My BMW 2000 E38 735i SE Individual waft bus

Me too….we’re clearly heathens!

Looking forward to following this after acquiring my first E38 in December just gone.

If you are looking at servicing the transmission is that because it feels a bit clunky at present?

I have a friend with an E39 touring on 170k miles which has just had a transmission service and he reports that it feels much smoother as a result of the service.

I had my auto gearbox oil changed at about 180k miles because it was groaning, like oil under pressure struggling to get through a pipe. Oil that came out was very black and carbonated but there was very little in the way of metal filings on the magnet. All been quite and smooth since and now on 212k miles.

Thanks all! Lovely machines in the photos above!

I do think that the clear indicators look good, especially on your sport variant so I would stick with that! My only real reason for going to the orange was that's how it left the factory.


The F34 is really looking stunning - I really like the M Performance bits you have added. The silver / black go really well together!

Ah that's a same about forum5. It was a good forum before they had their technical issues.

That is absolutely glorious.

IMO all 90s early 00s BMWs should have amber indicators. Especially the dark colour ones.

Hi all,

I cannot believe that its been nearly 1 year since I last updated this so I thought I would provide a few updates if anyone is interested as to what I have been doing with some repairs and preventative maintenance jobs.

I am quite OCD when it comes to missing trim pieces and I noted that in the engine bay, it was missing a couple of the valve cover trim pieces, the positive battery point cover and headlight trim covers. So I got these ordered and popped them in place.







New headlight cap trim fitted:


I then got the car booked in to my local BMW specialist a few days after purchase for a good checking over and inspection II. A little worrying but I had noted some fresh oil on my driveway so obviously, the car had an oil leak which I asked my local specialist to look at.

Here is the car at drop off (still wearing the clear front indicators).



There were some suspension parts noted by the specialist that they recommended replacement and they recommended all brake lines be replaced as they were quite brittle. So I approved for the brake lines to be replaced as that was something I was going to get done anyway.
For the oil leak, this was coming from 2 places. One area was the gearbox output seal shaft so they recommended a gearbox service and replacement of the output shaft seal. For the engine oil leak, this was coming from the upper and lower timing chain covers.

I think by this stage I only had the car for around a couple of weeks and driven around 30 miles. So I rang the garage where I bought the car from and to be honest, the attitude was pretty much "it was fine when it left here". Without going into the details, we agreed he contribute towards the gearbox issues and I would be left with everything else. On hindsight, I should have been tougher but you live and learn and all that.

So I got the car booked in for the gearbox and lower and timing chain covers but because all of the parts had to come from BMW, it would be at least 2-3 weeks before the parts would arrive.

In the meantime, the car had left me stranded a couple of times as the battery that the seller fitted was some cheap one that was not fit for purpose of this car. Additionally, the wipers were as much use as a chocolate teapot so I ordered a new battery and set of new wipers from my dealer and asked my specialist to fit them. I had noted that the battery vent hose was missing so I ordered that too.

Gearbox leak area:


Engine oil leaks:


Cheap battery (apologies if anyone has a Duratec battery):


New battery awaiting fitting:


New battery vent hose:


With the new battery and wipers fitted, one thing that I really did not like was the windscreen cowl as it was crumbling and getting into the engine bay area. At the time of purchase, BMW was having a massive sale on some of their parts so I snapped up a new one and had my specialist fit it.

Windscreen cowl in a bad state:




New windscreen cowl with all new connectors and pins:


New cowl fitted:




By this stage, I had swapped over the clear lights for a set of new OE (Magneti Marelli) amber ones:


The big day had finally arrived for the gearbox and upper and lower timing chain cover work. The whole job took about 6-7 days in total and it was great to pop along to see the engine whilst it had been dismantled. How they remember where everything goes is beyond me!
It made absolute sense that as well as doing the timing chain covers, the guides, chain and tensioner be replaced too. So these items were also going to be replaced (all genuine BMW parts).

The specialist said that the existing timing chain and guides were in pretty good condition given the mileage and age. All of the other components such as the cooling system bits looked in good condition too. Given the low cost of the items, I asked all the belts to be replaced too.

