I’ve written multiple times about wanting an E91 unicorn wagon (six-speed, rear-wheel drive, sport package). These are exceedingly rare cars that I believe only exist if they were special-ordered that way (virtually all the ones sitting for sale on dealership lots were AWD automatics). Last year I wrote about having one in my sights because a CCA member owned one, knew I was looking for one, and contacted me and offered me his before it putting it on the open market. His asking price was a very reasonable eight grand, but the car was in Salt Lake City, and I couldn’t get over the cost/risk calculus of buying it at a distance, so I reluctantly passed on it. He sold it almost instantly to someone else, and I immediately regretted being such a waffling wuss ever since. But on the other hand, we are who we are, and being a bottom-feeder who thrives on “crimes of opportunity” (buying cars that are close enough to check out yourself and then drive home) has worked out well for me.
Amazingly, last week, another unicorn E91 came on my radar. It showed up on Facebook Marketplace, clearly listed as a six-speed RWD car, and the one pic of the interior showed sport seats and steering wheel, indicating that it likely had the sport package. The car had 145k on it and appeared from the handful of cell phone pics to be intact other than a torn driver’s seat. And the listed price was an eye-poppingly-low “$5000 or best reasonable offer.” And it was only about two hours north of me in New Hampshire. Hello, crime of opportunity? This is Rob. Let me commit you. I swapped messages the seller and arranged to shoot up there and see it that evening after he was off work
Looks promising, right?
While I waited, I ordered the CarFax and ran the VIN through a decoder. The CarFax showed that the car had lived in California and then Florida for the first half of its life before moving to upstate NY and then NH. It had a front-end accident in 2022 that was categorized as “minor.” Curiously, the current owner had only bought it four months ago, which gave me pause. Did he find something big and bad that required an expensive repair? But the VIN decoder verified that it was a RWD car (it didn’t list the transmission, but a photo in the ad clearly showed the six-speed shift knob), black sapphire metallic paint with a Dakota Terra leather interior, and had package S704 (M Sports Suspension) along with sports seats and steering wheel. It was the real deal.
So that evening, I waited out the traffic, then, with cash in hand, shot up to south central New Hampshire in the E39. I arrived at dusk and met the seller, a young man who seemed an unlikely owner as there were several lifted Jeep Cherokees and a rusty pickup in the driveway. With the daylight rapidly failing, I walked around the car, checked for external rust, and didn’t see any. I poked my head inside, and the interior looked even more trashed than it did in the pic in the ad—there were cans of energy drink, vaping supplies, and trash strewn everywhere. I wonder why anyone would show a car this way, but hey, if it kept the price low, who am to look a gift horse in the mouth?
This was the pic from the ad. In person, the interior looked even more trashed than this.
I hadn’t brought a floor jack as I didn’t want to have to lift it in and out of the trunk, but I did bring my plastic ramps. Unfortunately, the E91’s spoiler didn’t have enough clearance to use them. But I was able to position them behind the car. The owner got inside and started it.
And when he did, I heard a very loud exhaust “BRAAAAP” that then quieted down to a rumble. I put my gloved hand over the tailpipe, and it didn’t muffle the sound. I said that this clearly indicated a major exhaust leak. The owner said that there was no leak (I believe he was wrong), but offered that he was a mechanic who works at a Meineke shop and had cut out the two rear (secondary) cats to give the car a throatier sound. I crawled under the back of the car and could see where the cats had been cut out and the pipes re-welded. In addition, I saw that the rear subframe had a genuinely alarming amount of rust on it.
I was a bit jarred by both of these things. At a minimum, the exhaust leak would certainly need to be fixed for the car to pass Massachusetts inspection, and as I wrote about here, if the issue was a leak either at the two primary cats that were still present, or where the secondary cats had been cut, this could be problematic and expensive. They don’t routinely do visual exhaust inspections in MA, but if a car has an exhaust that’s louder than they think it should be (even if it’s not leaking), they can visually inspect it, and if they see that cats have been removed, they can fail it.
Still, I was quite interested. I took the car for a short drive. The modified exhaust wasn’t my taste, but while it was a bit raspy, it wasn’t deafeningly loud. The Check Engine Light wasn’t on, but the supplemental restraint light was. The seller said that it was due to a bad sensor on one of the belt tensioners. There was nothing obviously horribly wrong with it. It ran, drove, stopped, and shifted well.
Not awful.
