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We aren’t allowed to use any images, but if we were, I would place an image of a bell curve, with time being the X axis, and Y being the number of BMW’s owned by Autopian staff. Mark my words.
I hate to narc on myself because I’m currently benefitting from the error, but looks like this article isn’t behind the pay wall. I’m a non-paying member and I got to thoroughly enjoy this article.
Shhhhhh… No one heard anything from you…
But, yeah. I’m currently reading the article without a membership… that I should get…
I’m fine with David moving on with his life. This is healthy for him. I mean, I don’t know that moving to BMWs is healthy, but overall, change can be good.
We just need more SWG content!
We have had a distinct lack of SWG content lately. I have to wonder what fresh new mess he been wrenching on.
Also, we still need the Jag story
Okay, hear me out, though:
parsh
My 996 and I will never give in to this BMW brainwashing.
Never fear: I’m recommending parsh.
I have been looking at 924’s but they are either too expensive to too beat. Very tempting though. A neighbor has a MINT 928 that I am super envious of.
Keep looking! Never give up! Find the good parsh!
Wow, yeah I never thought David would get rid of a lot of his Jeeps…I will be heartbroken if he does…in previous articles he mentioned he would keep his 1st one and should. Also, all of the work that went into hauling them to CA. Obviously his decision of course and I understand things change and all that, too
“Mercedes got the E39 wagon from Hans.”
Wait I thought Mercedes got that from The Bishop. Is this Hans character The Bishop? Matt, did you just let loose an Autopian secret on Tales from the Slack?
Or am I missing something? Was the E60 the one bought from The Bishop?
Shhhhhhh
It’ a clue!
Oh no…
Hans Moleman confirmed as the Bishop!
I was saying Booo-urns!
What we REALLY need is to get you guys and gals to do is start buying Alfa Romeos!
You might all be suicidal or homicidal within weeks, but the content would be GLORIOUS!!
I wouldn’t own one of the old shitty ones, but I could definitely own the M240i I tested.
You obviously never drove an E46 3-series or E39 5-series. These were peak Ultimate Driving Machines. While BMW is slowly getting back to driving, there has been a decade or more of setbacks from that paradigm.
Best friend had an E39 540i. I drove it many times and thought it was fat. Soggy steering, needed kicking to the floor to move, front suspension creaked and couldn’t be fixed. Pass.
I’ve been eying an i4, and I think I now know who to blame.
I’ll cosign that blame because the other day I searched BMW’s website for CPO (I’m not crazy) i3s, but the closest is 250 miles away and most of them are on the other coast. (An i3 REX would suit my lifestyle pretty well for around the price of a decently-equipped new Corolla at most, tho… damnit, they’ve got me doing it again!)
Admittedly, i3s have slightly fewer things to break, so that’s not bad, but overall, I see BMW inflicted pain on a daily basis and I have no desire to partake. The fun to pain ratio is all wrong, waaay too much pain to mostly-not fun. Having an E46 M3 was fun for a couple years, but I don’t want to go back. I’ll stick with Italian pain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ce-zC_n8E
Funny enough the morning dump had me in a Del tha Funky Homosapien rabbit hole, which ended with me buying tickets to see Deltron 3030, Athosphere, and Method Man & Redman at Red Rocks. Bought plane tickets too. Thanks Matt!
Woohoo! I saw Deltron 3030 on their last swing through and it was definitely worth it. Have a great time.
Awesome, checking off 2 bucket items at once. Seeing Del perform, and going to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. I’m pretty psyched.
You are not a true masochist until you own at least one of these
Masochism is daily driving any stick shift in Southern California… I did it for 6 months and broke down and bought an automatic. Though in my defense I moved from the Midwest and my commute went from 20 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes (one way).
I’m full on shadetree, I work on all my own stuff. Hollow camshafts aggravate me regardless of any benefit they may provide. Install wrong and SHATTER. If I go looking for performance luxury, I think I would end up in a CTS-V if I need to carry passengers, or a porsche cayman if I dont care about passengers. All 15+ years old, naturally.
Arent the X3 transfer cases made of glass?
Funny enough, I just wrote an estimate for one yesterday…
BMW’s are truly wonderful things to drive.
But the upkeep will kill you. The newer and/or higher strung (see: M division), the worse it will be. Some earlier S-code engines require regular scheduled valve adjustments with shims.
Cheap BMW’s come with deferred maintenance and a pile of small-but-ignorable problems that have snowballed into a repair bill that will total a vehicle.
Confession: I have never found the Simpson’s to be funny. I have tried multiple times. There was even a stage where being able to fake such would have gotten me laid by someone exceptionally desirable, but I still couldn’t do it. I get that vast legions find it hilarious, but I have never even chuckled once at the show, let alone busted a gut.
I know it’s makes me a terrible person who should have his license to breath revoked, but I find the entire show to be, Meh.
Out of curiosity, what is something that you *do* find funny?
Cartoons: South Park, Rick and Morty, and Lower Decks
Live Action: IASIP, Psych, and most cheesy network sitcoms.
RIP Lower Decks…I’m gonna miss that one a lot.
#2 for sure after DS9. Let’s hope another streamer picks it up.
I don’t know if this is intentional, and if so it’s well played, but “meh” was popularized (note I did not say coined) by The Simpsons!
Are you thinking of “D’oh!”?
No they’re not.
“We said ‘meh.’ M-E-H, meh.”
Here’s an article about it: https://www.slashfilm.com/1432863/the-simpsons-meh-origin/
I was going for South Park. Cartman is kind of the role mode to which I aspire.
edited
The Simpson had six glorious early seasons, and then another 6 or so years of on-and-off brilliance, and then had twenty two more seasons after that, so on the whole you’re not wrong, but the highs really were exquisite.
