OT Paging E39 petrol heads

So which is the best to go for?

528i, 530d, 530i, 535i OR 540i?

Whats considered medium to high (i.e. avoid) milage on whichever
engine? (and the car as a whole)

And are the auto/tiptronic boxes good/bad/crap (as far as auto boxes
go), or is the manual gearchange light? [1]



[1] Fucked left wrist means a heavy gearchange is out of the question

 

You don't want one of those, you want a nice Porsche Boxster.

--
Lozzo
Suzuki SV650S K5
Honda CBR600 FW trackbike
Yamaha SR250 Spazz-Trakka
Suzuki GSXR750 L
Suzuki TS50X
Suzuki TS50X

 

JB is your man but a nice V8 I should think.
Personally I would go for a nice late low miles 728
http://tinyurl.com/6a9ww7

 

M5. YKIMS.

Well maintained, they go on forever. Mine has 125000 miles on it and no
reason why I can't double that. Try http://www.m5board.com - I believe there
are non-M forums there as well.

I find the gearchange okay. Don't know what you call heavy.

 

Hmmm I dunno, the 2.8 isn't really up the job of hauling the big 7 around
IMHO. I'd be sticking with a 5 and if I couldn't have an M5 (even sub £15k
will get a truely lovely V8 M5 now), I'd probably avoid the 540 as they seem
to have a lot of niggles (I've never owned one, I'm going from reading
around here so that could be bollocks) and settle on a 530 - nice and proven
and still with a little poke when the mood takes. Also, the thirst of the
540/M5 is quite biblical - but worth it in the M5 IMHO

 

I had an E39 540i company car for a while. It was ok.

V8 ones don't have rat and pidgeon steering, 6 pots do.
The 4.4 V8 is a rather lovely thing and not hideous on fuel on a run.
Will do something silly like 13 mpg in town though.

Auto box is fine, although the one in mine needed replacement at 60k.

 

Heh, YSAAC!

 

Looking on pistonheads and autotrader there are SO many fucking crap
looking "boy racer" 5s out there - M style badges that look three times
bigger than they should.

Any <£5k M5s will have been thrashed, astronomical milages and owned by
chavs who think a farting exhaust sounds cool. I'll avoid thanks!

I see 2000/1 reg cars varying from 60k to 165k, personally I'd be happy
with something upto 125k (based on what my Volvo S80 was like, and
those have similar reliability reputation I think?)

Well, a light, slick gearchange is good. Anything other than that and
whilst I can drive it fine, after a few weeks deep pain starts in the
wrist and I up the pain killer dose. Which does for my concentration
and work output.

 

Being me I have a list of bits I want.

In no particular order:-
M type steering wheel
17" normal style alloys
light grey or sand interior (so not silver exterior)
multi CD
bose sounds
pref xenon lights
<= 125k miles

On top of all the standard toys they come with.

 

snip>

Nicely summarised.

 

Oh, I agree. Must have missed the <£5k bit.

You can find a low-mileage one that hasn't been maintained, and a high-mileage
one that has. I'd take the latter in many cases.

 

Take 'em off.

An E39 M5 for 5k will be a distaster that's waited to happen several
times already - normal prices for those start around 10k.

A 5k E34 M5 may be worth seeking out if it's in good nick with tons of
bills.

Hmm. The older (E34) engines - especially stuff like the 3.5l sixes -
goes on just about forever if looked after. Maybe worth a thought.
AFAIR early E39 V8s still suffer from Nikasil issues, the latter ones
shouldn't.

From memory, the slushboxes are "sealed for life", and it ain't the
life of the car they're talking about. But supposedly you can change
the fluid if you know how.

Fair enough - BMW boxes are usually not bad but I'd go for a decent
slushbox - most of the bigger engined 5 series tend to be ordered that
way anyway.

 

Do you really think that off the shelf generic "bass boxes" and some
£100 add on amp has a chance of sounding anywhere near as good as an
integrated system designed for the car?

Having driven Boxsters with and without the Bose stereo upgrade option
(more power, 250W sub) it makes a huge difference in sound quality (and
quantity obviously but thats not the primary point).

 

I'll bet that every chav in a burberry cap feels the same when he's
blown a few hundred quid on his sound system, no matter what the car
is.

 

pre-selector gearbox...

 

So it's better than the even shitter standard one.

 

You sir don't know WTF you are talking about! the 728 is a fantastic car
and adequately quick. The brakes/ABS are truly amazing. It's a lot better on
fuel than the larger engines and the 3.5 doesn't give much more performance
IME.
I miss mine a lot.

 

Pete M scribbled:

Is said rat and pidgeon contraption to be avoided, or makes no
difference?

I suspected as much. Didn't mind ~23mph from the Boxster but 13 might
be a bit depressing.

Lovely.

 

Heh, nicely put.

Problem is there'll be high milage ones out there that haven't been
maintained.

 

frag scribbled:

I is now the owner of a 530i Sport, 2002 model, black, sand leather,
elec everything, 74k miles. 7.2k of your earth pounds.

And the insurance gave me a £160 refund when I swapped it over. Must be
an old mans car.

**** its quiet. And roomy. And its got them large storage bits behind
the driver, I think they're called ba-ckse-ats?