AlfaBMWGuy

Please give us some more info on your tii find (pics?).  Curious regarding your original post trying to find a "garage queen" of a 2002 what you ended up buying.

-Gary

I was thinking the original post sounded really familiar....

https://www.bmw2002faq.com/forums/topic/229746-02-prices-values/

Thanks!  PM'd.  I will take them.  I think the brass gear is slipping on mine based on working intermittently.

-Gary

I will take these if they are out of what was a working odometer when they were removed.  Will PM.

-Gary

So the seller in Oregon deserves some of the credit as well for cleaning up the car.  Pity they didn't put that effort in before originally listing it on Craigslist so potential buyers had a better idea of the condition.  Of course that benefited your friend in being the buyer, but for whatever reason he didn't keep it long before passing it along.  I see that he deleted the Craigslist ad so apparently he was able to sell it quickly.  Not too surprising for a sharp looking roundie (other than door panels) for under $15K.

-Gary

I used this website to convert your original 3 .HEIC files to JPG:  https://heictojpg.com/

I ran the three .HEIC files through a website that does jpeg conversion and here they are below.  As far as advice for acquiring a garage queen, I think the price range you are looking at based on this purchase may be low for where the market is now.  You seem to be fine with a big bumper, square tail light car and that should save you some money, but I'd still expect to spend $20K for a garage queen and $25K as a starting point for a roundie, maybe even $30K for one in equivalent condition to your $20K square tail light '02.  Buying sight unseen on eBay is a huge risk as you've found.  Remember, JohnPeter is very close to if not actually a bot that only finds 2002s on eBay, posts a single picture and a link.  He's not someone who knows that these aren't complete scams for instance or otherwise contributes to the FAQ.  BringATrailer adds more rigor with the number of pictures and usually added detail on the vehicle history and then lots of vetting (good and bad) in the questions and other feedback in the auction comments.  You are more likely to have a positive experience on BaT, but it's still not a small risk if you are buying without seeing the car in person.

Your friend did a nice job cleaning this car up.  I remember it on Craigslist out of Powell Butte, Oregon last fall.  It was so dirty that you really couldn't determine the condition of the paint or even if it was rust-free.  The only items that detract from what I see are the custom door panels, overspray under the hood, and missing chrome overlays on the side grilles getting really picky.  I do know there are typical cracks in the dash under the mat from the original Craigslist listing as well.  The upholstery looks a bit off to me as well for a '72.  The car has some history in Alaska as well based on the plates in the pictures when listed in Oregon.  Your friend is passing it along at a really fair price as well.  Unless he stole it for much less than the asking price, he appears just to be asking to be compensated for his own effort and expenses in retrieving it and bringing it to the current state.  Here are some pics from the Oregon Craigslist listing last October:

Those are Modell 71 switches (April 1971 and onward) and not Pre-71 (prior to the April 1971 facelift) as you indicated in your title.

-Gary

I will take the flasher relay.  Sending PM.

-Gary

I will take both the round shift boot and the parking brake boot.  Sending you a PM.

Thanks,

Gary

Ha, I sent him an email and got the exact same reply at 2:58pm Pacific time this afternoon.  Since we are both in WA state, it's hard not to make a quick inquiry on things like that.

Looks like a fun little '02 touring.  Best of luck.  You should put your location in your profile, but colour vs. color and bonnet instead of hood were other hints.

-Gary

Ah, so you really are looking to match the current color.  Score one for @Simeon and myself, but we just got lucky in trying to interpret your original question.  Definitely it's not a color that was original to the 2002.  The metallic blues were Fjord, Baikal, and Arktisblau, and none of those are close.  As far as a later BMW color, that was my thinking with Estoril.  Any chance it is Avus blue, another popular E36 generation color that's a shade or two darker than Estoril?  People tend to gravitate to the popular shades of the day when they repaint and they don't care about keeping it original.  So if you knew when it was repainted, that could help--at least you would know that it wasn't a BMW color newer than the repaint year .  It looks really close to that blue Mini in the background of your first pic.  Since you appear to be in the UK (plates and RHD), any chance it is an Austin or other UK manufacturer factory color?

I think Lucian is asking about the rubber faced "knee line" trim, by his phrase "horizontal door bumper guard".  That's factory world-wide on all "model 71" 2002s of course.  Maybe the low resolution pic he enlarged was throwing him off since he's not a 2002 newbie.

I was assuming he was looking for the current color it was painted, as was @Simeon.  But, re-reading the original post, I can see where it can also be interpreted as him wanting the original color and not caring about the current color.  Only the OP knows for sure and he didn't recognize that his question was ambiguous.

It's impossible to be sure with pictures posted on the internet because there are a number of factors, related to both the camera and its settings as well as the video card, monitor, and the highly variable configuration of those on the viewing end, that can make it appear different than real life.  But, estoril blue was a really popular repaint color for all BMWs in the later 1990s after it came out on E36 models:  https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=47&t=1672460.  Yours appears a bit darker, but it's never a perfect match either when it's not the factory shooting the paint.