When we got back, I asked the seller why he was letting it go after only owning it for four months. He gave me an interesting answer. He said that he’d owned the car for longer than that—he’d gotten a great deal on it from the previous owner months before that but it took a while for the title to be transferred. I recalled seeing multiple entries in the CarFax listing work at a Meineke Car Care Center prior to his purchase and inferred that all of this was related. But the other thing he said was that this house where we in front of wasn’t his—it was his parents’. He and his young wife and daughter lived in a small apartment, he owned seven vehicles, this one was useless in the winter, he realized that he needed to make some changes, and had made a snap decision to list the car. I asked him if he knew anything about the accident listed on the CarFax. He said the previous owner had run it into a snowbank, and pointed out where the cracked front air dam was held together with a zip tie. He said that the left headlight assembly had been replaced as well, and that the left directional still wasn’t working. So he certainly seemed like an honest young man.
And, with that, I asked my signature question: “What do you need to get for it?” I’ve found that, time and time again, when you ask this, people tell you what they need to get for it. I don’t bargain for the sport of it. If the number they name is reasonable, that’s great for both parties—handshake, cash, papers, done. But on the other hand, if they don’t budge off the asking price, you’ve kind of cut off your ability to negotiate without offending them. You’ve asked the question, and they answered it.
His answer was reasonable: “Well, my phone is blowing up right now, so what I need to get for it is my asking price.”
I should’ve just said “Okay then” and handed him five grand, but for some odd reason, the combination of the fact that his ad said “Or best reasonable offer,” that he didn’t name a lower “need to get for it” price, and that the car had an un-inspectable exhaust and was missing its rear cats derailed me. I became fixated on what I’d recently gone through with the exhaust on my Nissan Armada to get it to pass inspection, imagined (correctly) that the E91’s secondary cats were probably about $1500 each, added in the fact that if things had been cut and welded, flanges that were once there were now likely gone and thus I couldn’t just bolt up a solution in my garage, and yeah that rusty rear subframe, and yeah if this had been done to it what else might have been done… and suddenly it all seemed risky. Plus, from a purely practical nuts-and-bolts standpoint, extended under-car on-my-back work is beyond my ability right now, and even if it wasn’t, I don’t do custom exhaust welding, and paying for that kind of work around Boston is surprisingly expensive.
I explained all this to the seller and said that while his car was a well-priced unicorn E91, I needed to think about it.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I may just pull the ad off Facebook Marketplace. The car probably won’t go anywhere anytime soon. I need to use it this weekend anyway.” We shook, I said that I’d be back in touch, and I headed off.
As soon as I began driving, I thought “OMFG you’re a freaking idiot. You have five grand in your pocket and you walked away from a running driving E91 RWD stick sport over an exhaust issue?? Are you out of your freaking mind???” I pulled over and nearly turned around, but instead I messaged the seller and asked him to send me his cell so we could stay in touch if he deleted the Facebook Marketplace ad. He did, and right afterward I saw the message that he’d taken the ad down. That seemed like enough for me to keep driving home.
Mistake.
When I got home a few hours later, I looked up the subframe issue and learned that while it’s not trivial, it’s pretty common on E90/E91s that live in snowbelt climates. I also found a few sources for used secondary cats for prices low enough that made me think that even if I needed to pay someone to put it all together, it probably wouldn’t cross into four figures. I sent him a text saying that I was sorry for waffling, but that I was certain we could work something out. I heard nothing back.
The following morning, I realized the extent of my error. I sent him another text saying that I regretted my decision and that, if he assured me that there was no rodent contamination in the heat or ventilation system, I’d gladly pay his $5000 asking price.
It’s been three days. I’ve heard nothing. I don’t know if this was a cultural thing—if I came across as a know-it-all Massachusetts dilettante writer whining about a Massachusetts inspection issue to a making-ends-meet NH mechanic with a young family. Or if someone else offered him more money. Or if he simply changed his mind.
But there’s no doubt that I blew it. I had a unicorn wagon E91 in my hands for less than the price of a rusty E30. All the stars had lined up. It was within striking distance. I was the first one up there. I had cash. Everything was in place to commit the “crime of opportunity.” And I let it slip through my fingers over relatively minor concerns.
The Automotive Powers That Be are not going to forgive me for this one.
Go ahead. Taunt me. Haunt my dreams. I totally deserve it.
—Rob Siegel
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Rob’s newly-expanded book The Best Of The Hack Mechanic™: 40 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem, is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally-inscribed copies (including the new Best Of) from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com/books.+
