E39 M5 Facelift question

[minimatan]

You guys certainly know a lot, it is interesting the the vanos and additional O ring were introduced in March 2000.

Is consumption of 1.2L in 5,000 miles unusual for this engine? This is for a 70,000 mile vehicle that makes a high proportion of short journeys.

[RichardM5]

1.2L in 5,000 is very good for the S62. Many engines use about 1L every 1,000 miles and that's still within spec.

[nick1275]

RichardM5 said:

1.2L in 5,000 is very good for the S62. Many engines use about 1L every 1,000 miles and that's still within spec.

I've had mine just over a year and 2400 ish miles and its used about a litre and a half

[RichardM5]

Mine does about 1/2L per 4,000 miles which is considered very low. I know people that go through 1L every 500 miles, so they top up with oil every time they fill up with petrol.

[TheAngryDog]

I reckon I use about a litre every 3000 miles from my September 1999 car with 128k miles

[minimatan]

Sorry, I didn't realise that 'post 2000ish' translated as March 2000!

[Total loss]

Another resource for all M cars, although relying on owners to add the individual vin. info. for the registry, so by far not complete
http://www.bmwmregistry.com/registry.php
E39 M5
http://www.bmwmregistry.com/models.php?id=33

[minimatan]

Total loss said:

Another resource for all M cars, although relying on owners to add the individual vin. info. for the registry, so by far not complete
http://www.bmwmregistry.com/registry.php
E39 M5
http://www.bmwmregistry.com/models.php?id=33

Nice one. For some reason when I visited this site, it only showed me US and Canada cars.

[minimatan]

olly22n said:

I made a clear distinction that the engine revisions were pre facelift.

Granted, but my query was related to the specific build date of July 2000, in which instance your answer was welcome, though not as detailed as 'March 2000', which answers my question nicely.

[minimatan]

RichardM5 said:

It's from a database I have put together of all the RHD E39 M5s that were made, still working on the LHD cars! You can get the data for an individual car from places like http://www.bmwarchive.org/vin/bmw-vin-decoder.html if you know the VIN although sometimes the data is incomplete or merged with another vehicles options. It's taken a while to put it all together.

A site with a summary of the similar information is http://www.m5portal.com/forum/e39m5_main_index.asp... I think they basically did the same thing, but you can't run a generic query on the data as I can, just view the numbers for each option.

Richard, can a VIN be found from a registration number?

[RichardM5]

I'm sure I've heard of ways to find the VIN from the reg, but I don't know for sure. For cars that could be covered under the extended BMW warranty, you could enter the reg and you could then see the VIN, but I think the E39 M5 is now too old for that to work.

[4941cc]

olly22n said:

Len, I want your car. If it had chrome I would forcibly take it.

I'll drop you a line before marketing it if I ever decide to part with it.

Having done the exercise a few times though, there's nothing this side of £90k I'd be as content to replace it with.

(Even that would most likely be the other vehicle that features the S62 engine...)

minimatan said:

Is consumption of 1.2L in 5,000 miles unusual for this engine? This is for a 70,000 mile vehicle that makes a high proportion of short journeys.

That's pretty good going, I've topped up a litre and she's coming up for the next litre top-up having gone from 98-101.5k, which is still well within BMW's oil consumption specs for this engine.

RichardM5 said:

I'm sure I've heard of ways to find the VIN from the reg, but I don't know for sure. For cars that could be covered under the extended BMW warranty, you could enter the reg and you could then see the VIN, but I think the E39 M5 is now too old for that to work.

An HPI check will give the VIN number from a reg number input.

Other than that, if you're looking at buying one, the seller should have no qualms about giving you the last seven digits of the chassis number (or last five, as every M5 should I think have a last seven starting with "BJ", followed by five numbers).

From the last seven, BMW's premium rate number can tell you what spec it is and what dealer visits it has had in its life. Any dealer bod can look this up too if you have a good relationship with them.

Edited by 4941cc on Monday 12th January 14:59

[RichardM5]

RHD E39 M5 VINs are in two blocks, BJ10000 - BJ11999 and CB37000 - CB37594, the change in the letters occurred in late September/early October 2001 IIR.

Edited by RichardM5 on Monday 12th January 16:14

[4941cc]

Quality bearding!

[KrisP]

RichardM5 said:

Oh, one more thing I forgot, the interior is M1SW, that's full leather (you can see the seam on the lower dash in the last picture, below the wood trim), that alone narrows it down to 1 of 63 RHD cars (EDIT: and only 1 of 10 UK cars!).

It really is quite a rare car, such a shame it's been treated badly, at a lower price it would probably make a good restoration project if it's rust free.

Edited by RichardM5 on Friday 9th January 09:51

Can I just clarify that the full leather is only on 10 UK cars? as in 10 all together, or 10 pre facelift? incredibly rare option whichever way, and one I have

[RichardM5]

M1SW was only specified on 10 RHD cars destined for the UK and Ireland. So that's full black Heritage leather (Comfort seats were classified as Heritage leather as opposed to Nappa Point). There were also full leather cars in other colours (Caramel and English Green) and in Nappa Point (Black, Silverstone, Blue and Red). None were exactly common, 255 in total, I'll tell you exactly how many of each variation when I get back home later this evening. There were also Individual interiors (78 in total) that may have also been full leather.

[KrisP]

Wow, interesting to know, thanks
Do you have a website with your collation of details on, or would you share it?
I did a lot of cross checking with vin plates on the vin decoder website when I was checking for specs of cars, so something such as what you describe really appeals to me

Cheers

[Total loss]

RichardM5 said:

RHD E39 M5 VINs are in two blocks, BJ10000 - BJ11999 and CB37000 - CB37594, the change in the letters occurred in late September/early October 2001 IIR.

Edited by RichardM5 on Monday 12th January 16:14

From the M5 portal VINs by Model Year (not calender year) http://www.m5portal.com/forum/e39m5_modelljahr.asp

M5 E39 RHD (DE92)
Model Year . VIN-series

1999 - BJ10000 - BJ10278
2000 - BJ10279 - BJ11266
2001 - BJ11267 - BJ11966
2002 - BJ11967 - BJ11999 + CB37000 - CB37487
2003 - CB37488 - CB37594

[RichardM5]

OK, just checking the figures on full leather options. The 10 UK cars with M1SW was for UK cars that also have Active Seats, sorry for the confusion.

Figures for all full leather options for RHD cars are :

M1CR (Heritage Caramel) Total 31 UK 25
M1SW (Heritage Black) Total 63 UK 52
M1EG (Heritage English Green) Total 7 UK 5

O6IM (Nappa Point Imola Red) Total 7 UK 3
O6LB (Nappa Point LeMans Blue) Total 21 UK 20
O6SW (Nappa Point Black) Total 49 UK 45
O6SS (Nappa Point Silverstone) Total 77 UK 69

So, 255 total RHD, 219 of which were supplied to the UK and Ireland.

Currently the data is not available in this form on line. I've thought about doing it, just never got round to it. I'd probably have to reorganise the data to do it. The current database is pretty large as it contains images of most of the cars, some computer generated, some of the actual cars. The E39 RHD database is about 90Mb.

[minimatan]

That's excellent, Richard. What a labour of love!