BMW 7 Series (G11) | PH Used Buying Guide
Ten years ago, a 444hp V8-powered G11 would've set you back at least £75k - guess how much they are now?
Key considerations
- Available for £12,500 (kind of…)
- 4.4-litre V8 petrol twin turbo, rear- or all-wheel drive
- Big all-round improvement on previous 7 Series
- Comfortable and efficient cruiser
- Hasn’t been problem-free…
- …but a properly maintained one for under £20k could be special
BMW’s biggest saloon, the 7 Series, has been around since 1977 when the E23 came into view with a choice of three straight six petrol engines producing between 168hp and 215hp. Five generations and 38 years later, in 2015, the G11 (or the long-wheelbase G12 with an extra 14cm of legroom) was announced.
The G11 was the first BMW passenger vehicle to be built on a modular ‘CLAR’ platform that supported a wide range of powertrains, from full battery electric and mild or plug-in hybrids to conventional internal combustion engines. In the gen-six 7 Series those ICE options continued to include historically ever-present straight sixes (3.0-litre B58 petrol or 3.0 B57 diesel) along with a couple of 2.0 fours, again diesel or petrol, plus two petrol plug-in hybrids.
The model we’re focusing on here, however, is the 750i which for the first three years of its life was powered by a 444hp/479lb ft version of the N63 4.4 litre twin-turbo V8. After a midlife refresh in 2019, the numbers went up to 523hp/553lb ft, outputs that kept the G11/12 going until it was superseded in 2022 by the gothically blunt gen-seven G70.
In fairness, we shouldn’t be criticising the looks of the G70 because it did, albeit retrospectively, make the G11 look good. And actually the G11 already had a kind of beauty about it in its use of ‘i’ car materials such as carbon fibre reinforced plastic, ultra-high tensile steels and aluminium in its ‘Carbon Core’ body. That mix was a motoring first. So, although the G11 was the biggest 7 Series ever, it still managed to be up to 130kg lighter than the preceding F01 series.
The 750i could come in rear-wheel drive or, for the first time on a Seven series, with xDrive. The difference in the 0-62mph times could be as much as 0.7 seconds, but in isolation the 4.7-second time for the rear-driver was quick enough for most. In 2016 a more powerful and more expensive G11 arrived, the mightily-engined – or at least, mightily large-engined – M760Li, whose 610hp/627lb ft twin-turbo 6.6-litre V12 M74 motor made light work of 190mph autobahn cruising. You could do that in the wet, too, because the M760 was the first BMW V12 to have xDrive all-wheel drive.
If you needed M760 horsepower but you didn’t need 12 cylinders, and you could wait until 2019, there was always the option of the Alpina B7 xDrive. Its N63 4.4 V8 had M760 levels of power and torque, making it good for a 0-62mph time of 3.6 seconds and a top speed of 205mph.
The cheapest G11 7 Series at launch in 2015 was the £64,000 730d. The 750i sat at the other end of the scale at just over £76,000. On the used market at the time of writing (December 2025) you’ll find between five and six diesel G11s for every petrol one. Higher-mileage M760s are available today for under £28k, but forget about that for value, how about £12,350 for a 750i? Yes, we did find a G11 750i for sale at that price.
Admittedly it had 220,000 miles on it, but you’d never know that from looking at it. More realistically, prices for privately owned 750is with under 90,000 miles start from under £20k, which seems pretty tempting now that we know they’ll do 200k miles and more with absolute ease. Or do they? Let’s look into the detail of G11 750i ownership.
SPECIFICATION – BMW 7 Series 750i (G11)
Engine: 4,395cc V8 32v twin-turbo petrol
Transmission: 8-speed auto, rear- or all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 444@5,500-6,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 479@1,800-4,500rpm
0-62mph (secs): 4.7
Top speed (mph): 155 (limited)
Weight (kg): 1,895
MPG (official combined): 35.8
CO2 (g/km): 184
Wheels (in): 18
Tyres: 245/50
On sale: 2015 - 2022
Price new (2015): £76,000
Price now: from £12,500 (200k+ miles, £20k for sub-100k cars)
Note for reference: car weight and power data is hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.
