BMW F11 520D Moon Mileage Family Wagon
Discussion
Evening all,
I just thought I'd put a little thread together regarding my latest purchase. The 118i that we have is great it's auto, comfy, reliable and does everything we need it to. It is however an extremely small car. Myself and my wife have 2 children and we regularly holiday on Anglesey for usually around a week at a time. This results in baby gates being stored in weird and wonderful places and my wife and the kids sitting on an air fryer etc to get to our destination. Other than the above the 1er wouldn't be going anywhere.
I happened upon this and it was to good to tuen down really. A few rubbishy pictures from after I'd collected it.
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So a brief intro into what we have here, it's an F11 520d wagon. It really is a lovely car, its done 188000 miles and wears them extremely well. It's an auto with split tailgate, xenon, leather, heated seats, rear air suspension. Its an lci with an N47T so it's amazing on fuel and just generally a lovely place to be. It was in dire need of a valet so I hit it with some of the dance iron remover wheel cleaner that we have at work.
I managed after some serious elbow grease to look like this!
Things that I really like about it are the standard of finish on a 5er is so much better than on the 1er we had. Its little details like the way the doors shut and feel. The way the interior is laid out with all the driver ergonomics in mind. The quality of the material used. It's just a lovely place to be really.
Things I would like to change are it has brake judder at 70 and on inspection of the front discs they're pretty pitted so they need changing. It needs 4 tyres as they're on about 3mm all round and lastly I'm going to cha ge the steering wheel as it feels like a skinny bus wheel at the moment. Other than that the plan is to service every 10k and not stick to the intervals to try and look after the N47 the best way possible. It's also missing the offside mirror cap cover but I cannot for the life of me find a gloss black lci mirror cap anywhere!!
Lastly a few images after a valet.
I just thought I'd put a little thread together regarding my latest purchase. The 118i that we have is great it's auto, comfy, reliable and does everything we need it to. It is however an extremely small car. Myself and my wife have 2 children and we regularly holiday on Anglesey for usually around a week at a time. This results in baby gates being stored in weird and wonderful places and my wife and the kids sitting on an air fryer etc to get to our destination. Other than the above the 1er wouldn't be going anywhere.
I happened upon this and it was to good to tuen down really. A few rubbishy pictures from after I'd collected it.
url]
So a brief intro into what we have here, it's an F11 520d wagon. It really is a lovely car, its done 188000 miles and wears them extremely well. It's an auto with split tailgate, xenon, leather, heated seats, rear air suspension. Its an lci with an N47T so it's amazing on fuel and just generally a lovely place to be. It was in dire need of a valet so I hit it with some of the dance iron remover wheel cleaner that we have at work.
I managed after some serious elbow grease to look like this!
Things that I really like about it are the standard of finish on a 5er is so much better than on the 1er we had. Its little details like the way the doors shut and feel. The way the interior is laid out with all the driver ergonomics in mind. The quality of the material used. It's just a lovely place to be really.
Things I would like to change are it has brake judder at 70 and on inspection of the front discs they're pretty pitted so they need changing. It needs 4 tyres as they're on about 3mm all round and lastly I'm going to cha ge the steering wheel as it feels like a skinny bus wheel at the moment. Other than that the plan is to service every 10k and not stick to the intervals to try and look after the N47 the best way possible. It's also missing the offside mirror cap cover but I cannot for the life of me find a gloss black lci mirror cap anywhere!!
Lastly a few images after a valet.
That looks really good; great work getting it to the stage it's at in those pics!
Re brake judder; don't discount the main thrust arms (tension struts either); well known cause of braking wobbles on the Fx platform (and BMWs in general TBH). Sometimes it's the main bush; other times it's the ball joint and that's hard to see until removed and then it's flapping all over the show...
Re brake judder; don't discount the main thrust arms (tension struts either); well known cause of braking wobbles on the Fx platform (and BMWs in general TBH). Sometimes it's the main bush; other times it's the ball joint and that's hard to see until removed and then it's flapping all over the show...
Great purchase, it cleans up very well.
I've been running '62 plate version as a daily for the last 12 months and 12k miles, its now showing 194k on the clock. It's been well maintained throughout its life and seems like it could do the same mileage again. I agreed with your comments on the refinement, it a lovely place to be on any journey.
