There is a fine line between "deferred maintenance" and "neglect"
This is a line that, for the past few years, I have been precariously straddling. When one daily driver was nearing the point of needing major maintenance, I'd usually just start dailying a different car. Then small repairs would stack up on the new daily driver until I'd just drive something else to take the car off the road for a bit to fix all those small repairs. Then I'd sort of just bounce around between different cars until everything needed some amount of work
Then I'd buy a new daily driver, fix whatever I could on the others until the new daily needed work and the cycle would repeat
The main reason for this is that I simply didn't have space to do major work on my cars. Many years ago I was renting a house with great space for mechanic activites. Then the owners decided to not renew my lease so they could sell the house. Since then, I had been renting and was fearful that I'd - once again - have 30 days to pack everything up, find somewhere else, and move. This was not conducive to the idea of doing any sort of major surgery on any of my cars
Fast forward a few years though and I have a home I own, that nobody except the bank can kick me out of. And I'm paying the bank specifically so that won't happen. Now I have space to fix everything so without further adieu, let's review the core of my current fleet and what they need...
2006 X5 4.8is
Right before moving into the new house my lovely fiance overheated my 2006 X5 4.8is. So it needs a... new engine? Probably? I actually have a parts car 4.8is but this was my fiance's main daily driver, so I don't have time to putz with that right now...
2003 525iT
Prior to dailying the X5 my fiance was driving a 525i wagon. So the first priority will be getting that roadworthy once again. It most critically needs some rear subframe bushings but also needs new tires, new battery, general tuneup... the main thing is the rear subframe bushings. I actually have had brand new tires for years waiting to be installed on the car
2000 Z3 Coupe
I have an S54 swapped coupe. It's the car I've owned the second longest of my fleet and was my personal daily driver for about 6 years. I have done almost nothing to the car repair-wise in my ownership. I've done regular maintenance, oil changes and valve shims and one major repair was new throttle potentiometer. I also put M front suspension in because one day I needed to get to work and I was installing lowering struts when one of the lower bolts broke. It was late, I didn't have any ez-outs or anyhting, so I swapped the brand new M front suspension I had just installed in my Z3M. Then like many Z3's before it, it has started to have rear trunkfloor issues so I stopped driving it a couple years ago as of writing this. I only took it out every month or so around the block to keep things moving... it needs a little bit of work here and there, beyond just the repairs, it needs some love
2002 Z3 M Coupe
I don't know. I barely even drive this car. I've owned it three years and put a few hundred miles on it. Mostly it needs cosmetic stuff but also had some error lights when I drove it to the new house. Maybe low battery voltage related, or maybe more significant. I need to drive it more to find out. I'd like to drive it to my wedding which is about 2 hours away. Needs new tires for sure
1996 Mazda B2300
Needs a fuel pump. It's the car I've owned the longest. Manual transmission. Lots of fun
1997 328i Sedan
Needs A/C and a new window. Otherwise, a great car - cosmetically rough but not sure it's worth making it pretty again. I owned it, then my fiance drove it, then my brother in law, then my mother in law, then my sister. I like it too much to sell it (I also have the entire engine refreshed with FCP Euro parts...) but don't like it enough to dump money into it to fix the cosmetics. Although at this point in time, I may sell it... we will see
2001 Z3 3.0 roadster
CSB, Giubo, window regulators... may just sell it as-is, already have enough Z3's to work on. Maybe someone else would give it the love it needs