E31 840Ci - first ever BMW (and a daily!)
Discussion
salmanorguk said:
Thanks very much!
Yes they get all sorts at that garage - after the Zafira they had a Citroen DS3 Racing with a lurched engine to sort out and earlier the team had fixed up a DB7.
I've had it just over 3 years now so ideally would like to move this on.
In its plus points are the low mileage (62k) and well optioned specification, however against it, is the current classic car market thats tanked (the E31 seemingly having taken quite a hit - we're seeing cars sell for about £5-7k below value).
And secondly this is ULEZ free and finding interesting, classic, daily drivers as replacements are proving difficult. I would love a Volvo Amazon or Datsun 240/260 but they are quite thin on the ground.
But obviously everything is for sale at the right price so if anyones interested do get in touch!
I've never driven a manual E31, and Im sure it'll be much more engaging than this auto?
It's a shame that you're going to move it on, hopefully it will go to another enthusiast who will look after it and maybe even keep us updated here.Yes they get all sorts at that garage - after the Zafira they had a Citroen DS3 Racing with a lurched engine to sort out and earlier the team had fixed up a DB7.
I've had it just over 3 years now so ideally would like to move this on.
In its plus points are the low mileage (62k) and well optioned specification, however against it, is the current classic car market thats tanked (the E31 seemingly having taken quite a hit - we're seeing cars sell for about £5-7k below value).
And secondly this is ULEZ free and finding interesting, classic, daily drivers as replacements are proving difficult. I would love a Volvo Amazon or Datsun 240/260 but they are quite thin on the ground.
But obviously everything is for sale at the right price so if anyones interested do get in touch!
I've never driven a manual E31, and Im sure it'll be much more engaging than this auto?
I owned my manual 840Ci for about 5 years I think, and very much enjoyed it. I also briefly owned an auto at the same time which I kept for around three months as I much preferred the manual, although to put it into context I was in my 20s back then and lived at the edge of Edinburgh so didn't have much traffic to contend with. That said, the E31 is very much not a sports car so although it was fun to hustle down a B-road with the manual gearbox, you were always reminded that it's a big heavy car more suited to high speed cruising across continents than chasing hot hatches. Manuals are sought after as there are so few of them around (from memory 57 manual 840s were sold in right hand drive worldwide) but with the benefit of age and wisdom I'd say there's probably not much between the manual and auto from a driving enjoyment perspective. Both of mine had much higher mileage than yours (around 140k from memory), but they were also bought (and sold) for much lower prices as they were just seen as old BMWs back then!
The ULEZ expansion is a real pain for cars like these, which are on the verge of classic status and deserve to be cherished, but fall well short of the historic car exemption. It sound like you're aiming for something that will meet the historic definition, which I imagine will make the 840 seem like the pinnacle of reliability
Good luck with the sale and hunt for its replacement.
salmanorguk said:
Thanks MrTidy and JuiceTerry for the kind words!
1st March 2023
Hope everyones been keeping well - time for a small update
Car has been absolutely faultless since the last issue – which was, er… Nov 2022 (so not long!)
Today I had the car serviced and the rear brake discs/pads changed.
I live near Heathrow and the choice was to take it to a very good BMW independent nearby (in Hayes - P&R BMW) or to the specialist who resolved the coolant issue in November, but who are situated in East London, near Ilford.
I decided to go to Ilford, mainly as they solved the last issue, but also as they are one of two specialists the 100 strong E31 Whatsapp group rave about. So a near 90 min, 20 miles commute in morning rush hour along the North Circular was undertaken. A mixture of stop-star traffic and dual carriageways at 50mph returned just 19 mpg – eek.
I know the garage doesn’t look like much, and is very much old school, but the four man crew really know their stuff. The owner has an E31, as well as a few highly strung Italian exotica, and the garage was recently entrusted with mechanically restoring the (OG) Koenig 850CSI, which had sat for a lot of years. I also learnt BMW Manchester tried to fix another E31 but couldn’t so were sending it here tomorrow.
