Cactus

Much easier to swap suspension than a 993.

sdcabrio

The BMW "shoe" car. Very cool, unique for sure. The wheels look sweet,.....major lipage.

ironimages

Nice, I almost got a set of Works for my 993, they make some good looking rims. Thanks for posting.

jdistefa

There are a whole bunch of solutions to avoid the rear subframe problem. It's actually not the subframe that cracks but rather the trunk floorpan mounting points. There are both reinforcement kits and aftermarket bushings that take care of the problem .

It's a great car to drive and certainly there's nothing quite as quirky looking on the road.

AOW162435

I beg to differ...





Andreas

Stealth 993

There is NO rear subframe problem on the E36/7. It's the E36 & E46 3 series that have the floor pan issues. The Z cars have a bolted in subframe, same as the E30's but with different exhaust hangers. No issues at all, except for having to replace the subframe bushings every 10 or so years. The front subframes can develop cracks @ the bolt holes, but that was fixed on all the M cars.

yes, I used to carry 3 sets of springs with me, for the different local tracks, & would swap them out @ the track, took me about 20 min, while I was swapping over to race rubber.


I was a BMW Geek for a long time, my house hold used to house 8 BMW's, a few E30's and a nice M Roadster.

jdistefa

Stealth,

Agree with you that the rear subframe itself is fine (although one can argue that the trailing arms should be reinforced). However, beg to differ (for once) but the stock rear subframe bushings are too soft on the M Coupes and can cause excess movement that stresses and can eventually crack/tear the mounting surface. There are pics online of Mcoupes with cracks in the rear floorpan. This tends to happen only to cars that are driven really hard (track or autox) but there's now a cottage industry of reinforcement solutions. I simply have upgraded bushings .

Kein_Ersatz

Well played sir! Well played.

I assume you are not reffering to the brunet on the bike

jdistefa

Sweet.

Stuttgart951

JD is correct.

"The subframe issue" affects E36, E36/7, E36/8 and E46 cars; standard and M, all the same. But, as he also stated, there are plenty of reasonably priced solutions available; even after a tear.

Crap design and, frankly, BMW's practice of ignoring the defect lowers my opinion of their product.

Cactus

Kinda like Porsche with bad valve guides on 993's and grenading engines on 996's....

Stealth 993

Ok, I have never known it to happen, but that doesn't mean it doesn't. We all know the E36/46's really have rear floorpan issues, the E36/7 is not as prevalent as the others.

We tracked about 20-30 times a year, & never had a issue, but we did have the BMW Motorsport bushings in the car. They were stupid expensive.

This would not keep me from owning any of them! The E36/7 is a super fun car, that rivals the 993. But is much cheaper & easier to maintain. BMW INSP II (porsche 30k service) is about 1/4th the price in parts of the 993's. It takes about 2hrs to finish. Hell I'm not even done with spark plugs in 2 hours.....

Stuttgart951

Yup.

Don't take my post as an anti-BMW statement, if you are posting in defense. I love their cars. Have owned my share over the last few years. As far as I'm concerned you really cant ask for a better compromise than the M3. Brakes aside, it sits four in comfort, is a blast to drive and can hold its own on the track.

I will give them points for issuing the bearing recall and extending the warranties on all S54-powered cars after those engines started popping. Gave a considerable amount of confidence to those of us who had the cars at the time.

Wish Porsche would have done the same with the non-GT1 block 986/996/997.1 motors...

My distaste comes from, as you can guess, my own experience with subframe issues.

As I understand it, the primary reason for the tears at the mounting points is actually hard/sudden acceleration; not "aftermarket suspension." The right side will nearly always tear before the left.

While modified suspension may exacerbate the weakness, it is a design defect no matter how you slice it. I fought with BMWNA, tooth and nail, to no avail. They pointed to my coilovers, camber plates, adjustable control arms, etc, etc, etc, and stuck to their "that's what caused it" guns... this despite the fact that it routinely happens to OEM cars as well.

We'll see if the E90/E92 is affected sooner than later, I imagine... but I still dont like the way it looks. I dont think they can build a more attractive car than the E46 M3. I'm also a Coupe lover... but while I think the E36/8 looks better, the E85 most certainly drives better.

Each to his own.

Franklin229

I almost bought one of those when I was looking for my 993. I still think they are pretty cool!