ENGINE & GEARBOX
The 750i’s twin-turbo V8 engine was a peach, delivering linear torque and power across a 4,200rpm rev range. It was efficient too with an official combined fuel consumption figure of nearly 36mpg, helped by Eco Pro mode which decoupled the powertrain on the overrun at speeds between 31mph and 100mph.
The gen-six cars have a good core mechanical reputation, and certainly one that’s somewhat better than the previous F01s which were plagued by faulty oil filter gaskets. Having said that, the N63 does need to be looked after when it comes to its fluids, and 2016 model year G11s have suffered from coolant leakage issues, often from the turbo lines. Plastic pipes have been replaced by metal ones on many cars. Thermostats have blown as have radiators which have commonly had leaks at weld points. Some fuel pumps have failed too. A recall was issued in mid-2019 on a smaller number of cars made in that year to rectify a potential fuel leak in the presence of an ignition source.
Spark plugs should be changed every sixth oil change or at 60,000 miles. If your 750i has a higher number of miles than that and it’s become jerky under acceleration the chances are that at least one bank of plugs is knackered, and possibly the coils as well if the problem has been allowed to drag on. Transmission fluid for the ZF box needs changing every 50-75,000 miles or 8 years. Some cars have refused to go into reverse. Replacing the transmission valve body has sometimes fixed that. With cars of this complexity, it’s imperative to keep the battery in prime condition. By ‘battery’, we mean ‘batteries’. Besides a main and an auxiliary battery, 750s have a small additional 12v battery in the boot next to the main one that was there to drive the 24v steering servos. Weak batteries can be flagged up by all manner of glitches, like, for example, the climate control screen randomly rebooting itself.
Bearing in mind the need to keep the fluids fresh and properly topped up, independent outfits like The Mini & BMW Specialist in the Midlands (others are available) recommend a full service every 12 months or 8,000-10,000 miles. Using BMW spec oils and parts TMBS will charge you £250 for an oil and filter change, or £299 with a new air filter, or £375 with a new cabin filter. Adding a new set of spark plugs takes your bill up to £650. All those prices include VAT. There are plenty of G11 online support forums. The experts on bimmerfest.com are particularly good at supplying clear answers to owners’ questions.
CHASSIS
The G11 featured what BMW called a double-joint front axle and a five-link rear. Through more extensive use of aluminium, unsprung mass was reportedly reduced by up to 15 per cent over the preceding car. The suspension was self-levelling air with adaptive damping, with the provision via the Vertical Dynamic Platform system of in-cabin 20mm ride height adjustment with an automatic 10mm drop at speed in Sport mode.
G11 handling in general and the ride in particular were noticeably superior to the gen-five’s. The difference was especially marked on motorways where it seemed that the 7 Series had at long last become a genuine rival to the Mercedes S-Class. The clonks and bangs with which owners of earlier Sevens would have been familiar were conspicuous by their absence. The feel of the car could be switched from plush to poised at the touch of a button, with a welcome feeling of the car shrinking around the driver when pressing on.
Power steering was electric. It did feel over-assisted even in a sportier drive mode, but if xDrive was in place the benefits of all-wheel steering became available. Another useful advance was Executive Drive Pro, an electromechanical active anti-roll bar which calculated inputs from a camera, the car’s sat nav system and your style of driving to set the car up for the smoothest possible ride. A standard Parking Assistant Plus pack included the facility for the car to work its own steering to help you get it into a tight space.
VDP systems have played up, generating ‘chassis error’ messages, and there were issues with failing struts. Cars with suspension problems would drop when they’d been parked up for a couple of hours. BMW offered an extended warranty in some cases, in the US at least. If you’re out of luck and your air struts do need replacing a main dealer’s quote is likely to be getting on for £4,000 a pair (BMW’s recommendation being to replace in pairs even if only one strut has failed). Sourcing the parts yourself and getting an independent to install them should reduce that bill to something nearer £700.
