Thread: B15 questions

Im in the market for a daily driver thats a little bigger then my p10 fro my kids (plus i wanna park up my p10 for a little to slap a bigger turbo on it ) ne ways i think im interested in a B15 and wanted to know how good are they on gas are them problematic cars or pretty easy to maintain i have a bimmer now and its a pain in the @$$ so dont wanna make that mistake again

Check out my for sale thread. Should give you an idea of what all is involved if you are interested in some power, but with NA reliability.

I've had my '01 B15 SE (with PP) for over 10 years now and I can honestly say I love the car. It is solid on gas in the city and pretty good if highway driving. My car has only ever sipped premium fuel and I have taken care if it. I had 225,000 km on my car before I blew the motor because of my stupidity. Before that happened it drove just about as good as the day I got it. I just changed the original front suspension at 230,000 Km but it wasn't really neccessary. I still have the original rear suspension on the car. I also STILL have my factory original Clutch setup with over 240,000 Km on it and it still holds even with an SR20VE in there since march. You have to watch out for rust on the bottom/inside of the doors and paint/stone chips on the front bumper/hood.

I can also happily say that with CAI/Exhaust and advanced timing on my RR motor (back in the day) I used to spank my Civic SIR/ Celica GTS and Integra type R buddies. They could never believe my torquier 4 door grocery-getter could beat their no power till 7000+ RPM cars.

But ya, it's pretty decent on gas if you drive it with civility.

Common things that go...MAF, 02 sensors, control arms, motor mounts and the cats can be finicky. With that being said, you can replace all of those yourself and do it for cheap. The cars are easy to work on (minus the starter :mad and parts are plentiful. I've had 3 B15s...2 Specs and an auto SE. I may be a little biased but I honestly love the cars. They have decent leg space, a decent trunk and get 30+mpg on the freeway. I'm usually in the 27-30mpg range with mixed city and freeway with an automatic. If you have 2 car seats, you'll need a bigger car. I've had 1 rear facing car seat in my car before and it would've been tight for the passenger. The forward facing Recaro wasn't as bad. I loved the way my wife's 5 speed SE drove with the standard HKS exhaust/AEM intake/Hotshot Header set-up. It also sounded pretty nice.

ok cool so sounds like its a good car then when i first met my wife she had one but hers was falling apart so just curious on how one in good condition is i think i'm gonna buy one for me as my daily since my p10 is the project thanks guys