Your Opinions Please

[hughandjen]

Hi guys
New to E60 M5 forum. Bought the car a couple of weeks ago. Did a bit of research and fell in love with idea of the 5L V10.
Early impressions are:-
1) As is well reported the gearbox is not friendly at low speeds in town. It also seems to whine quite a bit at low revs.
2) Get it on open road and it all comes together and is a joy to drive.

My concern is that on these forums there are so many stories of major engine failure. It seems that a high proportion of these go bang. Are there people on here that have had trouble free motoring or are they all ticking timebombs?

Also I read somewhere that you can take them to a BMW garage and pay £120 and they will give me a detailed printout of the cars history, faults number of launches, etc. Is this true? If so probably money well spent.

Thanks

[cosworth330]

I've run one for 2 years so far with no issues at all and that includes using it on a track day.

[hughandjen]

Thanks
That's reassuring, keep them coming please

[mbromwel7]

Nearly 3 years ownership no issues, 98k's.

Gearbox is fine in town traffic once you get used to it, use manual mode not auto !

BMW will give you a full printout of all service history for free, before buying ours I had a list of several number plates or last 5 digits of chassis no and also full spec of each car.

[Mags]

I bought one (Touring M5) a few months ago after zero homework which is never the right way to do it and have also been reading the scare stories on lunched bearings etc.
Apart from minor niggles with a voltage regulator and fried battery its so far been well behaved although the tank size & consumption was a real surprise.
I fooking love the M5, its a joy to drive as long as you don't use the auto mode and I only recently realized how different the "M mode" is compared with just selecting the power button etc as I've not really had the chance to go for a drive without the missus onboard (which is more effective than any power restricting button!)
I am hoping to get along to a dealer soon for a check on the history after reading the thread on here recently where the warranty as refused for low oil warnings, this is a bit scary but when I spoke to the dealer he didn't understand where low oil warnings would be registered and thought it was only the service history that was kept in memory and would impact a claim.
Anyway, hoping it gives me many years of happy motoring, I'm loving it so far, although better MPG would be nice.