its anywhere from 1600 to 2400 bucks... WOW!!!! why so low. guess I didnt realize the e46 sank in value like a stone lately.

it even has all options except sport package and auto trans...

well anyway... Glad to be back here, with a car again.

And we live in North Dakota now so BMWs are kinda rare up here.

[floydr]

Welcome back.
1) Cluch out - it's $500 parts + labor to replace, so you actually paid too much...
2) E9x have dropped since F3x has been out since 2011. That really drove E46 down. a 2004 with that many miles is kind of old (but good).
3) If center diff (actually transfer case) is out, not good but you're fixing clutch as well so will be "easy" fix to replace with used one.

[TonyAngel]

I'm down in Louisiana and I recently bought my son a 2001 325i with 75k miles on it. I paid $1700 for it, with it needing the usual stuff. Cooling system, control arms, shocks, but otherwise in pretty good shape. I think I have a bit more money than I should have into the car, but at only 75k miles, I thought it was worth it.

Since you've already bought it, let your kid enjoy it.

But yeah, I've been telling my kid for a few years now that he couldn't have a BMW because they were too expensive. Thank goodness that I kept an open mind, otherwise he'd be driving some flavor of Honda with 100k+ miles on it. Where I am, you can actually get a decent BMW for less than you can a nice Civic and I, for one, would drive a decent BMW before a nice Civic any day.

In fact, I think I'm gonna go check Craig's List to see what's there. I'd like to get my hands on a decent E46 with a manual.

[90turbo1]

Welcome back.
1) Cluch out - it's $500 parts + labor to replace, so you actually paid too much...
2) E9x have dropped since F3x has been out since 2011. That really drove E46 down. a 2004 with that many miles is kind of old (but good).
3) If center diff (actually transfer case) is out, not good but you're fixing clutch as well so will be "easy" fix to replace with used one.

no clutch is not out like I said in orginal post. and the axle was out of the front diff not transfer case.

and there would be no labor charges as I can fix it.

[SexualChocolate]

The E46 is where the E30 was when you left.
The E30 is now where the E9X was when you left.
The E9X is now where the E46 was when you left.

I should have kept my E30 lol

[90turbo1]

The E46 is where the E30 was when you left.
The E30 is now where the E9X was when you left.
The E9X is now where the E46 was when you left.

I should have kept my E30 lol

i can see that now, seems like they ride a wave. e30 shooting up in value, e36 down, e46 just above and so on. I just remember selling e46 xi cars at dealership for astronomical prices about 4 years ago with similar mileage cause everyone wanted them....


cant touch a e30 around here for less than 6grand it seems.

[Jackson42]

The E46 cars are just getting to the age and mileage where very expen$ive things start happening to them - particularly cooling system failures - and people that can't work on them themselves get tired of putting money into them, so they dump them. Just got done doing a complete cooling system replacement in my wife's 325 iT; cost me less than $800 to replace absolutely everything in the cooling system from the firewall forward, plus a lot of fiddly plastic bits under there that were pretty well cooked. Figure an indy mechanic will mark up the price 50%; that would make the price of the parts $1200; then the labor will be about equal to the price of the parts, so they'd be into it between $2000 and $2500. And that's about what the book value of the car is. So as long as you find one that hasn't been thrashed (there are still a lot of them out there) and hasn't already had a massive cooling system failure, you can buy a lot of car for the money if you're not afraid to turn a wrench on it and put a little money into it.

[dhurley34]

KBB isnt the bible.

[Eaglesail]

Um yeah.......In March, I purchased an 03 wagon, 116k garage kept...woman driven. It does resemble as new....including the Christmas tree needles from years past still in the spare tire area!

When after I purchased this car 5 weeks ago, Edmund's, Kelly Blue Book, list my car in the mid $2000 range...yet I just paid $5k........Mine is a wagon and is more highly sought after over the sedan I know, but overall I too expected an overall higher value for these high quality cars!

[Jackson42]

Agreed book values aren't the bible - and with your experience. My wife's '03 325iT and my '04 330i six-speed were each worth in the mid-$5k range to us, so that's what we paid. Still a heck of a lot of car for the money.

[riley111]

i guess it could be where you live? the prev owner of my 325ci special edition paid $14500 AUD with 130 000 K's on the clock in 2014.

[Eaglesail]

I did a search before I recently bought mine. I guess I need to explain..For the past 11 years, I've driven my 97 Audi A6 Avant. Before the Audi, I drove Mercedes Benz, 87 300 D, 450 SL, 190 E and further back 2 Volvos, 760 and 240, going back in time to the late 1980's.

German cars, in my opinion, are the best designed, engineered and best built automobiles.

Needing now to replace my 20 year old Audi, I considered German...VW, Audi, Benz, BMW....I wanted a wagon...Audi has been great, the 4 Benz's also great. Conclusion...Benz's 'rot' rust and are not as hand made or mechanically easy anymore. Audi, I have no complaint at all...never in 195k an inspection fail, rust rot, or exhaust system fail.

The BMW is what I bought...

A 14 year old car is always measured when considering another 14 years......In my search for a low mileage 3 series wagon...I found few available in my area of the USA....Later, I discovered that only the NorthEast have available 3 wagons used for sale...Most all sectors of the US 'CraigsList' show BMW wagons for sale only in the Los Angeles, Metro DC, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Boston....areas of the US for concentration of BMW...overall, and wagons are far more scarce and demand higher price as used.