It’s been a year since I got the E36/8 M Coupe. In that year, I’ve put about 7600 miles on it, and the fuel consumption has settled into the 19-20 MPG (8.1-8.5km/l, 12.4-11.8l/100km) range with occasional dips and peaks. The mileage is double what the Land Cruiser gets, but the M requires 91-octane, so the price-per-gallon is a little higher. For all intents and purposes, my fuel bill has been cut in half. Roughly, that 7600 miles works out to around 390 gallons at 19.5 MPG, which means about $1660 for the year with an average price per gallon of around $4.25.
The oil change was expensive from the standpoint of getting all new equipment, since changing the oil in the Land Cruiser was just a matter of crawling underneath to remove the drain plug and removing the filter with the Toyota filter socket. Crawling under the M is not an option. Even in my thinner days, there would have been no way. I could use the factory jack to lift up my old S12 Nissan to change the oil, but the M doesn’t come with a jack, so I’d have to go to the jack store to go that route. The easiest and least expensive route was getting ramps. That also meant I was able to buy something made in the USA instead of getting a floor jack made in the PRC. I’m sure the OEM Z3 jack and handle would have been more expensive than the ramps or a China floor jack. The filter element kit wasn’t much more expensive than the Land Cruiser filter, but the fancy-schmancy Mobil-1 pure synthetic oil was a bit pricier than the Castrol GTX the Land Cruiser consumed, but it was still overall cheaper, since I didn’t need to get two-and-a-half gallons of it! The filter change itself was super-easy, since the filter was an element only instead of a “spin-on” disposable filter unit, so only a socket wrench was required to open the filter chamber. The filter kit came with all the required crush seals and o-rings, so no additional parts were required. It would have been nice if both the filter canister cap bolt and drain plug used the same socket, but that’s probably asking too much.
I had to replace one rear tire after picking up a nail. The original tires are near the end of their service life, and they’re Michelins, so I opted to replace the tire with a Bridgestone RE970AS Pole Position. Too bad it wasn’t on sale, since the total for the one tire installed was about $400! I was going to switch out the other rear tire before the end of the year so they both end up being about the same age, but I don’t think I can afford that now with the holidays coming up. And here I was complaining about $250 tires on the S12 and $200 tires on the Land Cruiser!
My insurance bill has gone up, of course. I guess if I got rid of the Land Cruiser it would go back down to about where it was before, but I sort-of need the Cruiser, since bikes and certain other “long” items don’t fit conveniently inside an M.
In general, it has been reliable and trouble-free. The driver’s door power lock actuator that broke immediately after I took possession of the car is still broken. I have a replacement courtesy of Root and the Pearl City salvage yard, but I haven’t had the chance to open up the door and switch it out. After hearing all kinds of horror stories about ripping the plastic chips out of the door panel, and doom and gloom stories about the side airbag, I am in no rush to open that can of worms.
The S52 engine is wonderful and solid. It may not have variable timing on both intake and exhaust channels, but it doesn’t have all the reliability issues that the fundamentally broken S54 engine in the 2001 and later cars has. It spins up evenly, has a generally even power and torque curve, and sounds nice through the entire RPM range. It’s definitely smoother than the VG30 in the S12 as an inline engine should be. The 3F-E in the Land Cruiser is almost as smooth, but for obvious reasons, it doesn’t behave the same. Inline sixes are definitely my favorite. The transmission is fine, though a 6-speed or 7-speed twin-clutch would be nice. Hey – it’s 10-years old!
The interior build quality is very good. With the exception of the steering wheel airbag center and back cover and the sun visors, everything that looks like leather IS leather! The seats only have fore/aft, height and seatback lean adjustments, but getting the correct position is easy. Having seat cushion tilt might have been nice. I always end up sliding forward and a little back-tilt would fix that. Heck, even 1990’s Camrys had tilt. The highback seats have no adjustable headrests, but they fit fine, unlike Ford highbacks that tilt your head forward uncomfortably unless you’re Quasimodo. The side bolsters are large, but non-adjustable and designed for larger people. They do hold well during aggressive cornering, but fit a lot better if I’m wearing a heavy coat. If the seatback lean is set for steering wheel reach, the shift lever is also at the correct distance.
The things that peeve me are simple ergonomic things and engineering mindset things. The doors are thick and are too long for a 2-seat car. These doors belong on a 2-door with a back seat. With only front passengers getting in and out, the doors could be at least 6” shorter. The long, thick doors makes getting out of this exceptionally low, high-silled car all that more difficult, especially when parked next to other vehicles. This was fixed on the Z4.
The clutch has to be thrown to the floor for full disengagement. If you adjust the seat far enough forward to get the pedal to the floor, when the pedal is let out, your knee is bent a little too much, and the gas pedal feels too close. The steering column is neither tilt nor telescoping, but unlike the Nissan Frontier pickup, which also lacks this feature, the steering wheel is actually in the correct position. With the lack of adjustment, it is good that the shift lever is at the correct distance when the seat is adjusted for the steering wheel, since there is no way to fine-tune this arrangement without a telescoping wheel. The parking brake lever is a little too far to the rear to easily use for drift initiation or even to engage for parking without high effort or body contortion.
There is a coolant temperature gauge without numbers, and an oil temperature gauge with numbers, but no oil pressure gauge. The dash-mounted headlight control pull-stalk is straight out of the 1970’s Ford design handbook: It works, but it is crude and inelegant. At least the high beam switch is not on the floor! Both the turn signal lever and wiper lever are mounted low compared to every other vehicle I’ve ever driven. The wiper control lever works opposite of Japanese cars as do the outside door locks. The rear wiper and washer controls are mixed into the front wiper control lever as horizontal push-on/push-off/hold for washer with front wiper and washer controls in the vertical direction. The window switches on the center console and the lack of a “lock/unlock” control take a little getting used to, but work fine in practice. If they went though the trouble of making the window switches illuminated, they could have made the identically sized and styled moonroof switch illuminated also.
The substitution of an electric pump and a sealant canister for a temporary spare and jack is lame. I would easily give up some storage space to have the spare. I will at some point get a Z3 OEM jack and spare.
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