Got to the place on time and promptly wasted about 30min with one of the techs learning about this E-Type Jag outside. Apparently an American barn find, owned by an architect, who had it shipped from California to them for mechanical recommissioning. Obviously very ratty on top, but very shiny inside:
Normally due to its age I find the E31 fights you on everything when spannering but luckily yesterday was straightforward – no seized bolts, no leaks, etc.
To start with all the filters were replaced – air, cabin, fuel, and oil.
The spark plugs were inspected and deemed good with plenty of life left in them – so left them as is:
Then the oil, power steering fluid, brake fluid, screen wash, and a few others were refreshed.
Lastly, we moved onto the brakes and it was clear the rear discs were well past their best! We think they hadn’t been changed for at least 5 years – but no matter – all shiny and new now:
The full visit took a leisurely 5-6 hours and the final bill (which was for parts and labour, sans brake parts that I supplied) was very reasonable. In fact I found it was £290 cheaper than the main Mercedes dealer is charging my dad to do an A service on his C200!
Again drove it back through rush hour, but this time through central London, and this time I got around 22mpg – much better. This morning I took my dad to the Mercedes dealership via the motorway and was getting a very respectable 29mpg – I think once bedded in and on a longer drive I’ll be getting 35mpg.
More importantly car felt a lot tighter and the brakes had a lot more feel. Happy days!
Brilliant update & a fantastic car 1st March 2023
Hope everyones been keeping well - time for a small update
Car has been absolutely faultless since the last issue – which was, er… Nov 2022 (so not long!)
Today I had the car serviced and the rear brake discs/pads changed.
I live near Heathrow and the choice was to take it to a very good BMW independent nearby (in Hayes - P&R BMW) or to the specialist who resolved the coolant issue in November, but who are situated in East London, near Ilford.
I decided to go to Ilford, mainly as they solved the last issue, but also as they are one of two specialists the 100 strong E31 Whatsapp group rave about. So a near 90 min, 20 miles commute in morning rush hour along the North Circular was undertaken. A mixture of stop-star traffic and dual carriageways at 50mph returned just 19 mpg – eek.
I know the garage doesn’t look like much, and is very much old school, but the four man crew really know their stuff. The owner has an E31, as well as a few highly strung Italian exotica, and the garage was recently entrusted with mechanically restoring the (OG) Koenig 850CSI, which had sat for a lot of years. I also learnt BMW Manchester tried to fix another E31 but couldn’t so were sending it here tomorrow.
Got to the place on time and promptly wasted about 30min with one of the techs learning about this E-Type Jag outside. Apparently an American barn find, owned by an architect, who had it shipped from California to them for mechanical recommissioning. Obviously very ratty on top, but very shiny inside:
Normally due to its age I find the E31 fights you on everything when spannering but luckily yesterday was straightforward – no seized bolts, no leaks, etc.
To start with all the filters were replaced – air, cabin, fuel, and oil.
The spark plugs were inspected and deemed good with plenty of life left in them – so left them as is:
Then the oil, power steering fluid, brake fluid, screen wash, and a few others were refreshed.
Lastly, we moved onto the brakes and it was clear the rear discs were well past their best! We think they hadn’t been changed for at least 5 years – but no matter – all shiny and new now:
The full visit took a leisurely 5-6 hours and the final bill (which was for parts and labour, sans brake parts that I supplied) was very reasonable. In fact I found it was £290 cheaper than the main Mercedes dealer is charging my dad to do an A service on his C200!
Again drove it back through rush hour, but this time through central London, and this time I got around 22mpg – much better. This morning I took my dad to the Mercedes dealership via the motorway and was getting a very respectable 29mpg – I think once bedded in and on a longer drive I’ll be getting 35mpg.
More importantly car felt a lot tighter and the brakes had a lot more feel. Happy days!
Always loved these; never been brave enough to buy one!Funnily enough just watched the E31 840i episode on Wheeler Dealers on Apple TV; when WD was proper with Edd China and not the crappy 'before & after' version that it's become now!
d_a_n1979 said:
Brilliant update & a fantastic car Always loved these; never been brave enough to buy one!
