Hi all,
After a 1.5 year search I finally found a myself Cruiser. I was looking for a 60 or 80 but over the last year leant towards the 80 as realised I preferred the extra power, improved ride and mod cons.
I looked at at least 10 80s in total up and down the country and everyone I looked at I was disappointed with the level of corrosion/rot to the usual areas on the body and underneath and I knew finding a good one was going to be a long (and probably more expensive) journey than I had planned. I’ve got a 2003 BMW M3 that keeps me occupied sorting out corrosion issues hence not wanting another project I would struggle to find the time to work on immediately. I think I only ever test drove one that I looked at given how rotten most were.
After reading the great resources on here and speaking a number of times to Andy, who kindly showed me what to look out for and helped me understand what I was looking at, I found the Cruiser I was after. It popped up on eBay and caught my eye being an Amazon and my favourite colour - green! With this Cruiser having only done 70k miles and sounding like had been well looked after, I wasn’t expecting to find too many issues.
The seller was a lovely gentleman who unfortunately had to sell up due to ill health. He had bought the Cruiser 2nd hand from a dealer at 2 years old and primarily used it to tow his show car trailer on weekends over the summer.
When I first saw the advert I wasn’t convinced it was the one for me as the asking price was much higher than my budget and the advert said no offers. After long chat, and finding out about a shared passion for old BMWs, it looked like it was what I was after and a deal could be done. I took a 2hr drive to see it and knew straight away it was what I was looking for and after sleeping on it, some man maths and making my best offer a deal was done. I based the price on what I knew I’d have to spend to get the £8-10k Cruiser’s I’d been looking at how I wanted given my experience with the M3 to date.
There’s a few things I want to sort and a couple of minor issues to resolve they are not urgent and I’ve been enjoying using it with the family on some longer journeys. Whilst the condition is outstanding I do plan to use it for towing a trailer and for some (light) green laning with my son. When I mentioned this to the seller he went white (it’s been polished and is very shiny)!
I’ve already found loads of great threads on here to sort some of the issues but I’ll no doubt have many more questions after further reading/fixing and hopefully through sharing some of what I do on here I can contribute to this great community. I’ll get some more photos up as I go addressing the issues.
After a 1.5 year search I finally found a myself Cruiser. I was looking for a 60 or 80 but over the last year leant towards the 80 as realised I preferred the extra power, improved ride and mod cons.
I looked at at least 10 80s in total up and down the country and everyone I looked at I was disappointed with the level of corrosion/rot to the usual areas on the body and underneath and I knew finding a good one was going to be a long (and probably more expensive) journey than I had planned. I’ve got a 2003 BMW M3 that keeps me occupied sorting out corrosion issues hence not wanting another project I would struggle to find the time to work on immediately. I think I only ever test drove one that I looked at given how rotten most were.
After reading the great resources on here and speaking a number of times to Andy, who kindly showed me what to look out for and helped me understand what I was looking at, I found the Cruiser I was after. It popped up on eBay and caught my eye being an Amazon and my favourite colour - green! With this Cruiser having only done 70k miles and sounding like had been well looked after, I wasn’t expecting to find too many issues.
The seller was a lovely gentleman who unfortunately had to sell up due to ill health. He had bought the Cruiser 2nd hand from a dealer at 2 years old and primarily used it to tow his show car trailer on weekends over the summer.
When I first saw the advert I wasn’t convinced it was the one for me as the asking price was much higher than my budget and the advert said no offers. After long chat, and finding out about a shared passion for old BMWs, it looked like it was what I was after and a deal could be done. I took a 2hr drive to see it and knew straight away it was what I was looking for and after sleeping on it, some man maths and making my best offer a deal was done. I based the price on what I knew I’d have to spend to get the £8-10k Cruiser’s I’d been looking at how I wanted given my experience with the M3 to date.
There’s a few things I want to sort and a couple of minor issues to resolve they are not urgent and I’ve been enjoying using it with the family on some longer journeys. Whilst the condition is outstanding I do plan to use it for towing a trailer and for some (light) green laning with my son. When I mentioned this to the seller he went white (it’s been polished and is very shiny)!
I’ve already found loads of great threads on here to sort some of the issues but I’ll no doubt have many more questions after further reading/fixing and hopefully through sharing some of what I do on here I can contribute to this great community. I’ll get some more photos up as I go addressing the issues.
(with a tinge of the ol' green-eyed... - fitting...) 
