E39 M5 temptation needed.

[blindswelledrat]

I need some encouragement or honest discouragement please.
Looking at how cheap you can get these for now I've suddenly got the urge to buy one on impulse. They seem like extraordinary value.
I do limited mileage and a car is for my daily 2 mile round trip station run plus weekend family use-currently minimal but probably more significant if I got an M5.
Anyway I've repeatedly read how good these are and I just wondered whether they are the money-pits which I imagine them to be.
Any advice on general reliability and cost of parts etc?

Thanks in advance.

[mondeoman]

Get a good one and you should have no problems. Watch for oil leaks on higher mileage models, and find out if the suspension bushes at the fromt have been changed/upgraded.

Clutches can need doing every 50k miles or so, but the car will generally wear high mileage easily. I've got almost 90k on mine and its as strong as an ox (fingers crossed!) I'm doing 2500 miles a month on mixed roads, so it does get used

[blindswelledrat]

Almost sold. WHat do the oil-leaks signify? What will new bushes/new clutch cost?

Edited by blindswelledrat on Tuesday 28th November 16:14

[granville]

Think of it as a £60k uber saloon (which it most certainly is) which should by rights, even now, be no cheaper than an RS6 or E55 AMG (£25-30k) but which for some reason you are getting for £15k +/- £3k.

So that even in the unlikely event of you-know-what, it will still represent a sublime punt.

I can honestly say it remains the definitive, all round performance bargain bar none.

[playerone]

I think the warranty situation on these cars has hit the value. There was one in the classifieds that went for £9k!

Its a hell of a lot of car for the money.

[blindswelledrat]

I completely agree with that statement Derestrictor, and Ive got a feeling that in the not-too-distant past your comments on this car has sowed this urge (i.e. this is your fault)
I do,however, need to differentiate between predictable high general costs and catastrophic streams of monthly bills which can take the joy out of ownership.
For example I could live with one off bills of £1k or £2k every six months but would hate a consistent stream of £500 monthly bills and time at the garage.
Hope this makes sense.

Edited by blindswelledrat on Tuesday 28th November 16:42

[blindswelledrat]

playerone said:

I think the warranty situation on these cars has hit the value. .

What does this mean?

[granville]

You shouldn't get a constant stream of bills other than receipts from Shell.

[Carrera2]

derestrictor said:

You shouldn't get a constant stream of bills other than receipts from Shell.

The clincher surely?

[blindswelledrat]

Exactly what I wanted to hear!. For the mileage I do , I consider petrol to be pretty much free.
Off to count my change jars and sell a child and a kidney if I still need to.

[dazren]

blindswelledrat said:

playerone said:

I think the warranty situation on these cars has hit the value. .

What does this mean?

BMW recently increased the warranty cost on these cars when they go past 60k miles to £1,800+ per year. Then not allowing renewals of warranty once the car is past 100k miles.

Do a little research and you'll come across something I refer to in the pub as internet enhanced vanos hysteria. The vanos units make a bit of noise with age so BMW dealers have been merrily replacing many of them wether they really needed doing or not. This job at retail from a BMW garage is about £3,600 per cylinder bank. ie £7,200 if both sides need doing (A big chunk of this is labour). The result of too much uncessary work being done in the past is increased warranty costs today, meaning people can't buy the cars and then and insure against them going wrong cheaply. Accordingly the price of the cars is little more than a pack of peanuts. ie the worse scenario is priced into them.

Personally I have run one for 10k miles over 18 months and had nothing out of the ordinary done bar an oxygen sensor and a rear sway bar bracket replaced. If I had paid for warrantys I would have so far spent about £3k to see me up to May next year. I am effectively self insuring against a risk of problems which I beleive to be low.

An indication of how good they are is the fact that if you went to The Ring 3 years ago, these cars used to be the Ring Taxis. Closer to home you may be aware a certain uber speedmerchant northern scoundrel has just taken delivery of an M6 and is keeping his E39 as well.......

I intend keeping mine for a fair while. They are ing ace. Just ask anyone who's seen my car going around Bruntingthorpe or leading a pack charging through Northern France B roads on the recent ReimsHoon.

Only advice I can really give is don't buy one with your last few quid. If you can cover the worse case scenario, snap one up and enjoy, they are exceptional.

