A V8 at last - my BMW 645Ci

[McSam]

drewos said:

Hi McSam, I have drunk bid on this and won! I am genuinely shocked by that MPG you've achieved as I will be going to London a few times a year from the wirral (via A41/M54) so hope I can get near your figure. I've been really enjoying the thread and can't wait to pick the car up next week.

Nice one! You'll definitely enjoy it on that route. Tell us more? Couldn't find that car with a quick glance through the usual places.

MJ85 said:

Every BMW I've encountered is capable of good to excellent MPG if driven correctly. It does make ownership less painful. I'm glad it is going well.

Yep, me too - my E46 always impressed me, but if it's anywhere near accurate then this is nothing short of remarkable.

As for pain of ownership and "going well", I had the car in at Autotech Warwick - who came quite well recommended - for a once-over. It has a significant oil leak from the cam cover gaskets, which is an enormous pain in my arse. If I'd insisted on getting the car on ramps before I bought it, I could never have missed this, and I feel it's too involved a job for me to do myself. I also found my gearbox drain plug looking this:



Clearly never seen a tool in its life. So the invoice I have for a gearbox oil change done as part of the deal - and written as a condition in the invoice - isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Oh, and I found a snapped rear spring on a car that had allegedly been MOTed three weeks prior. Nothing pisses me off more than a dishonest seller.. Shockingly enough, receipts for the service he claimed it had had when he took it into stock haven't been sent through either, so I'll need to change the engine oil and filter while I'm at it.

At least when this is all done, I'll know for a certainty that the work has been done properly and with the correct fluids. I've already done all the other components of a major service anyway..

[Huskyman]

Nice car the 645 and congrats on the purchase. I wouldn't assume that the gearbox oil hasn't been changed as the filter is part of the sump and is replaced during the fluid change

[McSam]

Thanks!

If done correctly, you're right - but the very unconvincing invoice I have lists only the oil and labour, no parts. I asked whether the sump had been changed and was told not. It certainly doesn't look new, showing similar levels of oil staining from the cam cover leak as parts around it. The invoice also lists ten litres of oil, which when ZF's kit only provides seven reads like a bit of a blind guess.

The proof will come when it's drained, I guess, but several aspects of the way the gearbox behaves suggest aged oil. The dealer initially seemed surprisingly receptive when I called to challenge him on this, he asked me for photos, promised to quiz the garage he used to find what they'd done, and agreed to recover the £380 he paid and pass it on to me if he found foul play. He went from that to never taking my calls to "the number you have dialled is not in service" in very short order. I don't think I'm being paranoid here..

[wst]

Give Trading Standards a call, they may crawl right up his jacksy to count his fillings, especially if you mention how this seller has seemingly vanished off the face of the map and so chasing him up yourself is probably not practical.

[philmots]

I'd put it down to experience..

I've had similar with cars years ago, now when sellers say it'll have this and that done before etc, I just tell them to leave it and I'll have another few hundred off the bill. At least then I know what fluids are in it and what brand filters etc.

[Sparkzz]

Wonderful, the dark blue sets it off perfectly.

[drewos]

[/quote]
Nice one! You'll definitely enjoy it on that route. Tell us more? Couldn't find that car with a quick glance through the usual places.

Well i'd been looking at them some time ago as i fancied a change but never thought i'd take the plunge then late on a Friday night after a night out I was on ebay and it popped up on the home page 'recommended for you, you might like' something like that and I immediately recognized it as my old bosses car with the private reg on it. He is pretty fastidious with his cars and it was in great condition so i thought what the hell and bid on it. 10 hours later waking up and a bit hungover there was no more bids and I had won! Went to view it the following day and fell in love, it's a great looking car especially on those wheels which had been replaced at great expense. It is a 2004 645ci auto with black leather/aluminium trim. 13 stamps from BMW dealers with 110k on the clock. It's going to come with a fresh MOT and i will pick it up in a few days time. I too, have never owned a V8 and am very excited to be driving it soon.

johnwilliams77 - I have tried to PM you but you aren't accepting PM's!

