Scrap or Save? E38 740i

[RichTBiscuit]

The time has come to make a difficult decision. My 740i (or Hermann as it's affectionately known) has just gone in for it's MOT and failed on the below;

- 2* cats
- 2* rear brake hoses
- 2* rear radius arms
- 1* rear spring
- 1* front end link

It's going to cost at least £800 quid and really don't know weather to;

- Try to Fix it myself ...means working on my drive and saving £400 in labour (maybe). If I dont F*ck it up it might work....but I would think it's at least 2 weekends work with my limited spannering skills.

- Scrap it! 300 quid from the scrappy is the easy option....

- Fix it! and hope I might get 1k back when I sell it on.

It's a lovely old barge which I brought for £500 six months ago - I spent hours of my own time fixing various other bits which means i'm quite attached to it. I referb'd the fuel tank a couple of months ago, which means it should be good for another 5 years or so (a bonus on these).

Downside is that it's already done 189,000 miles - how much time have the gearbox and other expensive parts really got left?

So... Save or Scrap??

Offer me your opinions!

p.s The Lanky person in the pic is me celebrating getting home safely after buying it unseen on ebay.

Edited by RichTBiscuit on Wednesday 14th November 14:25

[CurvaParabolica]

If you have the time and money, try to fix it. E38s, especially the larger engined ones are lovely beasts, would be a shame to see it go especially if you've already put time and effort into it. Either that or try selling it on as is? If this were a few months down the line I'd be making you an offer myself but I need to sort my own relocation out at the moment

ETA Dammit; you're not that far from me either!

Edited by CurvaParabolica on Wednesday 14th November 13:18

[LayZ]

Sad to say on balance I say scrap. Rear arms sound like a lot of labour, and cats will be expensive to buy and fit.

If you have the space there are £hundreds of pounds to be made breaking it.

I just paid £820 for one with long MOT, so not like you couldn't just get another.

[RichTBiscuit]

It is a nice car. For most 'normal' (non PH) people i'm sure it would be scrapped. But I would like to keep it on the road if possible as I know many e38's are being scrapped and it's essentially a nice car.

Anyone have any idea how difficult the rear radius arms and springs are to do on these? I pretty confident I can handle the end link + Brake hoses myself...... if going down that path.

[richardxjr]

If you're going to keep it (and you should) just check the condition of the fuel tank, this is one of the larger timebombs on these things.

Edit. Note to self, read the OP a bit more fecking carefully.

[Cliftonite]

RichTBiscuit said:

p.s The Lanky person in the pic is me celebrating getting home safely after buying it unseen on ebay.

I see no pic!

[Ozzie Osmond]

LayZ said:

Sad to say on balance I say scrap.

I just paid £820 for one with long MOT, so not like you couldn't just get another.

Agreed. That's a dead Beemer. Cost of repair far exceeds its value (both before and after repair) and there's plenty more out there.

[E30M3SE]

If the rest of the car is sound, fix it.

You could probably buy on for he cost of the repairs but who knows whats waiting to bang on those, better the devil your know...........

[RichTBiscuit]

Pic should be sorted.... thumbsnap seems to be playing up.

I'm now thinking its dead

£300 scrap. Sell the 18" staggered alloys £200, various other bits + bobs + MSport Steering wheel £200.

£700 in bits if i'm lucky.

[esvcg]

sorry, but it just aint worth doing in terms of time and money. cars like this make little sense these days as it is (petrol, tax...) and most definitely not worth repairing at this level.

take the scrap money either from a scrap yard, or from selling on eBay etc.

there's too many motors out there for little cash to even bother with pursuing this

[RichTBiscuit]

The Crack Fox said:

Time to abandon ship. Even if you get £500 for it, you can buy another for roughly the same, that's the bangernomics game.

I agree in principle - definitely the sensible thing to do.

However I seem to have an affliction that means I have the need to fix every car I own, even if it makes more financial sense to get rid

I like cars too much to simply make decisions based upon money.

This time I think it's a goner :-(

[Gooly]

Would you buy another E38 if you scrapped this? Because if so it would be better to spend the time and money on this one instead of buying another one that could be an absolute minefield.

