E61 V8 Bearding

Right I see

So you bought a turd and then regretted it?

Or you bought a great car but it wasn't spot on perfect so you spent money making an old car spot on perfect?

You've basically told us nothing. You've said that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And yet told us nothing.

My car has been fine. I'm still here. I'm still using my car. Is it perfect no. It has had new suspension and new brakes. It doesn't remember the time. It smokes from the valve stem oil seals. The boot lid is rotten.

Yes a few things have needed fixing and all of these I have done myself except the gearbox oil change but I wish I had done this myself now.

I might even treat mine to some new plugs and coils now as it's occasionally throwing an engine warning light and running rough.

Quick update on the car.

Just returned from the garage with piece of mind that the engine is now in good shape. Gave it a good blast down the motorway and it feels strong.

Work done:

> Replaced both cam cover gaskets (they were the originals and almost rigid in texture)
> New vacuum pump fitted (not a cheap part!)
> Replaced both PCV valves
> Replaced auxilliary belt
> Oil change & new oil filter

The front carbon splitter has been bonded to the lower edge of the original bumper so it looks like that is staying.

The next job is to replace the rear springs which are too long for the car and they don't match the ride height at the front of the car. If anyone here knows what length of spring should be fitted at the rear of an E61 550i then please let me know (originally it had air suspension of course).

Which front springs do you have?

You might be better off buying a matching set. All E61 in UK were shipped with Air Springs.

I have the B8 or B12 suspension kit - cant remember the name - ok it is the B12 kit which uses B8 shocks - pics below. It comes with shorter springs for the front and none for the rear as it retains the air spring. You can [or could] buy the matching rear springs if you wanted to ditch the air springs. The fronts were made by Eibach I believe so you can just buy Eibach rears if you can find any.

Or try to buy a set of all 4 and this way you can go with any brand.

My car's air rear system was lowered via the car's brain but has at some point been reset to sport height so it now sits a bit higher at the back than the front.

Pic of car before when it was lowered at the rear at end of the pics

The F11 is a pleasant shape IMO. Confusingly that is a 4.4 V8 and not the 4.8 in the E60/1

Hi

The guy that did the work in my car this week is a BMW master technician and he didn’t have this impression at all. Why do you say this is a “quite unreliable” engine?.

Tom

Ok

Well coming back to your original question about length of spring, this is largely irrelevant unless you also consider the strength of the spring. The 550i [and assuming other v8 models] is a bit heavier at the front so it has specific spring and damper rates but these may be front only. I'd guess its the same at the rear as all other models. So if you really want to take a punt on some rear springs then go for any available. If any other regions - like USA - had this car available without air then you may get some data on rear springs. I believe the Eibach springs I have on the front are available as a set of 4 and possibly the rears only although that's a guess but I do remember thinking if I ever remove my air I would use those.

I don't think that will fit. It looks like a replacement for a standard head unit but double din. We don't really have a slot for that in the e60 dash.

There appears to be another option:

https://www.onbuy.com/gb/88-android-100-car-stereo...

I guess the benefit of this over the 1st is that this is a UK seller and the previous one is based in Lithuania. I don't have a problem buying from Europe but it's an absolute pain if it needs returning for any reason.

I have a CarPlay unit made by Andream in my E91 that has been excellent, really brings the car up to date functionality wise. You can get them for the E6x too.

Sound quality wise they all feed in via the aux input and I've read that some cars have very poor audio quality via the aux for whatever reason. My experience has been absolutely fine, similar quality to other sources although I have base audio so it's not great on any of them!

I thought N63 was considered quite problematic with the hot V set up. Class action against BMW re this engine in the US iirc?