e39 540i Touring

[lcs_turbo]

Have been looking for an interesting estate for £4k ish. I was very excited when this popped up on Autotrader today:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

When running an MOT history check, over the past 7 years or so there are some dodgy looking entries:

2012 - Mileage - 96509
2013 - Mileage - No odometer
2014 - Mileage - Unreadable
2015 - Mileage - 111001
2016 - Mileage - 116024
2017 - Mileage - Unreadable
2018 - Mileage - 127973

What do you think the true mileage has been over this time?

[lcs_turbo]

Or am I being cynical and perhaps the pixels on the dash have gone?

[tomble22]

The advert certainly screams something!!

Problem is from 96k to 111k (over 3 years) you've got no real idea of the mileage done. At 5,000 a year it's not particulalry unrealistic i suppose. The BMW dashes of that era are known for problems with missing pixels as well.

[defblade]

That's not massive miles for this car... on the whole I'd hope it'd be fine

The ribbons feeding the displays for the dash and the centre consoles are fairly easy to replace if you take your time about it, less than £20 a pop IIRC.

Also possible a bulb has gone behind the display, making it hard to read? (I know some of the dash lights are surface mount LEDs, but I have a feeling the display back lights and dial lights are good old fashioned filaments.)

If the miles have been tampered with, the dash display puts a dot up by the number like this, unless the Light Control Module which carries a backup/cross-check record of the miles is replaced/reprogrammed at the same time.


Out of 47 photos, you'd think they'd manage to put one up of the dash, though, wouldn't you?! It's not as if you wouldn't notice the second you turned the car on! Or as if it's an unusual problem on these...