[XutvJet]

The E90 M3 6MT is a stellar car, BUT given it's age, it's known reliability history of that gen M3, and it's increasing age, I'm not sure I'd be willing to drive one a whopping 27K miles/yr. It sounds like the car is well maintained, but age is likely catching up to it and little things will start breaking more and more as you pile miles on it plus the extreme FL sun/humidity/heat ain't gonna be nice to an older BMW. It's gonna expose a lot of stuff that is on the cusp of failure like the cooling system, interior bit and electronics, suspension, etc.

Long story short, it sounds like you need a dependable car that's going to get you where you need to go for appointments and such. I don't think an E90 M3 is that car.

It sounds like you have the financial means to get something else. If it were me, I'd be looking at a 2 or so y/o Civic Si 6MT. It's sporty and quick, great 6MT, fun to drive, 30mpg+ around town and nearly 40mpg on the highway, reliable, easy on expendables and those expendables are cheap, etc. I wouldn't be looking at a German car at all if I needed to depend on a car for my job. And this is coming from a guy with a 2018 M2 and 2011 Cayman.

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

A C5 Corvette will do everything the M3 does, better (outside of comfort and refinement and luxury), and be way more reliable and economical.

Drive a C5, they're wonderful highway cruisers and tons of power.

Awesome cars. Horrible stigma. Cheap ass interiors, terrible seats and steering wheel, and would need some tech upgrades. If the OP is meeting professional clients, I think rolling up in C5 would result in some pretty bad opinions. Hard truth.

[FC4]

LOL that can’t be a serious recommendation. C5 Z06 was my first car back in 2002…but it is a complete shitbox. I can’t name another car with interior panel gaps.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

Awesome cars. Horrible stigma. Cheap ass interiors, terrible seats and steering wheel, and would need some tech upgrades. If the OP is meeting professional clients, I think rolling up in C5 would result in some pretty bad opinions. Hard truth.

Honestly, the only times I've ever seen someone get a negative reaction pulling up in a car were for it either being too flashy (fence guy pulled up in a new Escalade, dropped a quote that was way high, got shown the door), WAY too flashy (SAP sales rep showed up in a Lambo Gallardo, sat in the lobby waiting for his meeting which was cancelled. SAP was told they were going to be too expensive if their sales rep could drive a Lambo. Next sales guy showed up in an F150), or total junkers falling apart.

Nobody will bat an eye at a C5 if the car is in decent shape. Depending on his line of work it might make for some interesting looks about "how are you getting all that stuff in that little car?"

The interior is definitely a lot of hard plastics,but they also hold up well. The seats are comfortable, if not super grabby for track use. The steering wheel is round and turns just fine, you might not like how it looks (I don't either), but it's a steering wheel and it does it's jobs as well as any other steering wheel.

The real perk of the C5 is you can change any of that for not that much money. Want to slater the interior in nappa leather? You can do that for like a grand or less. New radio? No problem, get carplay and android autos and whatever other crap you want. New steering wheel? Easy, you can swap to newer Corvette wheels or pick from a ton of inexpensive aftermarket options.

It isn't an S-Class. It's a $15k, dead nuts reliable, 30mpg car that looks good, sounds great, is comfortable, and has good space for 2 and a large cargo space.

[pbonsalb]

Originally Posted by Lucky1

I drove a Model 3 and for this use case with little excessive braking into a corner and turning except getting on and off the highway, I would definitely consider driving it if I could save enough on fuel costs to effectively make a lease or finance a wash.

You can’t get an 84,000 mile 3 year lease, so leasing is out. A Tesla M3P probably equals the E90 M3 performance, though without any of the sounds or character. Don’t know what they go for used. You would need the $2k charger plus install cost. Recharging commercially significantly reduces cost savings over buying gas. I personally would consider a MS Plaid. A friend had an M3P and I much preferred my E90 M3. The Plaid would spank my modded F90 M5, but a few Plaid owners have changed to M5s because the Plaid is boring apart from the speed.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by FC4

LOL that can’t be a serious recommendation. C5 Z06 was my first car back in 2002…but it is a complete shitbox. I can’t name another car with interior panel gaps.

