From the sounds of your posts here and on bimmerforums.. you just want a car with plush ride that is "semi-quick". That's not evo territory. .

On the other hand, I've owned 4 bimmers and the 2 that I had the most problems with were E36's. My E30 and E28 were rock solid, but the E36's both had the same problems that all of the other E36's have:

- Digital HVAC controls worked when they wanted to.
- Delaminating interior panels and headliner
- Window regulators that were as sturdy as a house of cards.
- never-ending sunroof rattling
- Sagging glove box
- The OBC was a useless gadget.

Problems that I luckily avoided that are shared with other owners:
- Rear Subframe separating from the chassis.
- Plastic impeller'd waterpumps grenading

As much as I loved driving my S50 powered hatch (330ti), it and the '94 318is had some of the crappiest interior build quality I have seen (talking about build, not how they looked). Only my '86 Mustang had a worse interior build (and it was allowed to have it for it's age and price-point). I will not recommend an E36 to anyone except for someone that intends to turn it into a track-rate and strip the interior out and weld the rear-subframe up.

Yes, you read that correctly.an Evo owner just said that a certain model of BMW had crap interior. Function>form


If you are hard up on getting a bimmer, then get an E46 or newer. Personally, I think you should just keep your current car if you are not looking to go fast. An E36 M3 isn't fast and it will take a good bit of money to get it there (F/I).

 

FIXT

 

What's the big deal? Not all cars are right for all people. Given the OP's needs, he made the right choice. Here's his post from Bimmerforums explaining his decision:

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...3&postcount=41