Similarly, a BMW dealer will want £2,000 or thereabouts to replace the compressor, but going down the indie route with non-factory parts (which to some seemed more substantial than the factory pumps) could chop £1,400 off that. Parts for air suspension systems on any car should be seen as consumable items. They’ll always fail at some point. G11 owners will tell you that if you’re getting six or seven years out of the original components you’re doing OK.
Diffs and transfer cases on iDrive cars can, and probably will, become noisy if the fluids aren’t changed on a 4-year/50k schedule. Making sure the tyres are ‘level’ (i.e. worn at the same rate, changed en masse etc) is a good idea too as that will keep the diffs happy, or happier at any rate. BMW dealers will charge very hard indeed (think very high four figures) for a replacement diff. TPMS sensors will eventually fail as well, but sets of four can be picked up on eBay for £80. As long as they’re pre-coded the iDrive system will quickly (though not immediately) recognise them.
BODYWORK
The G11’s Carbon Core body reduced weight and boosted rigidity. For the first time aluminium was used for the Seven’s bootlid as well as for the doors. That was great for lightness but not so good for cheap bodywork repairs.
M Sport models had an aero package comprising front and rear aprons and side skirts plus 19-inch M twin-spoke light alloy wheels. A ‘Design Pure Excellence’ option that was standard on long-wheelbase G11s added an extra chrome strip above the front driving lights and on the rear apron, plus high-gloss brake calipers. LWB cars got an electrically operated glass sunroof and roller blinds for the back windows. The palette of G11 paints was conservative, with 19 of the 25 colours being one variant or another of black, white, grey or silver. Of the other six colours, two were dark brown. That left two shades of blue and two of red, all of them dark.
The motors for the active front shutters that controlled the flow of air to the engine had troublesome actuators. Some owners of cars with sunroofs have experienced problems with squeaking from the rear passenger corner area, especially in colder weather. Determined owners have fixed that by pulling the headliner down in that corner and squirting silicon spray onto the mounting points. Others have had trouble with door locks not opening at the end of a journey. Modules for the doors’ soft-close motors could fail.
INTERIOR
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, but there will surely be many who will see a classic elegance in the G11’s cabin. The mix of analogue design with digital instrumentation and the use of good quality materials throughout created a feel-good atmosphere that was augmented by the excellent infotainment (upgraded in the 2019 facelift) and audio supplied by the standard-fit Professional Multimedia and Navigation system.
The normal iDrive controller, 12.3-inch touchscreen and voice interfaces were supplemented by gesture control in Exclusive trim cars. For some, the dash maybe wasn’t quite different enough to that of lesser BMWs but the ambient lighting and fragrance systems were lovely, the head-up display was large, and the 16-speaker Bowers & Wilkins 1400w Diamond audio option was suitably boomtastic.
It was a roomy cabin too, matching the S-Class on rear seat legroom and beating it on headroom. The BMW’s boot was bigger than the Merc’s too, with the option of a removable drinks chiller in there. Ticking the £2,850 box for the Executive Package and the £4,800 one for the Rear Seat Comfort Package provided heated, ventilated and massaging seats all round, screens for the rear seat passengers, digital TV and a tablet to work it all with.
The ‘Design Pure Excellence’ interior package included an Alcantara headliner, wood inlays for the seat belt covers, armrest and rear grab handles, and deep pile rear floor carpets. M Sports had illuminated M logo door sill finishers, an anthracite Individual headliner and cabin trim accents in light or dark chrome or black wood with a high-gloss metal effect. The Ultimate Pack included the B&W audio, Executive Lounge rear consoles, sun blinds, climate comfort glass, TV Function Plus, remote control key-operated parking as well as the massage/heated/cooled seats.
