RE: Shed Of The Week: BMW 535i

[g3org3y]

soad said:

Good old E39 Beemer, hard not to like.

Still look good today.

I considered these at one point but felt the list of potential niggly faults would be too bothersome.

Stick a personalised plate on a Touring in Sport trim and it'd fool 99% of people into thinking it was rather expensive.

[foxhounduk]

I had one of these many moons ago. Bought in from Slough. £3000. Silver M-sport. It just looked utterly beastly at the time.

Then, 3 months later, a bearing in the engine went.

Polish guy came and took it off me for £970.

[323ti]

For an affordable V8 I'd spend a few hundred quid more and have something famously reliable;
http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...

But I recognize the fact that that is more than shed-money, and I agree that this BMW is a very decent shed!

[off_again]

foxhounduk said:

I had one of these many moons ago. Bought in from Slough. £3000. Silver M-sport. It just looked utterly beastly at the time.

Then, 3 months later, a bearing in the engine went.

Polish guy came and took it off me for £970.

Me too - biaritz blue too! Bought for a couple of grand and ran it for something like 10 months. It was actually pretty good and I liked it. Unfortunately I had a few of the common grumbles (fuel pump sender and electric gremlins) but overall liked it.

Gearbox went into "limp home mode" and never came out. Had someone look at it and it had screwed some gears. A refurbished 'box was more than the car was worth so I got rid of it to a local scrappy. Got £500 for it. It ran, but you couldnt go anywhere. I believe he scrapped it for the parts. It would be nice to think that the loverly alloys live on with some other 5 series somewhere.

[Devil2575]

323ti said:

For an affordable V8 I'd spend a few hundred quid more and have something famously reliable;
http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/l...

But I recognize the fact that that is more than shed-money, and I agree that this BMW is a very decent shed!

LS400 is far more of a waft mobile than the E39 though. Despite kits size I found the E39 quite fun to press on in down a twisty B road.

[Lowtimer]

Yes, the E39 is looking quite a compact car in the modern context. Mine looks like a dinky toy next to a new E-Class that a mate of mine rocks up in sometimes at my house.

[DP33]

A friend bought an E39 535i with a manual box', new in 2000. He purchased it as a parallel import (remember those?). Everyone tried to put him off but it was an absolute peach. Think he kept it for 18 months and almost incredibly (despite all the doom-mongers saying he'd never sell it on) he got back what he paid for it give or take £500 or so.

Great build quality too, picked up in a 530d mini cab with 280k on the clock last summer, not a rattle on it.

Candiate for Shed of The Year me thinks?

[MadDog1962]

off_again said:

foxhounduk said:

I had one of these many moons ago. Bought in from Slough. £3000. Silver M-sport. It just looked utterly beastly at the time.

Then, 3 months later, a bearing in the engine went.

Polish guy came and took it off me for £970.

Me too - biaritz blue too! Bought for a couple of grand and ran it for something like 10 months. It was actually pretty good and I liked it. Unfortunately I had a few of the common grumbles (fuel pump sender and electric gremlins) but overall liked it.

Gearbox went into "limp home mode" and never came out. Had someone look at it and it had screwed some gears. A refurbished 'box was more than the car was worth so I got rid of it to a local scrappy. Got £500 for it. It ran, but you couldnt go anywhere. I believe he scrapped it for the parts. It would be nice to think that the loverly alloys live on with some other 5 series somewhere.

Yeah, well I guess why these nice old things are for sale on shed budget. The risk that something major fails making the rest of the vehicle worth less than the repair. That and the outrageous insurance premiums quoted in the UK. For a bag of sand this one might be worth the risk.

If it went well for 3 months you've already had value out of it. After that you're winning all the way until you sell it or scrap it. It's called shed-o-nomics :-)

Can't do same in America because low insurance premiums for older cars (based mainly on their value and repair costs, and credit risk score of the driver) keep used values higher, especially if the vehicle is in good overall condition.

[StuntmanMike]

Wrong V8, no real power gains over the 530, but thirstier and without the rack and pinion steering, fail for me.

[Alex P]

This looks like a nice car for the money if it is genuine. As mentioned before, if someone is prepared to look after it and put some money into it when required then it should serve them well.

I am not really a fan of current BMWs (particularly the interiors) but I remember once driving a nice facelift E39 525i Sport (M?) and everything felt smooth, solid and classy. It really was a nice car and the performance was certainly adequate.

[Lowtimer]

MadDog1962 said:

outrageous insurance premiums quoted in the UK. For a bag of sand this one might be worth the risk.

What insurance premiums are those, then? There's nothing expensive about insuring an old midrange E39 unless you;re a truly terrible risk.

[dbdb]

DP33 said:

Candiate for Shed of The Year me thinks?

Isn't inclusion in the 'Shed of the year' just down to the number of page views, rather than the quality of the car? - Whether this car makes it into the top ten sheds will just depend on how many people visit, not on the 'PH-ometer' popularity score or even number of comments. Bizarre, but that's the way they do it.

