A couple of things to bear in mind !!

Does the car have a service history. It may look good but there can be all sort of nasties lurking, waiting to reduce your bank balance as soon as you get it on your driveway.

If it has 90K it is close to timing chain and sprocket replacement(about a £2000 job in the UK). Lot's of people don't think this is necessary, but if the chain breaks wave by by to your head, pistons and valves.

If you are planning on doing track days, those crossdrilled disks won't last five minutes.(They crack betweeen the holes) Expect to replace them pretty soon, for standard EVO parts.

Compression should be 200+ for a really good engine. A leakdown test is also a worthwhile test as is a CO check, this can tell you if the AFM has been frigged with or the engine is running lean, which is bad for the S14 engine. If it hasn't been done expect to have to swap out the ignition leads, dizzy cap and rotor some time, these often cause intermittent missfires.

Check the guibo, the drive shaft coupling, this quite often fall apart. Also check the gear knob for vibration, this can be caused by worn bushes in the gear linkage or tired gearbox mountings. Check the front subframes, these quite often rot through or develop stress cracks. Additionally check the front tabs where the anti roll bar connects to the strut. These can be broken off with really enthusiastic driving, or when non standard anti roll bars are fitted.

Check the body for cracks, particularly around the strut tops. This is a sign that the car has been hammered.

I have probably left out loads but these should give you a pointer. I would really recomend getting an expert to check it over if you don't feel comfortable.

Roops.

Hello. I found a well-sorted E30 M3 for what I consider to be a fair price. It has 90K miles, new clutch, new control arms, new front swaybar, new rear tires, front cross-drilled rotors, rear vented brakes. The chain tensioner has not yet been replaced. I couldn't scrutinize it as well as I wanted to since it was raining this weekend, but it ran and braked very well.

Nowhere on the Web can I find a good checklist of things to look for when purchasing an E30 M3. What should I be checking for? If I ran a compression test, where should the results fall?

Thanks for any info --

goldie
'76 2002
'65 Corvair