Sold A £500 loose collection of BMW E39 estate parts with handy (Style 5) wheels

[RichardK]

I am so sick of this car that I can't even be bothered writing a funny advert.

 

 

1998 BMW 528i Touring Auto

 

105,000 miles on the clock, goes very well - gearbox good, engine good (M52), rear diff quiet.

 

 

Nice red metallic colour with cream leather, no sunroof, child seats integrated into rear seats, remote central locking (1 key, new buttons put in), has a working carphone, working tape deck. Usual buttons falling off the heater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has "Style 5" alloys (apparently) - 17 x 8J split-rim BBS multispoke jobs with a deep dish look. They are all in good condition but have been repainted or attempted to refurb; it has five of them and centre caps.

 

 

 

The windscreen cracked right across the base, and it already needed an ABS sensor (front left, have removed it leaving a stud broken off helpfully).

 

 

New ABS sensors are a tenner to £13, kind with the grey connector. I removed the brake pad warning wire at the same time so the car says "Check Brake Linings" when the LCM feels like behaving.

 

Also the passenger seat airbag resistor mod - fault clears but returns as soon as someone sits in the passenger side. Added to that, the LCM is on crack and makes lights work/not work, signals silent, dashboard crazy almost at random. Maybe the battery is shot, maybe the battery got flattened because the LCM went nuts with the lights one day and no-one noticed. Either way, the LCM is cheap used but there are coding pitfalls.

 

 

Dashboard has pixel loss, I bought a new LCD/ribbon, took one look at how fiddly it was to get to and instead used the silicon strip to repair the 9-3's SID.

 

 

 

Headlights are manky, as normal.

 

It's had rust repair near the battery tray. The self levelling suspension was working fine and checks out on INPA but the LCM's craziness does sometimes say "SELF LEVEL INACT" or something like that, occasionally in German.

 

 

 

The car was last on the road in January. Before the windscreen crack and subsequent total lack of interest in MOTing it, it had covered 5,000 miles in 3 months and went like stink, cornered like you wanted it to and was extremely comfortable for long drives, including a run from Leicester to Dumfries and back via Kelso in a day to drop off a Cavalier.

 

I've seen someone asking £525 for a similar-era (maybe different sump) 120,000 mile E38 728i engine - this one has fewer miles, and comes with all the wiring loom, ECU and well, you know, a whole car for £500.

 

The Style 5s I keep being told are desirable and trendy or something. I don't care. They're round things to make the car move easily; if you want them I figure they're probably worth £300 at best, given the tyres are quite worn and they need a good refurb to look excellent - the sensible thing would be to buy the car, keep the wheels, sell the rest (interior has surely got to be worth £100 to someone with cloth/worn leather, retracting load cover, various lamps, ECUs, radio, Kenwood CD changer with Connects2 interface - there are plenty of bits worth having on the car. Some trim is broken - I snapped a sill cover clip, and the kick panel under the dash on the driver's side was cracked when I got it). If you really want the wheels badly and don't want the car, make an offer that includes bringing some appropriate metal round things to make the car move easily and I'll sell them separately.

 

I want this car gone. I accepted an offer from BavarianRetro in February on the basis that I got paid for it before collection since being in America, I needed the money and it was hard to meet up for cash. Then another BMW breaker/enthusiast, again with the offer, again when I was on holiday and nowhere near the car, again with the agreement to pay, and yes, again with the lack of payment. Finally a twice-aborted Skoda Felicia Fun swap that is now unlikely since the Skoda snapped a cambelt on the motorway.

 

No-one has actually been to see it to reject it yet!

 

I've got a car I want to see this week and hopefully buy to replace the 300C and get me back onto an all-Mercedes lineup. I'm also at that point of rage with the BMW where I will keep trying to fix the LCM and keep wanting to hit it hard with heavy objects. So, please, buy it. I don't care what you want to do with it, just take it away!

 

Cannot wait to see the back of this - just because selling it has been such a tedious process.

 

[Lord Sterling]

Man, that looks like a well useful tool. Wish I'd got back into work earlier, might have a chance of snatching this off your hands, but alas I may well be out as by the time I can scratch together the cash, it'll be well and truley sold I reckon. Same goes for 320Touring's Jag.

 

Good luck wi' sale anyway.

[KruJoe]

GR8 for secluded continental woodland assassination victims.

[TagoraSX]

I would have thought you would get £500 for those wheels alone.

[RichardK]

I'm fairly sure that's what the BMW-breaker-types were thinking when offering less than that for the whole car Seriously, what is it with those wheels?

[RichardK]

MOAR PICTURES

 

Small dent on back quarter near fuel filler.

 

 

Lacquer damage/stonechip/paintloss - bonnet.

 

 

Another bit of bonnet lacquer damage.

 

 

It's a BMW that isn't 3 inches from your bumper.

 

 

A wheel.

 

 

Another wheel.

 

 

You guessed it - another wheel.

 

 

Bloody hell, how many wheels has this thing got!?

 

 

Oh yeah. Four. Right.

 

No, wait, there's another!

 

 

Must be some sort of 'spare' wheel or something as I can only see spaces for four on the car.

 

 

Driver's seat without seatbelt obscuring the one bit anyone cares about when looking at a driver's seat (apart from the area that on cloth trimmed chod always looks suspiciously stained).

 

Boot-hatch-thing-window.

 

[Taff]

I was completely uninterested in the car until I saw the phone.