If your first car in 2002 was a C5Z and a "complete shit box" to you, that tells me everything I need to know about your frame of reference and that we aren't going to see things at all the same, lol.

To any normal person, that was a very nice car back then. Not a first car for someone, and not something you'd immediately write off as a POS.

[dizz81]

Yeah I can feel this as I've been driving over 150 miles, 5 days a week since last June. I picked up an RC350 since I can just drive it till it falls apart and it's actually really comfy. Plus the mark levinson sound system is amazing.

I'm about to replace the brakes this weekend and continue driving it. In the last 4 cars I've owned, this is probably the first one that I've not given much thought to anything about it. I just get in and drive, fill up the gas tank and drive some more, maybe wash it once a month.

Maybe I'm getting old and don't really care about how many layers of dust are on it or maybe it's the fact that in the back of my mind I know once my work/living situation changes I'll be getting rid of it since I won't need it anymore.

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by BlkGS

Nobody will bat an eye at a C5 if the car is in decent shape. Depending on his line of work it might make for some interesting looks about "how are you getting all that stuff in that little car?"

Your domestic car blinders show strong....often Corvettes have quite a strong negative stigma amongst non-car people which is most of society. That's reality. Just like the same crowd thinks most BMW owners are c@cks and Porsche owners have small junk.

I love the C5 and think it's a steal for little money, reliable, cheap to maintain, very strong performer, comfy, tons of mod potential, can make it sexy with a couple of simple mods, you name it. Showing up to a non-blue collar client meeting or taking them out? Probably not a good thing on many levels from business. Silly and wrong? Absolutely. Truthful? Absolutely.

[BlkGS]

27k miles a year is really like 120 miles a day, assuming 46 working weeks and 5 day work weeks. That's really not that much. Maybe a lot for an S motor car, but not for a regular car. That's only like $10-15 a day in gas in Florida if you're getting 25-30 mpg. Get a hybrid or a PHEV and that figure drops even more. You could get into a used hybrid with 40mpg on regular gas and be spending $7-8 a day on gas for that kind of mileage.

Point being, the reliability aspect of the car is probably more a cost driver than fuel use. You get an EV wearing tires out every 20-30k miles and you're gonna spend way more than a little dinky hybrid getting 40mpg and 80k miles on tires

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

Your domestic car blinders show strong....often Corvettes have quite a strong negative stigma amongst non-car people which is most of society. That's reality. Just like the same crowd thinks most BMW owners are c@cks and Porsche owners have small junk.

I love the C5 and think it's a steal for little money, reliable, cheap to maintain, very strong performer, comfy, tons of mod potential, can make it sexy with a couple of simple mods, you name it. Showing up to a non-blue collar client meeting or taking them out? Probably not a good thing on many levels from business. Silly and wrong? Absolutely. Truthful? Absolutely.

Who says he's gonna be taking clients out? If he's going to a big office building he's not going to be parking anywhere near where anyone would see his car.

The same argument can be made for just about any vehicle that isn't a Tacoma, F150, or Camry. Roll up in a Tesla and a ton of people will hate you. bMW? Hate. Mustang? God help you if you're in a Camaro town. Not something to worry about IMO.

[thebmw]

I drive about 25K miles a year. This thread has gone on far too long. OP, how many lives do you have? Let me help you...ONE. Enjoy it! Choose whatever car makes it FUN to drive 27K miles. I have 8 cars and when one gets a little boring, I chose another. I gave up on how many miles are on the cars (except the rare 1 of 1s).

If a couple thousand dollars is going to make or break you, you should not own 3 cars and a Porsche and BMW anyway. Don't go backward and drive a beater.

[ash_schwin]

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

30,000/25mpg=1200 gallons
30,000/35mpg=857 gallons
1200x$4=$4800
857x$3=$2571

You are saving roughly $2229 per year by registering, insuring, maintaining and repairing an extra car. You could not pay me $2229 per year to drive a Honda Accord for 30,000 miles instead of a G80 M3. But each to his own.