I fitted a set of Pirelli Cinturato P7 on mine, which are run flats but surprisingly comfortable, so I would recommend as an option for yours.
The only issue I've had is a side light error which is due to condensation in the headlight. There are fixes on YouTube with new parts that can be purchased rather than changing the whole headlight.
I've been running '62 plate version as a daily for the last 12 months and 12k miles, its now showing 194k on the clock. It's been well maintained throughout its life and seems like it could do the same mileage again. I agreed with your comments on the refinement, it a lovely place to be on any journey.
I fitted a set of Pirelli Cinturato P7 on mine, which are run flats but surprisingly comfortable, so I would recommend as an option for yours.
The only issue I've had is a side light error which is due to condensation in the headlight. There are fixes on YouTube with new parts that can be purchased rather than changing the whole headlight.
looks like they are genuine bmw style alloys for the F10/11 series- ‘style 332’
I have a 2014 F11 (520d) and just hit 155k. still feels/ looks good, seems to be wearing its miles well. servicing/ running costs have been fine, I keep thinking of changing mine for a G31, but I can’t stomach the cost to change to the newer one when I don’t think i’m going to gain much….. prob just keep driving my current car until it dies! Bought mine for £11k (@ 95k miles 4yrs ago) and already feels like it doesn’t owe me anything!
I have a 2014 F11 (520d) and just hit 155k. still feels/ looks good, seems to be wearing its miles well. servicing/ running costs have been fine, I keep thinking of changing mine for a G31, but I can’t stomach the cost to change to the newer one when I don’t think i’m going to gain much….. prob just keep driving my current car until it dies! Bought mine for £11k (@ 95k miles 4yrs ago) and already feels like it doesn’t owe me anything!
Big fan of these 520d cars but feel we have started to outgrow ours so it will be moving on soon, just flew threw another MOT and has only covered 80,000 miles so far. I borrowed a mate's 535d a couple years ago and loved it, just the right amount of power but still retaining the leisure and comfort. Yours has come up a treat and like others, I haven't seen those wheels before. How is the piano black trim looking after so many miles?
malks222 said:
looks like they are genuine bmw style alloys for the F10/11 series- ‘style 332’
I have a 2014 F11 (520d) and just hit 155k. still feels/ looks good, seems to be wearing its miles well. servicing/ running costs have been fine, I keep thinking of changing mine for a G31, but I can’t stomach the cost to change to the newer one when I don’t think i’m going to gain much….. prob just keep driving my current car until it dies! Bought mine for £11k (@ 95k miles 4yrs ago) and already feels like it doesn’t owe me anything!
They're not 332s: https://www.auto-treff.com/wcf/index.php?article/3...I have a 2014 F11 (520d) and just hit 155k. still feels/ looks good, seems to be wearing its miles well. servicing/ running costs have been fine, I keep thinking of changing mine for a G31, but I can’t stomach the cost to change to the newer one when I don’t think i’m going to gain much….. prob just keep driving my current car until it dies! Bought mine for £11k (@ 95k miles 4yrs ago) and already feels like it doesn’t owe me anything!
Cannot find them on that catalogue at all either; so interested to see what they are
OP - are they 17s (tyres look chunky)!
d_a_n1979 said:
They're not 332s: https://www.auto-treff.com/wcf/index.php?article/3...
Cannot find them on that catalogue at all either; so interested to see what they are
OP - are they 17s (tyres look chunky)!
you’re right, not that style! Cannot find them on that catalogue at all either; so interested to see what they are
OP - are they 17s (tyres look chunky)!
I would say that 225/55/17 is the size of winter tyres that I run on my f11, think that’s the recommended winter size?
Alfa GTV said:
Nice car, I owned an F11 for some time 530D M Sport, nice car, could never get comfy in the sport seats though.
The wheels in question are BMW Style 85 from an E46 I believe.
Nope; I thought that too...The wheels in question are BMW Style 85 from an E46 I believe.
If you look at the holes on the face of the wheel; on the OPs alloys the holes through a raised part of the design, the 85s hole is in a sunken part of the design. and 85s have wording on the face of the wheel also...
I'm stumped with these
Found the buggers 
BMW Style 456
https://www.carsaddiction.com/en/wheels/bmw/style-...
Specs here: https://www.auto-treff.com/wcf/index.php?article/4...
