Not An April Fool's Joke: Rear-Drive, Manual, Diesel Wagon For Sale In North America

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Want a BMW manual diesel wagon for under $10k? You can buy one right now, on Ebay (via Bring A Trailer), and if you live in Canada, you can legally register it.

One gentleman in Germany is offering a 1997 BMW 325tds wagon with a 5-speed manual for sale. The seller is offering to ship the car to Halifax, Nova Scotia, a major eastern port and a country where the car can be legally registered. The 2.5L diesel engine puts out 141 horsepower and 210 lb-ft of torque, hitting 60 mph in a leisurely 9.9 seconds – between that and the very European cloth seats, I think I’d rather opt for a gasoline powered wagon, if I had my pick.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Redshift Redshift on Apr 01, 2013

    Being located in Halifax, I'm willing to help take delivery. I'll take good care of it in the interim and would fit in well with my current fleet of "cars everybody on the Internet says they want but nobody ever buys."

  • Vvk Vvk on Apr 01, 2013

    Cloth seats are the best part. I would pay good money to have cloth seats in my BMWs.

  • Sportyaccordy Sportyaccordy on Apr 01, 2013

    People who want diesel cars haven't driven them

    • See 1 previous
    • Speedlaw Speedlaw on Apr 01, 2013

      @krhodes1 I had an A1 and an A2 rabbit diesel, so I know slow, clattery and smoky. A few years ago, I drove a 1.6 Peugeot turbodiesel in Germany, and had no problem holding off Berlin taxis. Smooth, quiet, and "why don't they sell that here ?" Looked at all the Chrysler minivans with TD engines differently. Drove last year a 320d rental car. 40 mpg...140 mph observed on the Autobahn. Currently own a TDi. I would favor diesel at this point for anything but a dedicated sports car...a normal DD, diesel me !

  • Vojta Dobe Vojta Dobe on Apr 01, 2013

    Diesel wagons are fine. As company cars. With automatics. I have driven dozens and dozens of European diesel cars, lot of them being The Holy Grail itself, diesel manual wagons. And were it not for immensely expensive fuel in Europe, I would never take any single one of them over the gasoline-powered version of the same. And if I were to buy a diesel wagon, it would never, ever be manual. Because diesels, even the modern ones, don't like revs. And even the nicest ones are kinda rough. And every single of the "good" diesels is fitted with common-rail injection, which is atrociously expensive to fix, once it breaks down. Which it will. So, even in Europe, where both gasoline and diesel cost about the same (which is a fucking lot), owning a diesel only starts to pay off when you drive a lot - like, 30k miles/year or more (which is really a lot in Europe). In America, where diesel fuel is significantly more expensive, the diesel loses sense even more. And diesel BMW? Opting for a agricultural engine (which 25tds in this old E36 surely is) in a vehicle that can be fitted with sweet, rev-happy inline six-cylinder? Blasphemy. And, considering the price difference between importing this thing and buying a nice one locally, idiocy.

    • See 1 previous
    • Vojta Dobe Vojta Dobe on Apr 02, 2013

      @piro Yes. Which also includes the time spent waiting for your fuel injectors/fuel pump/turbocharger to be repaired. And making money for repairs.

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