Plus, IMO this generation of cars will take the same route as the 80's generation in that loads of people will scrap them for pennies now, and then there'll be none left in the future and values will go through the roof. IMO you'd regret scrapping it.

[ImpossiblyDaft]

Fix it up! Would it be possible to save some money with generic cats being put together in one of those exhaust places instead of BMW parts or something? Then, if you can do the little things yourself its all not such a big deal.

If you can pay for the petrol on one of those then you can pay for that, surely? Shame to crush such a nice car over so little!

[RichTBiscuit]

ImpossiblyDaft said:

Fix it up! Would it be possible to save some money with generic cats being put together in one of those exhaust places instead of BMW parts or something? Then, if you can do the little things yourself its all not such a big deal.

If you can pay for the petrol on one of those then you can pay for that, surely? Shame to crush such a nice car over so little!

Cats would be cheap non BMW ones. Doing some of the work myself is an option, but not sure if I have the enthusiasm

My drive to work is a 6 mile round trip...... this goes some way to explain why I can justify the 4.4 V8

[monthefish]

Heart: Save
Head: Scrap (Cats x 2 for a 4 litre V8 aren't cheap - I think your £800 repair estimate is a tad optimistic)


Then again, 'better the devil you know', and if you really like the car and you have this work done, then at least you have a sound car that you know is good.

[ajb85]

RichTBiscuit said:

It's a lovely old barge which I brought for £500 six months ago

Where did you bring it? Sorry, somebody had to!

Seems there is a 50/50 divide here. However, as you point out; given the age and mileage of the car, something costly is likely to expire, and will do so conveniently over the winter no doubt! Seems daft ploughing money into the car now for expensive cats and arms, and I think you'd be pleasantly surprised at how much it will brake for.

I know of somebody who has just scrapped an E39 525d because of a suspect injector (or injectors, they could not determine). Sounds crazy!

[RichTBiscuit]

ajb85 said:

Where did you bring it? Sorry, somebody had to!

Seems there is a 50/50 divide here. However, as you point out; given the age and mileage of the car, something costly is likely to expire, and will do so conveniently over the winter no doubt! Seems daft ploughing money into the car now for expensive cats and arms, and I think you'd be pleasantly surprised at how much it will brake for.

I know of somebody who has just scrapped an E39 525d because of a suspect injector (or injectors, they could not determine). Sounds crazy!

I'll return the favour - I assume you mean break?

The scrap yard will only give me £200 and I have to leave the wheels on otherwise they wont take it

Are there other bits that are really worth anything?

I'm quite happy to strip it bare on my driveway and get the scrappy to pick it up - if it's worth doing.

[alangla]

RichTBiscuit said:

I'll return the favour - I assume you mean break?

The scrap yard will only give me £200 and I have to leave the wheels on otherwise they wont take it

Are there other bits that are really worth anything?

I'm quite happy to strip it bare on my driveway and get the scrappy to pick it up - if it's worth doing.

Have a look on ebay for the price of the various bits & the whole car as a spares or repair. I vaguely remember a thread on here not that long ago where a bloke stripped a dead Audi A8, flogged the parts off, then scrapped the shell (ok, extra cash here for it being aluminium). Pretty sure he finished up with more cash than he'd have got for the whole car, even if it had been a runner with MoT!

EDIT - found it - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=103...

Edited by alangla on Wednesday 14th November 17:02

[Ecurie Ecosse]

Fix it.

Not much to keep such a choice automobile on the road. If you buy another one it may be full of bork, at least with this one you know where you stand.

Breaking cars is a bit of a faff too.

[RichTBiscuit]

Right, I've decided to scrap it

Garage has come back with a final cost of 1100 which is simply too much for a 500 quid car.

A little disappointed as it's become obvious the last MOT was crooked - the cats have been gutted and welded up again - my garage says this was done some time ago. My eyes have been opened to the shady side of MOT testing.

I'm sure if the last MOT was carried out properly most of these issues wouldn't be present as its unlikely they have suddenly appeared in the last 5k miles or so.....

Going to sell bits on eBay and see how much I can get. :-) Good excuse to start saving for an e36 M3 and share the other half's mx5 in the mean time.

Tempted to post the name of the last MOT station for informational purposes