my suggestion would be an e90 for reasons already said about the e60 (and also bcos i'm not a fan of the e60 looks) and buy from a private seller that is passionate about his/her bmw thus has genuine reason for selling his/her car. every now and then really nice ones come up on this forum classifieds. just take your time looking and test driving until you find one that's the right specs, condition and price. plenty out there and i'm sure more coming to the used market when the new 3 is launched. good thing about looking for such cars is their price can only go lower the more and longer you look...