New member to the BMW crowd!

I bought an early e39 535 for £800, put 32k miles on it and the only major expense was the cat.

Make of that what you will.
 
[TW]Fox;18104798 said:
At the very least it's going to do 270ish miles around town to an £80 tank of fuel.
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Thats true enough! - I'm getting circa 20MPG from mine (ok its a 528i Auto)

I'm pretty sure I have a coil pack (or perhaps even two) on the way out,thankfully, I have two spares in the boot and I'll be swapping them over this weekend.


Thing is, I'm well prepared for the "Joys" my e39 is undoubtedly going to bring in the coming months, I hope the OP is equally prepared!!!
 
mejinks said:
I bought an early e39 535 for £800, put 32k miles on it and the only major expense was the cat.

Make of that what you will.
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It just goes to show that you can either get lucky with these sorts of cars, or they could burn you.

And then you've got to consider that being "lucky" is the honour of driving a not particularly quick, not particularly economical or (dare I say it?) not particularly interesting old BMW without spending £££(£) to keep it on the road. Then you've really got to sit down and ask yourself - Is it worth it?

Maybe I'm getting old/boring, but personally I just don't think it is anymore.
 
An e39 535i not particularly quick? Hmm, ok.

Sure, it won't be economical (what 3.5 V8 is?) but it'll be a far more interesting drive than many similar priced cars.

Your getting old & boring - & thats from an old & boring near 40 year old.:p
 
R420LA6X2/4MNA said:
An e39 535i not particularly quick? Hmm, ok.
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From the figures I've just read the 535i puts in 0-60 times of around 7.5 for an Auto and 7 seconds for a manual. I really don't consider that particularly quick (although I am the first to admit that I may have a slightly warped perception of speed.)

R420LA6X2/4MNA said:
Sure, it won't be economical (what 3.5 V8 is?) but it'll be a far more interesting drive than many similar priced cars.
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I do not deny that it is a more interesting car than say a Ford Mondeo for around the same money, but if you're generally looking for a "cheap car" you've got to weigh up this "interesting" factor with the possibility that it might become a spectacular money pit .

If you specifically wanted an E39 then fair play, but in that case why would you have ended up with an early £800 example?. Surely you'd have done the necessary bit of research to convince yourself that looking at the dregs of the market for this type of car isn't the best of ideas?

R420LA6X2/4MNA said:
Your getting old & boring - & thats from an old & boring near 40 year old.:p
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Yeah, I'm going through a bit of a 'sensible' phase at the moment :(.
 
The truck man, whos name is just too much to copy bought it off his dad, so it was actually a good one, plenty money spent maintaining it.
 
Joshy said:
I think we are talking about the mejinks guy who got one for 800 quid
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Indeed we are (and hey, mines is just a likely to be a pit of fail given its age & miles)

My main point was, for £800, any car is going to effectively be bin fodder if anything major fails, be it a BMW e39 or Ford Mondeo.

Its the sub £1k lottery....

I think I need a name change to "Resident Trucker" (or something that sounds close!) :D
 
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