[quavey]

You have to love an E63, I certainly love my 650i. Eagle eyes might remember it from a Carpool last year. I'll second the unreal fuel economy if driven with care and at sensible speeds. On our euro trip in the 650i we managed more than 32mpg overall.

[Mikeeb]

Is love to know how slow you guys go on the motorway. I never saw better than 31 on a long motorway run in my 645. With cruise set to 80/85 on a regular early morning run to and from west wales from Surrey. Dash reading and measured were always very similar.

Now as for the M6 I have now........I'm happy to get 22 on the same run!!!

[McSam]

That sounds perfect, drewos! Look forward to seeing more of it. There seem to be especially few V8 E63s for sale at the minute, perhaps we're buying them all

philmots said:

I'd put it down to experience..

I've had similar with cars years ago, now when sellers say it'll have this and that done before etc, I just tell them to leave it and I'll have another few hundred off the bill. At least then I know what fluids are in it and what brand filters etc.

Well, yes, that's my preference as well but some sellers really do make it difficult for you. This particular car was bought very much heart over head, I still don't regret it (and haven't see another one for sale that I'd rather have), but I am quite hacked off that it wasn't the deal it was meant to be. I'll see what an enquiry to Trading Standards yields, you never know.

I received a quote from Autotech for £850 to do both cam cover gaskets and their gearbox service, which does include replacing the sump and filter. £450 of that is parts, so a little investigation is required to find a good way to source an OEM cam cover gasket kit for less than the £196 quoted. Gearbox sump kit, oil and hardware seems about right at £250.

Sparkzz said:

Wonderful, the dark blue sets it off perfectly.

Thank you

quavey said:

You have to love an E63, I certainly love my 650i. Eagle eyes might remember it from a Carpool last year. I'll second the unreal fuel economy if driven with care and at sensible speeds. On our euro trip in the 650i we managed more than 32mpg overall.

Your Carpool thread was a very significant factor in setting me off looking at these cars, so thank you very much! You have the ideal thing, a pre-06 650i, and it's a lovely example.

[quavey]

McSam said:

Your Carpool thread was a very significant factor in setting me off looking at these cars, so thank you very much! You have the ideal thing, a pre-06 650i, and it's a lovely example.

Ah! I'm glad it helped. Yes I was lucky to find that car at a reasonable price and at the time I think she had only done 55k, passed her MOT on Saturday with no advisories at 63,400 (ish) miles so that's 8500 miles in the last 18 months. Shes a baby compared to most!

[McSam]

Heh, yes, you've just managed half the mileage of mine! It's nice to see one with Style 218s on it, they seem fairly rare but a black 650i I looked at had them and I've loved them ever since. I think they're the ideal design for the E63.. It's just a shame they're 19s and not easy to find. If anyone has a set going spare, let me know!

I know a lot of people think ellipsoids are the "correct" wheels for these cars, and they do have a certain appeal but I'm not totally convinced. I think I prefer my car on the Style 118 winters.

[quavey]

Mine originally had the 118's, its one of the reasons the car was overlooked for sale I think and ended up being quite good value. However a set of 218's later with a full refurb, center caps and some rubber it looked much better.

Ive just had a route through ebay and to be fair I cant find a full set, there is a single wheel on there and of course you can buy them new from BMW at huge cost. I think mine were about 600, advertised as "good" condition, I would have said they were average at best when they arrived. Good to me is no curb marks and perhaps some scratches, their definition of good appeared to be vaguely round and broadly silver. Something like £200 for a refurb and whatever the rubber was. I think I won two brand new tyres on ebay for less than the cost of 1 for the rears (joys of odd tyre sizes and auctions) and as I recall my local tyre place happened to have some part worns for the front with more than 6mm on so I did a deal on those for a bargain.

