Thinking About Buying an E39 M5

[Meditative]

Hi Guys

I am thinking about buying an E39 M5. I only want to spend about £12-14k so I will be looking at one with anything from 50-70k on the clock. Does anyone have any experience with these? What should I look out for, is there anything that usually goes wrong? Any help would be appriciated.

Cheers
John.

[Diesel Meister]

There's loads of threads - do a search and you'll find the mother load

[belleair302]

www.m5board.com E39 section. M5 Heaven.

Quite simply buy thebest car you can afford with bills. get it checked over by a professional and look for addident damage, rust and electronic issues.

[Meditative]

Cheers guys. I have been having a read over at the M5Board and I have found virtually everything I need to know. I'll just drive as many as I can and get a feel for what a good car is. It seems like check the Vanos, look for rust in a few places and then do all the usual checks.
The choice was between the M5 and an S4, but after driving the M5 I really think this is the one!

[belleair302]

Go for a post 2000 car, with Xenon's and the bigger sat nav screen, although the sat nav is not very good! Check that everything works and as always bills matter more than mileage and look for accident damage, uneven tyre wear and what state are the alloys in!!

[humpbackmaniac]

Do it, I bought mine two weeks ago and love it! Walking towards it in the carpark just makes me smile.

Tyres are dear, dont be put off by a little rattle on start up, do turn the DSC off if you are brave, keep it lit and keep it between the hedges!

[Meditative]

I have test driven a few cars and the M5 is definately in front of the S4!! I took one out for a test drive and gave it some stick. For a big, heavy car it is suprisingly agile and handles/ride beautifully. The power is amazing and I even tried turning the DSC off, that was fun!
Does anyone know what years had the Vanos issues? I want to try a get the best car I can, so if possible I want one of the later ones that has the Vanos sorted. What years where dodgey?

[Diesel Meister]

I've only tried two and one of those was my old man's ex 01 model which had a worn clutch (they're prone to going early, which saves the rest of the running gear but isn't cheap itself). Any year can be dodgy if the car hasn't been looked after

BMW made some changes (via a recall?) to address lubrication of the vanos units (fitment of a priming pump or similar?) and also to the later cars (can't recall whetehr this applied to all 2000 MY cars or just face-lifts - might be both if they came at the same time) which addresses general oil consumption levels. But either can drink a bit.

Remember that on the car's debut it had the world's most technologically advance donkey, as well as being a £60k purchase. Bearing these two facts in mind when working out if you want / can afford to run one is the key. Buying is easy

The rest is all about M5 board and test driving as many as you can.

Good luck, I envy you.