This should be a bit higher resolution than what was posted by the OP.  You have to click on the Craigslist photos to get the resolution they were uploaded with by the seller. Click on the photo I uploaded below to get the full resolution, significantly better than the OP version.

Thanks for all the great advice guys and hopefully this was helpful to the OP as well.  I too am a devout believer in Steve @BLUNT and have spent more than I care to add up there in the last couple years to bring my '02 back to where it should be mechanically after buying it from the original owner in 2017.  I know that IE specifically developed their stage 1 springs to match the Bilstein HDs so I'm sure that's better than I could ever do myself by ad hoc mixing and matching.  I'm thinking of switching my Alfa Giulia Super over to Koni reds (which is a popular option for those Alfas for a ride that's softer than Bilstein's, but still sporty) and if I do that and like what it does for the ride there, I might consider the same for my '02.  Sounds like going to H&R's with the Koni's would make for a good match to go a full step softer with the setup than what I'm running now.  Given the Bilstein shortage that was starting just as I bought mine (had to switch my order from another vendor to @BLUNT to get around the backorder), I know I could always sell them on as lightly used.

-Gary

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has driven on both IE stage 1 and H&R springs, hopefully on the same '02 and hopefully with the rest of the suspension setup the same, meaning only the springs had changed.  I'm specifically wanting to learn about ride quality/stiffness/harshness differences.  I believe the H&R springs are said to be progressive rate while the IE's are not.  I'm wondering if being progressive makes the H&R's noticeably less harsh on the smaller bumps and road irregularities.  I'm running Bilstein HD struts/shocks with IE stage 1 springs (and IE sway bars front and rear and near stock size wheels and tires).  I was thinking my setup would give a little better ride than it does since I went with HD over sport and stage 1 over stage 2.  It handles great, but wondering if I would be more happy with the H&R's since this is a daily use car rather than events.

-Gary

@bimbill, Yes, I, AlfaBMWGuy, am GaryB on BaT and that's the car I was referring to.  I had a shot to buy it from the couple you sold it to when they advertised it in Roundel for $13K or so.  They did the quarter panel repair and rust removal before I looked at it, although I didn't see the undercarriage, but then they did an amateur repaint that left the car covered in fisheyes every few inches from stem to stern.  My investigation later led me to conclude it was bad prep and the surface wasn't completely clean when they shot the color coat.  I was told it was friends of theirs who did the DIY paint job and I suspect they may not have had a booth as well.  Looking at the cost of redoing the bad paint to make it right, it was just out of my price range.  I was also pretty upset not to have been given a heads-up regarding the paint condition as I drove 5 hours each way to see the car in Snohomish.  Beyond the paint, there were just some minor nits when I looked at it:  dash had a big hole from a formerly mounted rally computer and it was one of those great dashes with the chrome strip facing, son of seller slammed a dangling seatbelt in the door so the door panel vinyl was perforated, and the car wanted to die when you got on the brakes--I suspected a bad booster leaking engine vacuum.  If the paint job was one I could live with even for a few years, I would have bought it, but it was embarrassingly bad to me at least.

-Gary

Agreed @Preyupy.  If the top bidder is really that intent on a ti, this seems like a great opportunity for him to find that final $8500, make the deal, and be in a great market position given how infrequently these opportunities come about.  Early in this thread I suspected the final bid would be $50K and the reserve was $75K knowing how BaT sellers can be.  I was quite a ways off on the reserve and pretty close with my final bid guess so a good buy to me as well.

So, bid to $41,500 and seller indicates reserve was $50K.  With better pictures and better weather to do a driving video, I think it would have reached that.  I think a $50K reserve was a really fair one for this--I expected reserve well above that.  Someone who took the time to see this in person could have scored a really good buy here in my opinion.

3 minutes ago, COOP said:

All Bring-A-Trailer listings start at $0. That’s the format. Reserve is always unknown.

 

i don’t think anyone is trying to be mean-spirited in their critique of either the car or the presentation. I think the point is: If you’re going to go to the trouble of selling something on BaT (especially something as special as a ti), why not put your best foot forward and give the auction every opportunity to meet its full potential?

 

COOP

Agreed. This won't reach full potential, but I still think it will do quite well with bids whether it ultimately meets reserve or not.  It's a highly desirable model and the only authentic 2002ti that's ever been auctioned on BaT.  BaT seems to have established a brand of, I'll call it, one-upmanship similar to Barrett Jackson under the TV lights that shows up with unique offerings like this.

Even with the lesser restoration and amateurish ad (I agree with both of those assessments) this will be bring bids a lot beyond "a bit more because it's a ti". Who knows if it will reach reserve and actually sell, but I'd be shocked if it's not bid into that $75K neighborhood at auction end.  To many an authentic 2002ti is the holy grail of the model line and in a different league than the tii and even a factory Turbo.