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I've well documented my E90 here on E90 Post. My cost has been $0.31 per-mile. That's all costs in, including real actual gas cost of every fill up for 426,000 miles; most people do not track gas costs like I do. Purchase price, loan interest, maintenance, repairs, and fuel. I did not include insurance cost because any car would have insurance costs.

I doubt an E90 M3 would hit that 31-cent number. My number includes nearly everything as DIY. And DIY is easy for me because I have a complete autoshop at home with a lift and I DIY as a hobby.

Get an Accord. Comfy, roomy, good car, inexpensive to own for tires, fuel, and maintenance. It's not an Econobox.

Thank you for both these comments as I kept going back and forth between daily driver beater vs. G80 as a daily driver commuter. I ended up just doing a simple spreadsheet with what I assumed were best guess estimates to compare costs of everything including purchase price, insurance, fuel, depreciation, wear & tear, etc. Snapshot of the table attached. Not saying it is 100% accurate or perfect mathematical model, but the assumptions I made pushed me to get the Accord and I am happy I made the choice. On another note, every time I get into the G80, just makes the car feel super special to me and feel grateful for it.

[BMWbiker]

Originally Posted by Lucky1

Hi, I'm on the verge of possibly relocating to Florida and taking on a project that will require me to travel and incur 27,000 miles annually on my car.

I'm bringing my daily E90 M3 6MT as well as my weekenders, Z4M Roadster and 911 Carrera 4S (991.1) 7MT.

My original plan was to just suck it up and drive the E90 until the engine blows (300,000+ miles?), and either replace the engine or the car itself. It currently has 73,160 miles on it.

Lately also wondering if there's a business case to get a used EV on a cheap monthly finance, like an Hyundai Ioniq 6 and pay FPL's $38 a month free charger install, free overnight charging and spare the E90 the mileage. I would have to pay extra on insurance for it too of course, but the monthly savings in fuel would be significant by my quick math.

I'm going to dive deeper into the math but I thought I'd talk to my fellow Bimmerposters, and beyond the E9x dedicated M3 forum, to see what they do. I know a lot of people look at the E9x as a weekender, and I appreciate that, but right now for better or worse its been my daily. I love driving it, its a fantastic all around car, serves its purpose as the ultimate family sedan that's also a manual sports car. I haven't been shy about putting miles on it up to now, but this is a lot of miles. Still, its meant to be driven (though fuel, oil and tire costs are certainly going to be not much fun).

Other ideas were to buy some cheap $10k commuter fuel sippers and continually buy and resell at the same price or similar if possible jumping from car to car. What would you guys do?

There’s another factor that’s pertinent, that I don’t think anyone has mentioned yet. (I only skimmed the messages, so my apologies if I’m mistaken.)

Do you plan to keep the Canadian plates, or do you plan to register the cars in Florida?

If you plan to keep the Canadian plates, you may want to check the legality of being long term in the U.S. with Canadian plates. For example, in Virginia, if you keep out-of-state plates for too long, you can be ticketed or worse for not registering the car in Virginia (unless that law has been changed since last I checked). I do not know if Florida has a similar law.

There may also be issues with your Canadian insurance.

If you plan to get Florida plates, then you have to deal with all the issues of importing Canadian cars into the U.S.

The results of your research into these factors may guide your decision.

[DrVenture]

I'm having trouble getting past the culture shock of moving from Toronto to Florida. This must be one hell of a lucrative venture (including healthcare) to consider that and driving 27.000 miles annually. And taking several cars and (?) a family.

[nazali]

I asked post 4

Originally Posted by BMWbiker

There’s another factor that’s pertinent, that I don’t think anyone has mentioned yet. (I only skimmed the messages, so my apologies if I’m mistaken.)

Do you plan to keep the Canadian plates, or do you plan to register the cars in Florida?

If you plan to keep the Canadian plates, you may want to check the legality of being long term in the U.S. with Canadian plates. For example, in Virginia, if you keep out-of-state plates for too long, you can be ticketed or worse for not registering the car in Virginia (unless that law has been changed since last I checked). I do not know if Florida has a similar law.

