320i Value

[Thecatmilton]

I want to sell my silver 320i soon (keeping the orange one around) so I can get a diesel jetta, but I don't really know what its worth. I would like to get $3500-4k for it. Does that sound reasonable?

I am the third owner on this car and somewhat restored it. When I got it, the engine had thrown a rod due to an unnoticed head gasket failure. The clear coat had failed and its original cloth interior was ripped and falling apart due to sun damage. I had a nice wrecked parts car that was used to make this one better. The first thing I did was replace the engine, transmission, differential, and speedometer. The car originally had an automatic transmission, but I converted it to a manual transmission. The next thing I did was install a cleaner blue vinyl interior that is in decent condition. Then I put it on the steel wheels that were on my parts car as it had e30 bottle caps since I didn't like the way they looked. The car came with a broken mitsubishi casette deck so I installed a newer sony mechless radio that has usb and aux ports. I also installed new blaupunkt 4x6 speakers and ran new wires to all four due to the e21 using a common ground system that is mostly incompatible with modern radios. The next thing I did was patch the floor rust that it had. Then I got it repainted at maaco and the paint is under warranty for the next four years. Before it was painted, I removed the bumpers, trim, lights, etc to minimize over spray and tape lines. I have put around 650 miles on the 320i over the year that I have owned it and it feels like a nice low milage car.

The engine, transmission, and differential have 67k miles. The body of the car has 71k miles. There is three rips in the seats. The first is towards the bottom of the drivers seat, the second is on the passenger side headrest, and the the third is on the top center of the back seat. The last two rips are from sun damage, but all three rips are not very noticeable. Like most E21s, the dash is cracked in several places.

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[Thecatmilton]

The center console is apart in the pictures because I am reinstalling the ac unit after cleaning it, replacing the o rings, and replacing the foam.
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[Manny G.]

Thats pretty low mileage and not in terrible shape from what I can tell in the pictures. If it is completely rust free, and you clean up the interior and engine bay a bit, you may be able to squeeze $6000-7000 out of it. Market has been on an up-tick over the last few months.

[jaredmac11]

Clean it up real good and put that girl on BringATrailer. that place seems to grab the highest bid. dont waste your time on craigslist. Good luck!

Let's get these cars UP in value, they deserve to be priced higher.

[John Adkins]

Cat, GLWTS, but I hope that you are keeping your other E21. Just my opinion, but I see $3500 tops if the buy is local; maybe $4500 if someone wants the car bad enough to get on a plane to Dallas. Keep us posted if you don't mind...keeping track of the market is fun. John