DAZ
(My running costs in my profile)

Edited by dazren on Tuesday 28th November 17:35

[blindswelledrat]

Thanks for that. I'm struggling to find an excuse not to
What does a vanos box do? When you say it tends to get noisy over time what would happen to make it actually need to be changed?
In return for taking the time to impart your knowledge I will give you a little advice for free.
When talking to friends in the pub I would advise you against using phrases like 'internet induced vanos hysteria'. This kind of behaviour is commonly known as 'a TwinCam' and the long term results of this will be drinking alone with noone to say things like that to

[Donut]

blindswelledrat said:

Thanks for that. I'm struggling to find an excuse not to
What does a vanos box do? When you say it tends to get noisy over time what would happen to make it actually need to be changed?
In return for taking the time to impart your knowledge I will give you a little advice for free.
When talking to friends in the pub I would advise you against using phrases like 'internet induced vanos hysteria'. This kind of behaviour is commonly known as 'a TwinCam' and the long term results of this will be drinking alone with noone to say things like that to

PM me your budget and wants and I'll see what I can muster!

[granville]

dazren said:

Do a little research and you'll come across something I refer to in the pub as internet enhanced vanos hysteria.

Inspired!

dazren said:

They are ing ace.

They're not poor, it's true which is why you need the lot.

Achtung, Tommy, as it were.

[dazren]

Vanos is the variable cam system at the top of each cylinder bank (Like the Honda VTEC system) (Do a search on this forum for "vanos" ). With the car being a V8 there are two of them. Normally the noise gets really bad before they go kapput, so you should be able to get it fixed before it causes the engine to go into nucleur melt down mode. I'm hoping that over time a few of the respected M car independents can extract a digit and get the relevent equipment in so they can do the job for a fraction of the price, leading to more enthusiasts being able to pick them up and not worry so much about the running costs.

The pub discussion comment was tongue in cheek. Although from what I read on PH I'm one of the minority that believes in amongst the occasional assumption/clanger Mr T.Cam frequently comes out with some good thought provoking stuff.

Oh get the car checked by a specialist and be aware these cars do use a fair bit of oil, which is only available from BMW dealers at £14 a litre.

DAZ

E39 M5 gurus and lots of good technical stuff can be found here:
www.m5board.com

Edited by dazren on Tuesday 28th November 17:42

[jamesgs]

I bought one recently so can't comment on long term expense but can vouch for practicality and a great drive. You get honest encouragement from me ! Can you really only buy the oil from BMW ?

[dazren]

jamesgs said:

I bought one recently so can't comment on long term expense but can vouch for practicality and a great drive. You get honest encouragement from me ! Can you really only buy the oil from BMW ?

Castrol TWS 10/60. Been told only available from dealers and haven't been able to find it anywhere else.

[off_again]

It might be worth searching out a local indie and see what they would price up for a VANOS rebuild. The prices quoted are by Dazren are pretty accurate with some rebuilds by main dealers more and some less. But an indie should have a cheaper per-hour rate and that will bring down the overall cost. I have heard figures of around £3000 per cylinder bank from an indie, so its better, but its still expensive.

Also, as commented, there is a bit of hysteria about the failures. I am sure a lot of it is based around dealers pushing the whole warranty issue. Will be interesting to see over the next couple of years just how many rebuilds actually happen. Naturally we can expect them to be fewer, but it would be interesting to see just how many...

I cant say how many have had rebuilds, but a token bit of research on Autotrader on those for sale (with decent details) suggested around 1 in 8 or 1 in 10 have had it. Thats not a bad figure and certainly not as bad as the "internet hysteria" would have you believe - some people have suggested that its as many as 1/2 have had their engines already rebuilt, which is completely wrong......

[jamesgs]

My fingers are crossed that it is hysteria on the vanos front !

[dcb]

blindswelledrat said:

Any advice on general reliability and cost of parts etc?

Generally pretty reliable, but a lot of parts are specific
to the M5 only.

Expect to pay a lot more than any other five series for
servicing.

Expect also the Treasury to be smiling all the way at the
increased fuel consumption and the increased insurance costs.

Top Gear magazine has the following data for the E39 petrol

M5 107p a mile
540 84p
530 63p
525 56p
520 52p

They don't indicate how they get these numbers, but it
it should give you a clue that the M5 can be, in some
scenarios at least, twice as expensive to run as other
five series.

Note how there is a mere 11p in it from 520 to 530, then 21p to
540 then another 23p to M5.

However, you may not have your sensible trousers on and
decide that these costs are reasonable.