It is likely to be somewhere in the top ten of cars I would actually like to own from SOTW this year, I agree.

[Reardy Mister]

A worthy shed. Bravo.

[Emeye]

Rust, did anyone mention rust. Especially around the boot? I had one of the rare manual 530i Sport and my bro had the auto version and they both had rust issues. Nothing as bad as a Merc from the same period though.

Any chance we can drop the Shed says thing. It makes me cringe more than watching drunk middle aged women trying to dance.

[Welshbeef]

dbdb said:

DP33 said:

Candiate for Shed of The Year me thinks?

Isn't inclusion in the 'Shed of the year' just down to the number of page views, rather than the quality of the car? - Whether this car makes it into the top ten sheds will just depend on how many people visit, not on the 'PH-ometer' popularity score or even number of comments. Bizarre, but that's the way they do it.

It is likely to be somewhere in the top ten of cars I would actually like to own from SOTW this year, I agree.

Two weeks into the year isn't it a bit too soon to judge.

[dbdb]

Welshbeef said:

dbdb said:

DP33 said:

Candiate for Shed of The Year me thinks?

Isn't inclusion in the 'Shed of the year' just down to the number of page views, rather than the quality of the car? - Whether this car makes it into the top ten sheds will just depend on how many people visit, not on the 'PH-ometer' popularity score or even number of comments. Bizarre, but that's the way they do it.

It is likely to be somewhere in the top ten of cars I would actually like to own from SOTW this year, I agree.

Two weeks into the year isn't it a bit too soon to judge.

Not really. To make the top ten, the car only has to be in the better 20% of Sheds. That's fairly predictable, given the number of years the thread has been running. It is too early to predict the 'best' Shed of course.

It's all a bit academic anyway, when 'Shed of the year' is determined by number of page views. That could be anything and as much down to other factors, as the car.

[Clivey]

Neil G60 said:

I've had my 530i for 5 years now, the longest I've ever had a car. I can't bring myself to get rid of it as it's worth so little but does so much right. It does the big road trip stuff as well as it does commuting runs to the station. It's just a great car. Currently on 94k miles. It costs a bit to keep it nice, various bits of bodywork and the usual M54 replacement cooling system and rocker cover gasket, various suspension linkages/bushes etc but it certainly drives nicer than an E60 IMO, the steering has far more weight and feel.

Mmmm. Nice. Would prefer one (530i or 540i, preferably a manual) to either of the newer models if I you could find one in the right condition; that spec is aging really well.

The SOTW 535i looks too nice for me to be comfortable treating it like a banger, but not the model I'd want as a keeper. Still; for £1,000 (with a big maintenance / repairs budget)...not bad.

[pits]

Pickled said:

That was the earlier 3.0 & 4.0 V8s as found in the E34 & E32 - and TBH if you find one thats lasted till now, then Nikasil liners won't be a problem.

I've had both a 535 & 540 E39, of course the 540 is the one to have, however the 535 isn't too bad, they ran higher gearing so on a run 30 mpg is a achievable.

I miss my 540 dearly, but at the same time I don't, it was a source of constant problems and I gave up trying to fix the constant source of water leaks that I just gave up, bought it for £1000, sold it for £950.

Now I do disagree with what you say on mpg, my 540 was frugal, on a run I averaged over 30mpg constantly, average 70-80mph, I did find out that if you hug trucks and avoid hills that you could achieve a silly mpg figure.

My average 540 on a run figure


My super frugal, drive at 50mph rarely touching the throttle figure



I averaged in general 22mpg, which isn't bad and it did get driven flat out a lot of the time.

[Pickled]

pits said:

I miss my 540 dearly, but at the same time I don't, it was a source of constant problems and I gave up trying to fix the constant source of water leaks that I just gave up, bought it for £1000, sold it for £950.

Now I do disagree with what you say on mpg, my 540 was frugal, on a run I averaged over 30mpg constantly, average 70-80mph, I did find out that if you hug trucks and avoid hills that you could achieve a silly mpg figure.

My average 540 on a run figure


My super frugal, drive at 50mph rarely touching the throttle figure



I averaged in general 22mpg, which isn't bad and it did get driven flat out a lot of the time.

Impressive, I guess I've never had the same restraint. I always start a long journey with great intentions of trying to achieve a decent MPG figure, then get bored after 10 miles I enjoy the mid range torque from a V8 too much. When I got rid of my 540 the average was 19. My newer S430 averages 24-25, the 928 I daren't even calculate. I did run a 750i for a while and the average on that barely crept into double figures!

Then again who buys a V8 barge for its economy.

Edited by Pickled on Saturday 17th January 16:57

[danp]

Fantastic sotw, a timeless, elegant piece of design and from the day when all the 5's had an inline 6 or v8, must run one at some point.