There was a fair bit more road noise in a G11 than in the equivalent Mercedes S-Class but the way to get around that was never to take a trip in an S-Class. That way you’d be entirely satisfied with the BMW. The isolation of engine noise was impressive. Even in the diesel models you were never entirely sure whether the motor was running at idle.
The driving position was very good and as you’d expect the suite of driver aids was immense. It included full LED lighting, night vision, automatic safety braking, lane and distance keeping, very accurate parking sensors and a 3D surround-view system.
The adaptive headlights could be a bit slow in their response times and some digi instrument clusters have gone completely dark. Faulty seat occupancy sensors have thrown up airbag warnings. Some air circulation buttons have malfunctioned and some HVAC systems have been a bit random on their distribution of hot or cold air. Aircon evaporators have failed, an expensive job as that requires the removal of the complete dash.
Some seat massage buttons have stuck in the off position. Others have stopped working entirely, with BMW dealers unable to identify the problem. Ambient lighting has been known to fail on one side or the other, sometimes but not necessarily always because of a displaced connector either under a seat or behind the centre dash trim. Base trims under the driver’s seat have been known to fail.
PH VERDICT
Are ‘prestige’ models like the 7 Series built to higher standards than BMWs from the other end of the scale, or is that just an urban myth? Whether they are or not, they do seem to be well looked after by their owners, or perhaps more accurately in many cases by those tasked with looking after them. Either way you will struggle to find a scabby-looking G11 on the used market.
If that level of care is reflected in the service book, which it very likely will be, then a used G11 might well seem like an interesting and, with prices starting at £20k or less, an excellent value choice for someone who has no particular need for, or interest in, an SUV. Although cars like the S-Class and Range Rover will deliver a more obvious luxury experience than the 7 Series, the BMW was a rewarding owner/driver proposition and with the exception of those two cars, arguably a better all-round saloon than pretty much anything else on the road.
It hasn’t all been strawberries and cream, of course, but many of the problems that have affected the G11 750i seem to have been in 2016 model year cars. If you’re shopping for cars from that year it’s a good idea to check that everything works, a potentially time-consuming process given the number of features in these cars. You should also have an especially close look at the service paperwork, checking that all recall and warranty works have been properly carried out. That done, a 750i could carry you and your family along in sybaritic comfort at three-figure speeds without breaking the bank on running costs – as long as you keep on top of the maintenance.
As mentioned earlier, privately-owned G11 750is start at under £20,000 in the UK. The most affordable G11 750i on PH Classifieds at the time of writing (December 2025) was this one-owner 2017 non-xDrive M Sport with 67,000 miles at £22,895. This 2020 car, another M Sport, had only 25,000 miles on it and also the higher power (523hp) that went with the 2019 facelift, hence the higher price of £37,650.
Otherwise underwelming car. Looks like a 5 series, drives just OK, not very confortable, diesel engines far from smooth enough for a 7, inside very little different than 5 series... Had one for 3months and sold it.
But they can be troublesome even when new but you have the warranty, I wouldn't want one outside of a warranty and BMW want £2700 a year to extend it so that tells you everything.
I miss this interior
Otherwise underwelming car. Looks like a 5 series, drives just OK, not very confortable, diesel engines far from smooth enough for a 7, inside very little different than 5 series... Had one for 3months and sold it.
From the E65 onwards BMW seemed to decide that rather than trying to give the 7 series any character of it's own they'd just make an off-brand S Class and each generation after that brought it closer and closer to that vision, whereas the E38 and earlier really were there own thing particularly against the W140 S Class.
The i7 is a lot nicer than the EQS though, for the 3 people who want an EV megabarge.
Otherwise underwelming car. Looks like a 5 series, drives just OK, not very confortable, diesel engines far from smooth enough for a 7, inside very little different than 5 series... Had one for 3months and sold it.
Otherwise underwelming car. Looks like a 5 series, drives just OK, not very confortable, diesel engines far from smooth enough for a 7, inside very little different than 5 series... Had one for 3months and sold it.
Little did we know!
Looks positively restrained now.
For 20-25k top value for money.
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