3500 does seem exsessive, but we don't know what year/spec the car is either yet I picked up my very clean 1 owner 50k genuine mile full 90spec S2 for under 3k last year

In answer to your question about breaking it, well what spec is it, what mods etc, you'd need a fair few trick bits to make more than 3.5k imo.

Give us more to go on