During disassembly of the engine (pre-existing timing chain guides / components shown):








New guides and chain fitted (WIP)






Following the gearbox service / new gasket fitted:



So that was it. I received the car back and it was purring away nicely, even if the wallet was many pounds lighter! And I could not believe the difference the gearbox service made. It is almost seamless as the car shifts from gear to gear; very smooth!

Next on the job list was to sort out the sun-visor brackets. The seller did not spend a few pounds from BMW to replace these and instead, very poorly glued them together in an attempt to fix them.

Old sun-visor bracket:



Old vs new:



New one fitted:


Next on the list was to replace the rear door seals as they were disintegrating every time you open and closed the rear doors:



I purchased a couple of reels of the trim from a brilliant site in Poland and these got delivered within a few days. I then set about fitting them, using Meguiars Quik Detailer proving very useful to manipulate the trim into its place (along with a plastic trim tool). I also purchased new trim clips from BMW as I thought I might as well replace these at the same time.





New trim piece fitted:




On to the next job which was a sunroof leak. This was really annoying and the first line of defence I thought was the outer sunroof seal. There was nothing obvious blocking the sunroof drains. So I purchased a new seal from BMW and had my specialist fit it and code it.



New seal fitted:


Finally, the seller thought it was a fantastic thing to promote that genuine E38 750i kidney grills were fitted to a 735i. I am all about originality so I ordered a set of genuine new ones from BMW and fitted these. The 750i ones that were fitted were most certainly not genuine and were of very poor quality and so they sat proudly at the bottom of my bin.

Pre-existing kidney grills:






Not the best photo I am afraid due to the sun but here are the new kidney grills fitted:


This takes us to about summer of 2023. I will post the next update shortly!

Thanks if you made it this far!

Thank you for sharing a wonderful update.
Have you done any suspension work? My grandfather is looking to do this on the same model of car.

Thanks you.

Perhaps pre-empting the second update — did the sunroof seal sort the leak?

Despite all the excellent in depth engine work, the windscreen cowl/seal was extremely satisfying to see replaced.

Excellent car - should be in good order for many miles more now.

Hi all,

So onwards to the next set of updates.

Upon driving the car one day, I noticed that something felt really odd and there was a strange noise coming from the front left hand side of the car. Thankfully I noticed this quickly as I had only got to the end of the drive. When I went out to take a look, I saw that there was a nail in the front passenger tyre. So I reversed the car back into the drive and went tyre shopping.

The car was running Bridgestone's all around but sticking with the OEM theme, I knew that the car actually left the factory with Continentals. So I decided to replace both front tyres with Continental Premium Contact 6. I'll replace the rear Bridgestone tyres in 2024 since they are only a few years old.





When I had the sunroof seal replaced earlier in the year, my specialist said that the motor is very weak and will struggle to work with the new seal (given how tight the seal seals the sunroof). A new genuine motor goes for around £450 but I managed to pick one up for £300 during a BMW parts sale. So I was very pleased with that and I had the specialist fit it.



This is the old motor. Lots of dirt in the gears.


Next up was another problem. The driver side door pin became really slow when locking and unlocking the door. This put the fear of God into me since research showed that if the door pin fails and you are unable to unlock the door, you have to take the door card off. And that may mean potentially damaging the door card which of course, is no longer in production.

So I thought that I better get the door actuator replaced and at the same time, get all of the door actuators replaced. They are around £100 from BMW whereas the VDO Continental OE ones are half the price. So I ordered 4 of them.



I then got the car booked in with my specialist for them to replace all 4 door actuators. I also supplied them with the new Butyl cord to reseal the door cards.



When my specialist started working on the actuators, they said that both front door release cables were in very bad condition and recommended replacement. The good news - they are still available from BMW. The bad news - they have to come from Germany which meant I would be without he E38 for about a week. Oh well, I decided for them to go ahead with it of course.

One of the very rusty front door release cables:


They also said that the front passenger handle carrier cable was in bad condition and recommended replacement which I approved too.

Front passenger handle carrier cable in bad condition:


A few days later, I got the car back and it's amazing how much of a difference the door actuator makes. When unlocking previously, the doors unlocked as if they were semi-retired which I guess is understandable given they were 23 years old. But with these new ones, the unlock is very quick and confidence inspiring.

The final task was to Gummi-pflege all of the seals as recommended by the excellent Timm Meek of Timm's BMW Information and Repairs / Meeknet.



Thanks for reading, more updates soon!