Funnily enough just watched the E31 840i episode on Wheeler Dealers on Apple TV; when WD was proper with Edd China and not the crappy 'before & after' version that it's become now!
Thanks Dan - (if you still have it and) if you've taken enough brave pills I wouldnt mind swapping it for your M5! Always loved these; never been brave enough to buy one!Funnily enough just watched the E31 840i episode on Wheeler Dealers on Apple TV; when WD was proper with Edd China and not the crappy 'before & after' version that it's become now!
salmanorguk said:
d_a_n1979 said:
Brilliant update & a fantastic car Always loved these; never been brave enough to buy one!
Funnily enough just watched the E31 840i episode on Wheeler Dealers on Apple TV; when WD was proper with Edd China and not the crappy 'before & after' version that it's become now!
Thanks Dan - (if you still have it and) if you've taken enough brave pills I wouldnt mind swapping it for your M5! Always loved these; never been brave enough to buy one!Funnily enough just watched the E31 840i episode on Wheeler Dealers on Apple TV; when WD was proper with Edd China and not the crappy 'before & after' version that it's become now!
Both long gone now; in an F31 touring now!
d_a_n1979 said:
I've never had an M5 sorry pal... Just my previous E39 touring and then the 540i...
Both long gone now; in an F31 touring now!
Ah Sorry Dan - obviously confusing you with someone else - however the silver Jap import E39 you had was lovely! Hope the F31 is treating you well?Both long gone now; in an F31 touring now!
salmanorguk said:
d_a_n1979 said:
I've never had an M5 sorry pal... Just my previous E39 touring and then the 540i...
Both long gone now; in an F31 touring now!
Ah Sorry Dan - obviously confusing you with someone else - however the silver Jap import E39 you had was lovely! Hope the F31 is treating you well?Both long gone now; in an F31 touring now!
Now if it'd have been a touring, it'd have been a different matter
The F31 is a superb motor though TBH and very glad I've gotten back into a more modern BMW
Hi everyone
Been about three months since the last update so thought a quick one will be fine.
I’ve been continuing to use it as a daily (mostly to work and weekly Tescos shop) and it’s continued to provide reliable motoring – which is very welcome in the current cost of living crisis.
My normal daily route is only 20ish miles but this weekend I took it on a 300 mile trip to visit my sisters up north.
Went Saturday afternoon in boiling sunshine (around 32°c!) and came back yesterday evening in the thunderstorm – here is a still from the dash cam:
Car was reliable and comfortable, music was good, AC was cold, and managed to get 35mpg on the trip. I think for an unnecessarily complicated car powered by a lazy, slow, inefficient 90s V8 you cant really argue with that! (RE mpg, that’s not even the highest value, at one point I got 35.7mpg)
What was nice was quite a few people gave a thumbs up, and parked up at Warwick services I got talking to a few people. Being an introvert it’s a nice way to approach people:
(Its always funny parking it up in a car park - when it was unveiled it was humongous but now its dwarfed by a Ford Mondeo)
Here it is back home – front end completely covered in dead insects and grime. Need to give it a wash now (as well as get round to refurbing the alloy paint - which I've been saying for the last year!).
Been about three months since the last update so thought a quick one will be fine.
I’ve been continuing to use it as a daily (mostly to work and weekly Tescos shop) and it’s continued to provide reliable motoring – which is very welcome in the current cost of living crisis.
My normal daily route is only 20ish miles but this weekend I took it on a 300 mile trip to visit my sisters up north.
Went Saturday afternoon in boiling sunshine (around 32°c!) and came back yesterday evening in the thunderstorm – here is a still from the dash cam:
Car was reliable and comfortable, music was good, AC was cold, and managed to get 35mpg on the trip. I think for an unnecessarily complicated car powered by a lazy, slow, inefficient 90s V8 you cant really argue with that! (RE mpg, that’s not even the highest value, at one point I got 35.7mpg)
What was nice was quite a few people gave a thumbs up, and parked up at Warwick services I got talking to a few people. Being an introvert it’s a nice way to approach people:
(Its always funny parking it up in a car park - when it was unveiled it was humongous but now its dwarfed by a Ford Mondeo)
Here it is back home – front end completely covered in dead insects and grime. Need to give it a wash now (as well as get round to refurbing the alloy paint - which I've been saying for the last year!).
