Upgrade?

Hello people, I currently own a 2000 e46, 323i, the car is kind of old although I try to keep it in good shape, but it is asking me more and more for parts, and they are not cheap; within the last three months I have spent on it about $2,500 on parts and mechanics, and I am feeling very frustrated about this situation, I still need some stuff to do to it and it will be a couple of hundred more.

I can’t keep going this way, the car is draining my pockets, but I don’t know what to do, in principle I would like to change it for a more modern car expecting it to be less demanding for parts replacement.

What would yo recommend me to do?

Here some facts about me:

1. I live in a third world country, not in the USA, here cars are about 1.5 X the price in the USA market.

2. I make $1,000 a month, so yes, I am a poor ass man, but you can’t not earn a lot more that that here unless you own some kind of business.

3. I have no savings, I count on a loan to do so and expecting to get about 5,000 out of my e46.

4. I am looking for something no more expensive than 12,000.

5. I don’t want to sell a 18 years old car to get a loan and buy a 14 years old car, preferably I would like to have something around year 2012.

6. Safe, fun to drive and easy to maintain and get the parts (I can order anything by mail from the US).

Where do you recommend me to look at? What should I avoid?

Thanks

>Safe, fun to drive and easy to maintain
Honestly, given the rest of your criteria, you get to pick 2. 2012+ Japanese cars are pretty reliable and cheap to maintain, but they're not going to be anywhere near as fun to drive as an E46.

You could consider learning to work on your own car. What is it that's going wrong? On these cars there's really only a couple of huge things that you can't do yourself or with the help of a friend and some borrowed tools.

>only
>a couple
>huge things

kek, just call it what it is, a huge money drain

he live in 3rd world, even Japanese car gonna be expensive for him. for 12k he won't get something like civic/accord/yaris/camry made in 2012

All I'm saying is that it would be pretty hard to change a head gasket by yourself if you don't know what you're doing. These cars are actually pretty easy to work on.

BMW service manuals are generally pretty well written, at least coming from an E30 guy.

What country do you live in? Can you get a $3k civic? That civic looks just like OP's pic.

Doing mefchanics myself is not an option, I do not have time for it neither the tools, mechanics her are not expensive, parts are, because everything is imported and for BMW there are not a lot aftermarket and still beign aftermarket they are expensive. For me it would not be an issue if I need to spend a few hundred a year on parts, but more than a thousand is not possible.

>1. I live in a third world country, not in the USA, here cars are about 1.5 X the price in the USA market.


Hmm, take the subway or the bus instead? Poor people do not deserve cars.

Options I can buy here for arround $ 12K so you can have an idea:

USA:
Chevrolet Traverse 2012
Chevrolet Equinox 2012
Chevrolet Cruze 2013

Ford Escape 2012
Ford Explorer 2010
Ford Mustang v6 2012
Ford Focus 2014
Ford F150 2012
Ford Fusion 2012
Ford Edge 2011
Ford Taurus 2011

Acura TSX 2011

Chrysler 300 2012

If that was true there would not be Veeky Forums board on Veeky Forums.

SORRY I MEANT $15K

Is a Mustang V6 2012 a good option to consider?

I mean, he did say he lived in a 3rd world country.

I hope that you wont laugh at me for this one.
Kia Cee'd ED is one of the best second cars at the moment. Everybody that I know is very satisfied with it and they are acknowledged to be very reliable and not that boring.

I know many people which have the Cee'd with the 1.6 petrol and it is by no means laughable. The 2.0 petrol version (rare though) will be just as fast, if not faster, than the e46 323i.

Sure, it has a Kia badge, but if you take it as a car, there are few cars that can beat it.

Reliable, economical, and if you go for a 1.6 or 2.0 petrol it's pretty fucking fast.
I've driven an E46 318i 143 bhp and it was pretty fast. The 2.0 petrol from the Cee'd also has 143 bhp. Same power, but for far less money.
Sure, it's not an NA l-6, but it won't leak oil from everywhere either.

I don't recommend the japs since parts cost an arm and a leg. I was tempted into buying a T25 or an Auris with the 1.8 vvt-i, but the maintainance costs are above VW and BMW. Same goes for Nissan, parts are expensive af.

>owning an old BMW
>letting mechanics do all the work for you
Well there's your problem retard. Learn to fix shit. Faggot.

A mid-to-late-2000s Accord (the smaller one, sold stateside as Acura TSX) seems like a wise choice.

He ain't poor; he's got the equivalent of an $8k budget in the US.

This
My dad's Cee'd reached over 210000mi from new over 8 years. No big problems to this day. And it depreciated nicely. A good one costs as much as Civic or Corolla but it was about 5k$ cheaper when new.

But its not an upgrade, unless OP didnt understand what upgrade meant when he posted.

Work on it yourself you lazy fuck, I have a E90 318i and I have learned to keep it in shape by myself.

None of these are good except the TSX, wtf are you doing?

Jesus Christ dude. Stop making terrible financial decisions. Just get a 3k civic and stop throwing yourself into debt.

>...with the help of a friend...

Well, some points of OP post are excluding themselves IMO.
New cars will never be as easy to maintain as old shitbox.
Nowadays there are less fun to drive cars, and it depends what is "fun to drive"
There is no cheap car which require to buy parts from the US.

I can as well suggest buying Citroen DS3 Racing. It costs here around 11k$, has above 200HP, Frenchies in yurop should have cheap parts (changed jap shitbox to french shitbox, now I buy parts for 1/3 of what I had to pay for my old car), and has 5-stars safety rating.

But maybe OP just want a 2011 MX-5