 

That's not a good enough reason to want to spaff my Galaxie carb saving fund of a uber-estate I don't want or need, is it?

[RichardK]

Not only does the phone work, it has an O2 SIM in it which means it identifies as BT CELLNET.

[Partridge]

You'd have some blue forum types frotting themselves over those alloys...

[EssDeeWon]

If I was planning to ramraid a jewellers or do over a post office I would buy that.

 

But im not.

 

GLWTS

[RichardK]

If I could punch a car in the face, I would punch this BMW repeatedly. The first person to actually come to view it, and I didn't even think to do things like checking for mayo in the oil cap, because, well, 100,000 mile BMW and I've only encountered that particular trick on Peugeots.

 

Combined with a bit of steam from the exhaust, he entirely fairly was concerned about head gasket failure. Seems unlikely on a low mileage (relatively) M52B28, but nothing is impossible. I just realised I probably filled the exhaust with water myself when jetwashing it, too - 'cause it'd get moved a few feet, washed, then moved back, idling.

 

In some desperate bid to convince anyone (including myself) that the engine is FINE on the damn car, I've made a few videos showing coolant sans bubbles (and nice, clear red), oil filler cap not gathering more mayo, clean dipstick, clean exhaust when revved and idling. But I am this close to vandalising the bloody thing.

[colino]

I know you are committed to getting rid, but with a fully charged battery and you are sure you have reconnected all the electrics, I'd do a hard reset.  Disconnect the battery, touch the - to the + and leave  for 15 minutes.  Then, and if your not getting LCM/LKM craziness of leaving one headlight on even when the switch is off and your standing outside a locked car with the keys in your hand, I'd change the ignition switch.  Another source of major, apparently unsolvable e39 electrical problems.

The abs sensor is one of the few lazy bits of engineering and you'll tear your knuckles, try every tool at the bottom of your tool box and then realise the broken bit of the bolt is still laughing at you.  Buy a 3/8 drive stud extractor.

It grips, just enough to get it out, you drill out the blank on the abs sensor and bolt it in using that hole with a suitable replacement from your scrap bin.

Sad to see, what was a very pricey, desirable car when it was new, broken for bits.

[nacho man]

I had a 528 and when I got it it was mucky under the oil filler cap and i changed the crankcase breather bits and bobs including that stupid charcoal filter and it sorted it right out. Also I used to do loads of long runs in it which always meant it got toasty.

 

Also them wheels are one of my favourite I think they look ace. I had them on a e28.

 

There worth a few bob our kid.

 

[RichardK]

And it looks like mayo on M52 is actually common. Well, that'll teach me not to check the car over before anyone sees it.

[RichardK]

It's had a new ignition switch - and I have had the LCM illuminating the reverse light, one headlight winking, slow indicators. I had done the hard reset but will give it another shot, as sometimes it wakes up and behaves.

 

To be honest I'm really gutted by the whole thing with this BMW - I loved driving it, but with the windscreen etc. it just is too much for me to want to do. The guy who came down to see it wanted to put it back on the road and was really keen until the condesation. It idles smoothly, it revs smoothly, no misfires, no stupidity - it is just condensation from 4 months of being shunted around a yard and not much else.

 

bloody thing is worth £500 for the wheels and weight anyway, it seems, but no-one wants to buy problems.

[RichardK]

I had a 528 and when I got it it was mucky under the oil filler cap and i changed the crankcase breather bits and bobs including that stupid charcoal filter and it sorted it right out. Also I used to do loads of long runs in it which always meant it got toasty.

 

Also them wheels are one of my favourite I think they look ace. I had them on a e28.

 

There worth a few bob our kid.

 

 

I'm not normally a fan of lowered road-use cars, but fucking hell, that looks good. I do like the shape of E28 and the 6-series (whichever E-number they are).

[RichardK]

I know you are committed to getting rid, but with a fully charged battery and you are sure you have reconnected all the electrics, I'd do a hard reset.  Disconnect the battery, touch the - to the + and leave  for 15 minutes.  Then, and if your not getting LCM/LKM craziness of leaving one headlight on even when the switch is off and your standing outside a locked car with the keys in your hand, I'd change the ignition switch. 

 

I bloody well owe you a pint. Terminals off (and for the hell of it, cleaning the old ignition switch I'd found in the door pocket), shorted them with a jumper lead, had a cup of tea and thought evil things about BMWs - reconnected, and EVERYTHING spot on from the start. No erroneous check messages (just the one I expect from the missing brake pad sensor wire), headlights fine, signals fine, warning lights on dashboard fine, indicators... the whole lot. Radio came on right away, no random dropping out.

 

"Why the hell didn't I think of that..."

 

Well, I'm used to plugging my Mercedes into Starscan and resolving issues - and I figured the 2 weeks with the battery off and charging would have been long enough to reset the computers.

[spike60]

I have a 2000 Z with a 2.8 M52TUB28 (?) and for 6 months of the year it makes small amounts of mayo with condensation on the cap, then the other 6 months with warmer mornings it runs clean. I've had it 3 years and never top up anything, the engine is fine. I guess I'll have to pick my moment when selling it!

V6 320 Mercs do it really well....

[RichardK]

Sold! The buyer who was put off by the condensation came back after I mentioned I'd just been leaving it ticking over while jetwashing it and it hadn't been on a long run in four months. I did knock off the costs of the wasted trip, but hopefully he'll have the time and inclination to sort it out.

 

Now, excited waiting for the replacement!