Now it's reminding me more of the E36 I used to drive.

Dual-zone auto temperature control failed? Heat still works, at least -- the "all the way on" position for the driver's side temperature knob was not a potentiometer, but was instead simple switch that opened the valves. Not perfect, but not complete failure: Good enough to get from A to B without the window fogging or freezing in the cold.

But those manifold, solenoid heater valve assemblies would split open. The valve seats would rot. The former issue was and end-of-the-ride situation; the latter just let them bypass when they shouldn't. That was an expensive assembly.

That era of BMW allowed parts makers to brand their stuff, and the only American-made part I ever found on the car was an HVAC control module -- which, coincidentally, is the only electronics box that ever died on it. ;)

Despite the awesome hose clamps (which I understand to be DIN standard 3017 A -- you might see if those are what you remember from the W123 days), nearly everything about the car was a cooling-related system issue. The upper necks would just break off of the radiators, though they were flawless until that point. The water pump impellers were all initially made with plastic and those all failed (scattering bits to the nether regions), then they switched to metal, and then an improved plastic that seemed better. There were two cooling fans; one two-speed electric, and one crank-driven fan with a clutch -- one for each side of the radiator. The former worked well. The latter tended to eventually explode. It worked OK with only the electric one in-place, though. And the hoses were very good.

I never had a factory shop manual for it, but Bentley book was very good.

Except the instructions in the Bentley book for replacing the cabin air filter (luxury!) were wrong -- they missed a giant, black bolt at the top, center of that inside of that black, dark glove box. Those wrong instructions lead to ~every E36's glove box to eventually sag as people go WTF and start tearing way more things apart than was necessary and tugging on them in ways that they should not be tugged on.

There were more cool parts. The engine bay sure seemed crowded, but it was easy to get around that: The airbox, intake plenum, and MAF came right out, along with the Bowden-connected cruise control motor, with a couple of M8 nuts and a hose clamp from the factory toolkit and one tidy-AF twist-lock electrical connector. That made all kinds of room to get to most of the important stuff and literally took less than a minute with some practice.

Like the idle air control valve. It was under the intake manifold and it needed a drop of oil in the right spot every 5 or 10 years to keep working right, but it wasn't bad to get to at all with that area opened up.

The fuses were plug-in blade fuses that could be replaced inexpensively with a trip to any auto parts store or most 24-hour gas stations, but they were special in their own way: They were visually inspectable. Rather than appearing as a flat stamping of fusible metal that was inscrutable without pulling them out one at a time, there were two legs that supported a length of fusible wire at the top of the overall plastic body. That fusible wire could be plainly seen with the fuses in-situ. (I haven't figured out how to buy this style inexpensively, but I'd sure like to.)

BMW parts tended to be surprisingly inexpensive, and also easy to find. BMW's ETK parts index is an amazing and simple resource, and websites like realoem.com have the important bits online. Being armed with a real part number made it trivial to find exactly the right thing, and since the OE parts tended to be branded it was easy to bypass the dealership and get one from the same manufacturer that made the one that already lasted 20 years.

The grease on the window regulators would eventually turn viscous and sticky and glue-like, which lead them to break. But the part that would break was a little platic widget that was available separately, and only cost about $2.50 from the dealership parts counter. Straighten out the skeleton with some hand tools, spin the wheel on which manner of grease to use this time, snap on the new slidey-widgets and it's back rolling again.

The door cards came off easily and were principally made of a molded wood product that just didn't fail, and this lack of failure was promoted by the plastic vapor barrier being held in-place on the steel door frame with plain ol' butyl rubber so it could be removed and reinstalled over and over again without the adhesive dying, or easily-refreshed if that became necessary.

What else? Oil changes were easy and could be accomplished with factory-supplied tools (if a person could find a pit to work in, or sufficient desperation) -- the drain plug and the wheel bolts use the same size wrench. It required a new crush washer, but unlike my Honda those washers were always included in the box with a new filter. And that oil filter was top, front, and center: Open the hood and there it is, completely unoccluded.

The materials and coatings for the metals were good. Mine eventually started showing some body rust, but I drove it all winter, every winter, through the salt brine-soaked roads of northern Ohio. But the important stuff underneath -- like the stuff relating to the fuel filter and brake lines and exhaust -- simply didn't rot.

They're lovely cars to work on, which is good because there was plenty to work on as time ticked on.

I got nearly 300k miles out of mine, which is pretty good for a car that was designed with clay models instead of CAD. :)