Norton850 said:
Oof that is lovely..
In a sea of bloated,ugly,modern dross it looks cracking..
And smaller than i remember them being..
Thank you very much - appreciate the kind words!In a sea of bloated,ugly,modern dross it looks cracking..
And smaller than i remember them being..
MitchT said:
Read as far as "300 mile trip" and wondered what MPG you might have got. Then continued...
35 is remarkable for an E31 840! My E36 318iS gives me about 35 on a 70mph motorway run! Even the new 840i is reported to give around 35 on a run!
That was a good trip for economy, but I think three things helped:35 is remarkable for an E31 840! My E36 318iS gives me about 35 on a 70mph motorway run! Even the new 840i is reported to give around 35 on a run!
1. I use E5 petrol to fill it up - I think I used Tesco on the way up
2. Majority of the driving was at 60-65mph, and I only had about 10 miles of town driving
3. I was on my own on the way up, with one backpack
On the return journey I had my mum and a suitcase, and despite my mum only weighing around 52ish KG the economy dropped to 31mpg. Normally on a motorway its around 30-32 mpg.
Hi everyone hope you’re all good.
5 months since the last post and had some work done so thought I’d do an update.
In that time car has worked faultlessly, nothing has gone wrong (touches wood frantically), and I’ve really enjoyed slowly wafting about with all the windows lowered (and feeling like a wallowy road-boat).
As the days got colder towards end of September I did notice that the windows took a bit longer to clear.
My very scientific method was to turn the car on, let it idle for 5 minutes, and then drive 0.2 miles to the main road. Last year, when I set off the front screen and windows were clear, and by the time I reached the main road all windows were clear. This year a teacup-saucer-diameter worth of fog patch would remain in the corner of the windscreen.
Having changed the cabin filter, heaters working, pipework (of what I could see) look fine, and a bang-in-the-middle temp needle with no overheating, it was a bit baffling.
I took the car to my mechanic and told him to have a look. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as this then happened
:
Having spent time to find the issue it turned out the heater matrix needed replacing. The old unit had a 5p diameters worth of bent fins in the corner. Our suspicions are one of the previous owners had fitted an aftermarket DAB setup, threading wires between the dash/firewall, and may have damaged it then.
Like horror movies characters who - thanks to their stupidity - get others killed, I wasn’t going to just make my bank balance suffer, and so phoned the warranty company.
According to my mechanic (and others on internet forums) it would take 15-20 hours for the job. According to the warranty company it would take BMW Berry Chiswick 6 hours at £246 per hour for labour
. In the end they agreed to cover the part and 40% of the labour, which still meant the years warranty had paid for itself and put me £200 in the black. 
Car was all put together by the crew and even more amazingly nothing broke. A lot of the dash parts are NLA and expensive as hell, for instance the upper dash vents are £1200, if you can find one that’s not cracked!
I’m just really amazed by the work my mechanic and his crew did – nothing broke, they put it back beautifully (shut lines/gaps all consistent) and ticked off a ‘big boy’ maintenance job in good time. From the outside their shop looks like any other garage but you could say they are knowledgeable artists working there.
Anyway, cars back and filthy (kind of like it that way):
|https://thumbsnap.com/KduwwWsS[/url]
[url]
I’ve had the car for 4 years now and I’m getting a little ‘jaded’ of it, in the sense I can’t change things as it’ll hurt the value or parts are no longer available or they are extortionately priced. I’m strongly thinking of replacing it with a Mk 1 Audi S3 or TT (I know I know) or a Mk 2 Megane 225. Hopefully will have a better idea in next few months.
5 months since the last post and had some work done so thought I’d do an update.
In that time car has worked faultlessly, nothing has gone wrong (touches wood frantically), and I’ve really enjoyed slowly wafting about with all the windows lowered (and feeling like a wallowy road-boat).