I do wonder if it suffers from the Blade Runner effect, where people seeing the original blade runner for the first time find it derivative because everything that came after was so heavily influenced by it that it feels unoriginal in retrospect.
I could never really get into it, either, TBH. It’s a show that exists. Sometimes I refer to some of their outstanding bits like the Canyonero, but for the most part, it’s a show that I didn’t watch much of because *shrugs* and I won’t get the references from it unless they’re ultra-mega-famous.
So, it’s not just you.
I am in favor of more old BMW content. And I too am glad that David has grown as a person and expanded his interests. But something tells me that if he tries to give up Jeeps completely it won’t last, because a) the withdrawal symptoms might kill him, b) the site might implode, and c) an old Scrambler in need of rescue will come to his attention….
And I really want read-only access to y’alls Slack channel. Just to be a fly on the wall for these conversations.
(as Homer) …mmm, Scrambler…
At least David is realizing there’s more to life than owning crusty crap cans. He can still write stories about his i3 and the overlander Jeep project.
Wait, did we ever get an update on the 2in1 jeep project?
No he just can’t find rusty cars in California
If that’s what he wants the beach and mountain communities have ’em!
So what I’m hearing is the new members drive is not only to force David back into his old car ways, but to help pay for all the repairs on the recently acquired BMWs? I’m even more glad I upgraded my membership now
BMW, the COVID of cars. Where’s my mask?
I’m so confused where this all comes from given the seemingly common-knowledge “if you can’t afford a new German car, you can’t afford [to maintain] a used German car.” Unless it’s hugely different model-to-model for Bimmers…
I won’t knock their style or what people have said about the driving “experiences”, but if they don’t generally live up to Toyota reliability…
I don’t understand this either.
None of the German cars I’ve owned or driven, with the exception of Porsche, justified the risk and cost of their poor reliability with especially great amenities or driving experiences.
I can absolutely root for the i3 given its somewhat limited usability being perfect for David, and it does look pleasant inside and out, and versatile for its size…but that’s an EV. For most manufacturers that should mean fewer regular maintenance concerns.
But I’d need to look at the other models mentioned under a microscope…
I’ll take a boring but reliable car over most other things just about any day.
I can understand attitudes being different in the 70s-80s when there really were no alternatives to BMW or Mercedes.
But there’s been no need to put up with them for at least 20 years now. Japanese and American companies have built competitors to the Germans in every market niche. I don’t understand the continued fascination.
You need more GM-era Saab in your life. Whenever something breaks, you get to spin the roulette wheel of How Much Will This Component Cost Based on the Supplier This Part Came From? Your options are:
It’s consistently a surprise and a delight.
I’d read an article about how/why Saab came to have the cult following that it did. Because on the surface, their appeal is lost on me too.
watch the Youtube documentary Regular Car Reviews did on the history of Saab. Still won’t tell you why the cult, but you will learn all about Saab. I am still a cult member, even though my only current Saab is an imposter manufactured by Subaru
Saabaru is still better than that large GM SUV abomination.
My 900 (like my pic) was a freaking beast. It could haul a ton of stuff in the back with the seat folded down, drove and handled pretty well, was weird in a fun way, and had a clamshell hood. Plus the key went between the seats.
It was understated to an extent, but those who knew about them would nod, like ‘yeah, I get it.’ Plus as a reformed music snob, it was like knowing about bands that not everybody knew about. (Insert large music rant typical of the late 80’s/early 90’s, but in CAR.)
Plus, it was just freaking fun.
Because it had TURBO!!
Option 4 – that part is NLA except for one dude in Finland who is 3d printing them in his garage, but only makes 3 at a time, sells them immediately and then disappears from the forum for 5-6 months.
BMWs are like that one particular cheerleader in high school, you know the one. She rolls up the waistband of her cheer skirt to show a bit more leg. Her sweater is always a size smaller than it should be. She’s good looking, but a bit flashy with the eyeshadow and mascara, her lips a bright crimson. She always stands with one hip shot and her head tilted slightly to the side. There’s a mischievous sparkle in her gaze and a knowing smirk on her lips. Her voice is a low, whiskey husky, Marlboro Red, cotton snarl. She laughs loudly and defiantly with her head thrown back and eyes half closed. She’s a little scary, high maintenance and out of your league and only in your dreams do you imagine taking a ride with her. Then, one day she winks at you, and you end up buying a BMW.
This reads like a 100-year anniversary edition of the 1923 Jordan Playboy “Somewhere West of Laramie” advertisement:
“Somewhere west of Laramie there’s a bronco-busting, steer roping girl who knows what I’m talking about…. The truth is – the Playboy was built for her. Built for the lass whose, face is brown with the sun when the day is done of revel and romp and race. She loves the cross of the wild and the tame.”
Honored by the comparison.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think Jolie was ever a cheerleader, but damn if you didn’t nail it… get it bang-on… were correct about the rest.
It is. Sort of.
Older BMW’s can be worked on by any competent shade-tree mechanic, and the parts are… not obscene, but certainly not as cheap or common as, say, a small block chevy.
Once you get to about 2004 or 5, you basically need dealer software and SST sets to do anything beyond an oil change. Even starting with the E46, there’s a turn toward cheaper interior materials and a much much bigger focus on technology, starting under the hood.
Yeah, it varies massively from model to model. There’s a joke that BMW used to release cars with one or two solid engine options, but the rest would spawn class-action lawsuits. Generally, a naturally aspirated non-M inline-six is a good option, except for the N53 that was never sold in North America.