BMW Style 456
https://www.carsaddiction.com/en/wheels/bmw/style-...
Specs here: https://www.auto-treff.com/wcf/index.php?article/4...
d_a_n1979 said:
Nope; I thought that too...
If you look at the holes on the face of the wheel; on the OPs alloys the holes through a raised part of the design, the 85s hole is in a sunken part of the design. and 85s have wording on the face of the wheel also...
I'm stumped with these
What is this voodoo!?!? I reckon they are reps If you look at the holes on the face of the wheel; on the OPs alloys the holes through a raised part of the design, the 85s hole is in a sunken part of the design. and 85s have wording on the face of the wheel also...
I'm stumped with these
Who'd have thought there would be so much chat about the OP's actual wheels rather than the car itself.
beambeam1 said:
Big fan of these 520d cars but feel we have started to outgrow ours so it will be moving on soon, just flew threw another MOT and has only covered 80,000 miles so far. I borrowed a mate's 535d a couple years ago and loved it, just the right amount of power but still retaining the leisure and comfort. Yours has come up a treat and like others, I haven't seen those wheels before. How is the piano black trim looking after so many miles?
The moon mileage wagon has been misbehaving itself a little over the festive period it would seem.
The first thing to happen was reversing onto the drive at home I felt a little bit of resistance in the steering wheel when maneuvering, I had to get on the drive so applied a little more pressure to the steering wheel and felt almost a snap/click sensation and the wheel felt free again. Shortly after the airbag light has come on and a cruise control warning has appeared. This is leading me to believe that the SZL (steering column switch cluster) may have given up the ghost causing no communication between the steering wheel and the rest of the car.
Next thing to give up the ghost was the heater blower whilst on a family trip to Harlech. I took a punt and assumed as I've seen many times that it would be a heater blower regulator so I swapped this out, rebuilt, only to find still the same, bugger.
Did more stripping,
Took the blower motor out of the housing and applied 12v directly to the motor and et voila nothing was happening.
The offending item was swapped and no we have blowers and heating again!! It wasn't actually a particularly difficult job, in the nearside of the engine bay the scuttle comes off, leaving a suspension brace, take this off, remove the upper cover of the blower motor housing, take the blower motor out and strip it out of the assembly.
Next thing on the list is this little beauty,
So that my friends is a lot of water collecting in the nsr foot well. It's a lot and when you're driving the car and going around a corner you can gear it sloshing around. I thought it must be a door membrane on that corner so took the door card off and the membrane looks brand new, balls. I remember from my apprentice days that F11's and F10's had a groomet for the left hand drive hole in the bulk head. Took the covers off and checked rhe grommet, it was still intact but there were tide marks on the covers and the drain off to the side was blocked with mud. I unblocked everything and rebuilt and I'm yet to dry out the carpets.
The first thing to happen was reversing onto the drive at home I felt a little bit of resistance in the steering wheel when maneuvering, I had to get on the drive so applied a little more pressure to the steering wheel and felt almost a snap/click sensation and the wheel felt free again. Shortly after the airbag light has come on and a cruise control warning has appeared. This is leading me to believe that the SZL (steering column switch cluster) may have given up the ghost causing no communication between the steering wheel and the rest of the car.
Next thing to give up the ghost was the heater blower whilst on a family trip to Harlech. I took a punt and assumed as I've seen many times that it would be a heater blower regulator so I swapped this out, rebuilt, only to find still the same, bugger.
Did more stripping,
Took the blower motor out of the housing and applied 12v directly to the motor and et voila nothing was happening.
The offending item was swapped and no we have blowers and heating again!! It wasn't actually a particularly difficult job, in the nearside of the engine bay the scuttle comes off, leaving a suspension brace, take this off, remove the upper cover of the blower motor housing, take the blower motor out and strip it out of the assembly.
Next thing on the list is this little beauty,
So that my friends is a lot of water collecting in the nsr foot well. It's a lot and when you're driving the car and going around a corner you can gear it sloshing around. I thought it must be a door membrane on that corner so took the door card off and the membrane looks brand new, balls. I remember from my apprentice days that F11's and F10's had a groomet for the left hand drive hole in the bulk head. Took the covers off and checked rhe grommet, it was still intact but there were tide marks on the covers and the drain off to the side was blocked with mud. I unblocked everything and rebuilt and I'm yet to dry out the carpets.
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