[McSam]

They're not completely ridiculous to buy new, I've located OEM fronts and rears on the web for £1100 a set. Too much to be spending, really, but I was surprised how relatively reasonable they are.

I think my best bet would be to keep an eye out for cars being broken. They do seem to get crashed fairly regularly

I don't have any experience of that genuineautoparts.com site, but they also have the cylinder gasket sets for £55 per bank which is rather good. Might give them a go.

[helix402]

Good to see you're enjoying the new car. Try Leebman24 for cheaper genuine parts. Pattern cam cover gaskets are cheaper but don't last well. Is the gearbox quote for BMW parts or a ZF kit? Does it include the mechatronic sleeve?

[jayemm89]

My 645Ci was definitely more economical than my E46 M3!!

[McSam]

helix402 said:

Good to see you're enjoying the new car. Try Leebman24 for cheaper genuine parts. Pattern cam cover gaskets are cheaper but don't last well. Is the gearbox quote for BMW parts or a ZF kit? Does it include the mechatronic sleeve?

Thanks! The parts linked above are (purportedly) genuine, I've no interest in buying pattern stuff. Thanks for that website though, it seems very complete and their part number search actually works correctly. They are not as competitive as the one I found, but I might try ordering a few minor bits from each to see whose service is better and check the parts actually are the real deal.

The gearbox quote was for one of the ZF sump and hardware kits and it does include the mechatronic sleeve, but it turns out they were planning to use Dexron 6 fluid, so it looks like I need to find somewhere else..

jayemm89 said:

My 645Ci was definitely more economical than my E46 M3!!

That doesn't surprise me in the slightest! M3s do seem to have prodigious appetites. It's just a shame the 4.4 is not quite as powerful

[quavey]

jayemm89 said:

My 645Ci was definitely more economical than my E46 M3!!

Interesting that! I found my E36 M3 Evo was remarkably economical for what it was. As I recall the E46 had considerably shorter gearing which would make a difference.

[helix402]

Leebman24 is a German BMW main dealer. They are usually cheaper than UK dealers due to the exchange rate. Their service is pretty good, well packaged and not bad time wise from the continent.

[McSam]

If you've ever wondered how to check the screenwash level in your E63, wonder no more... Simply drop the bumper to view the tank



I finally had some time in the daylight to fit my new headlamp ballast. I didn't really fancy removing the bumper entirely like last time, as I only needed one lamp out, so I tried it only releasing one side. It worked quite well, tight squeeze to get the lamp out, but it was possible by doing only the wheelarch fixings on the side I was removing, then all of the top bolts under the bonnet and the ones behind each foglamp and the little grilles. I now have two fully working headlamps again, which means I can finally try out my adaptive function - when one of the lamps is out, it just drives the remaining one over to try and cover the beam of both, so it hasn't been working up to now.

Since I had the wheel locked over to get access, it would have been rude not to take a photo of the brilliantly aggressive tread pattern on my Dunlop Wintersport 5s.



I'd been planning to spend the rest of today fiddling with little jobs and doing some diagnostic work, but it was a really nice day and my housemate suggested going for a blat down some good local B-roads. Since my car should be totally unsuited to chasing his R53 Cooper S, I agreed but you know what, it was pretty good! Yes it feels big, yes it's too soft and yes the winters give a certain vagueness to the feeling at the limit, but it was still really good fun - quick and composed, but most importantly it felt exciting. I'd never driven it hard for an extended period before, but when you keep the revs right up all the time, it sounds great, the noise urging you on and the delivery always feeling properly muscular. It's really capable and seems to feel happier the faster you drive it, soaking things up better and feeling less heavy. I was able to cover ground more quickly than the (similarly winter-shod) Mini, and I wasn't having to work anything like so hard at it!

Obviously even in manual with the sport mode on for heavier steering, it isn't terribly involving but it feels happy being driven in that way, and again it performs its signature trick of making long stretches of road simply disappear. I'm impressed.