My E36 325i Coupe

This car was for sale! Click here to see some photos!

My BMW of choice was E36 Coupe. That is an 2 door BMW 3 series car produced between years '91 - '98. Altough 4 door sedan is not that common on finland I wanted the more rare Coupe, also I don't really need the easy backseat access for now.

Engine is 2,5 liter inline six with 24 valves altough I also considered 1,8 liter inline four 16 valve engine but thought that you buy your first car only once so best way is to get a really good one. So far I have had no regrets! BMW has a awfully strong yuppie image here in finland but I'm sure that nobody will confuse me to a young urban, let alone upwardly mobile professional!

You can read story about how I bought my first BMW here. At the time I bought the car there were only 21 325i Coupes in finland, 11 of those with automatic transmission and this meant the possibility of finding one on reasonable price was next to impossible.

Luckily EU decide that finnish government had used tax barrier to keep prices of used (and new) cars sky high and ordered that taxes must be lowered. This gave me possibility to buy the car from germany where prices are lower and the selection is far better.

My Coupe onboard our ship just before going ashore in Helsinki. With bit of love and care it will be as good as new!

TNF-815 again on ship, this time going to Stockholm and then to Hamburg. Notice original style chromed front grille.

The car is in good condition but it will need some restauration work. It had those common yet hideous kamei styling eyebrows above the headlights which I promtly removed. Also kidney grill frame has been swapped to wide model year 1997 style and painted to body colour. I bought original style narrow frames only to find out that they don't fit, the whole front section has been changed so I bought set of original wide frames that finally fit. Looks improved significantly.

In my opinion car styling best left at level BMW intented it. You cannot improve perfection! :) Altought my car looks almost identical to M3 I have no intention to add those markings because it is, well, cheating. I know it is not M3 so I should others think it is?

I intend to do all the servicing by myself, that will save bit of money and I will learn quite a bit about cars. Also I have hear lots of bad things about quality of finnish repair shops... So far almost all the fluids and filters have been changed and engine hood sound insulation added. Once the weather gets better I will take few good photos about the car...

I haven't had possibility to drive my BMW that much yet (damn finnish bureucrasy and winter) but I have already noticed a few things. First of all, even with standard exhaust the sound is simply magnificent! When you accelerate hard and then shift to higher gear the engine growls really nicely. There is also noticeable surge in power after 4000 rpm, engine just becomes alive, must be because of VANOS changing intake cam timing. I knew BMW sixes like revving but I was really suprised to feel it in person. Simply magnificent! It just asks you to change gears and do bit of unneccessary quick accelerations...

During the wintertime, fuel usage has been about 9 liters per 100 km. In summer the consumption has been slightly higher, mainly because of wide tires and heavier foot on gas pedal...

On this table there is some technical information about my car

Services and modification done

And here is photo shortly before my Coupe left it's birth country in Travemunde's skandinavienkai. 12 liters per 100 kilometers isn't that bad when you are driving 190 km/h!

Update! I have had summer tires on car for few weeks, giving me possibility to find out what the car is really like... I like the car very much! Acceleration is really good and top speed seems still to be what was promised, don't ask me how I know... Only bad thing is that poor condition finnish roads send annoying jolts trough steering wheel, mainly because of wide 235 tires. If you want more comfortable ride, get a narrower tires.

Another update! The tramlining or jolts in trough steering wheel was caused by worn bushing on lower front suspension arm. The brake assembly could be moved by few centimeters just by hands! I noticed bad vibration on steering wheel above speeds of 160 kmh while driving on autobahn. This was fixed when tires where changed. After that car handled just beatifully, no tramlining at all.

If all goes well I will take the car to racetrack for bit of a faster action, that should be quite humbling and exciting experience! (And it was)

Yet another update! Click here to see BMW driving school manual in PDF format.

Sunset on spring 2003, little after fitting summer tires.

BMW emblem signifying a spinning propeller.

My ways with this car parted on 07/03, just before moving to Copenhagen. Car was in perfect condition and without the move (and new 3??Ci or something even better...) I would not have sold it.

Maybe someday when I have lots of spare money I will buy a E36 325i Coupe as track car. Oh well, show must go on.

See the gallery about this car here or go to General E36 Information page.