There may also be issues with your Canadian insurance.

If you plan to get Florida plates, then you have to deal with all the issues of importing Canadian cars into the U.S.

The results of your research into these factors may guide your decision.

[nazali]

Canadian car insurance usually covers you in the United States. This is because Canada and the U.S. have a reciprocal agreement for auto insurance.

However, there may be some restrictions, such as coverage limits or additional premiums.

BUT if length of stay is more than four weeks, you may need to pay extra for coverage.

AND ALSO NOTE Most insurance companies will cover your car for up to six months, but you may need to pay more for longer stays.

Originally Posted by BMWbiker

There’s another factor that’s pertinent, that I don’t think anyone has mentioned yet. (I only skimmed the messages, so my apologies if I’m mistaken.)

Do you plan to keep the Canadian plates, or do you plan to register the cars in Florida?

If you plan to keep the Canadian plates, you may want to check the legality of being long term in the U.S. with Canadian plates. For example, in Virginia, if you keep out-of-state plates for too long, you can be ticketed or worse for not registering the car in Virginia (unless that law has been changed since last I checked). I do not know if Florida has a similar law.

There may also be issues with your Canadian insurance.

If you plan to get Florida plates, then you have to deal with all the issues of importing Canadian cars into the U.S.

The results of your research into these factors may guide your decision.

[thebmw]

Originally Posted by nazali

Interesting, is it a working visa ? must be, please dont say your emigrating don't do it

It doesn't matter if he is emigrating/immigrating or not. You're all going to be a territory of the US eventually LOL.

[BlkGS]

Originally Posted by thebmw

It doesn't matter if he is emigrating/immigrating or not. You're all going to be a territory of the US eventually LOL.

Smart because if we admit them as a state we would have to split a red state in half to keep it even. Or we consolidate all the northeast into one state, then we could still have 50 states and have room for Easter Alaska as a state and Greenland :P

Whatever it takes to get Tim Horton's i suppose.

[Lucky1]

Originally Posted by nazali

Canadian car insurance usually covers you in the United States. This is because Canada and the U.S. have a reciprocal agreement for auto insurance.

However, there may be some restrictions, such as coverage limits or additional premiums.

BUT if length of stay is more than four weeks, you may need to pay extra for coverage.

AND ALSO NOTE Most insurance companies will cover your car for up to six months, but you may need to pay more for longer stays.

I received some insurance quotes from agencies that do coverage in Florida. Rules state I can keep the car for 1 year before importing it (which I will at that time). If they require me to get a Florida drivers license I will however I think they’ll insure the car/VIN and not care about the plates.

[Lucky1]

Originally Posted by freakystyly

Life's too short to be stuck in an econo box you dislike. As mentioned above, go for something properly comfortable if you can keep the m3 on the side.

I hear Florida has straight and boring roads, not unlike Toronto so good handling would likely be wasted. Gas prices are approx. 15-20% cheaper if my math is right, including exchange rate.

Your math is probably right and thats a relief. Hopefully fuel prices don’t go up.

I am 100% in the camp of not buying econoboxes to spare your favourite cads miles. I think what I was hoping is to find some magic business case to driving some cool cars and saving tons of $$ monthly.l which would be nice.

I don’t mind how EV’s drive; prefer a Model 3 to a Honda Civic any day. If I’m going automatic even better.

I think I might be overthinking things. I didn’t buy the M3 to preserve it. Just thought if I saved hundreds on fuel costs AND kept mileage down it’d be a win. But more I listen to everyone’s great advice the more I’m like f*ck it, I love this car, drive it and buy another down the road if you like. Maybe an E93 6spd next time Drop the top on the evening ride home.

[pbonsalb]

Have you done the rod bearings yet on the M3? I did mine at 60k. Took me about 12 hours, but it is one of those jobs I could do faster next time. Using ARP bolts saves time and reduces risk — I did not on my M3 but I did on a friend’s M3 and definitely recommend them. As for bearings, there are a few choices and prices vary.

[ppointer]

I would find a cherry e90 335d and not look back.