As the days got colder towards end of September I did notice that the windows took a bit longer to clear.
My very scientific method was to turn the car on, let it idle for 5 minutes, and then drive 0.2 miles to the main road. Last year, when I set off the front screen and windows were clear, and by the time I reached the main road all windows were clear. This year a teacup-saucer-diameter worth of fog patch would remain in the corner of the windscreen.
Having changed the cabin filter, heaters working, pipework (of what I could see) look fine, and a bang-in-the-middle temp needle with no overheating, it was a bit baffling.
I took the car to my mechanic and told him to have a look. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as this then happened
:Having spent time to find the issue it turned out the heater matrix needed replacing. The old unit had a 5p diameters worth of bent fins in the corner. Our suspicions are one of the previous owners had fitted an aftermarket DAB setup, threading wires between the dash/firewall, and may have damaged it then.
Like horror movies characters who - thanks to their stupidity - get others killed, I wasn’t going to just make my bank balance suffer, and so phoned the warranty company.
According to my mechanic (and others on internet forums) it would take 15-20 hours for the job. According to the warranty company it would take BMW Berry Chiswick 6 hours at £246 per hour for labour
. In the end they agreed to cover the part and 40% of the labour, which still meant the years warranty had paid for itself and put me £200 in the black. Car was all put together by the crew and even more amazingly nothing broke. A lot of the dash parts are NLA and expensive as hell, for instance the upper dash vents are £1200, if you can find one that’s not cracked!
I’m just really amazed by the work my mechanic and his crew did – nothing broke, they put it back beautifully (shut lines/gaps all consistent) and ticked off a ‘big boy’ maintenance job in good time. From the outside their shop looks like any other garage but you could say they are knowledgeable artists working there.
Anyway, cars back and filthy (kind of like it that way):
|https://thumbsnap.com/KduwwWsS[/url][url]I’ve had the car for 4 years now and I’m getting a little ‘jaded’ of it, in the sense I can’t change things as it’ll hurt the value or parts are no longer available or they are extortionately priced. I’m strongly thinking of replacing it with a Mk 1 Audi S3 or TT (I know I know) or a Mk 2 Megane 225. Hopefully will have a better idea in next few months.
d_a_n1979 said:
Wow 
That's hell of a positive outcome though; I think that could have ended most folks ownership...
Good to see it's still up & running
What a great daily
That's hell of a positive outcome though; I think that could have ended most folks ownership...
Good to see it's still up & running
What a great daily
E90_M3Ross said:
Blimey that is one scary image! That's a shame RE many parts being NLA and that you're thinking of moving it on.
I'd love to try one one day but it'll never happen. They're great cars but very rare and getting pricey. Be interesting to see how hard it is to sell.
Thanks both - I needed a lie down when I first saw the images from the mechanic, but they came through well!I'd love to try one one day but it'll never happen. They're great cars but very rare and getting pricey. Be interesting to see how hard it is to sell.
I think the next few weeks will be informative into whether I keep it or not - there’s talk of our work office relocating and if that happens it’ll be stupid to keep commuting in this (currently only 15 miles so it’s ok).
So if you've ever wanted to buy an E31 now might be the time lol
salmanorguk said:
d_a_n1979 said:
Wow
That's hell of a positive outcome though; I think that could have ended most folks ownership...
Good to see it's still up & running
What a great daily
That's hell of a positive outcome though; I think that could have ended most folks ownership...
Good to see it's still up & running
What a great daily
E90_M3Ross said:
Blimey that is one scary image! That's a shame RE many parts being NLA and that you're thinking of moving it on.
I'd love to try one one day but it'll never happen. They're great cars but very rare and getting pricey. Be interesting to see how hard it is to sell.
Thanks both - I needed a lie down when I first saw the images from the mechanic, but they came through well!I'd love to try one one day but it'll never happen. They're great cars but very rare and getting pricey. Be interesting to see how hard it is to sell.
I think the next few weeks will be informative into whether I keep it or not - there’s talk of our work office relocating and if that happens it’ll be stupid to keep commuting in this (currently only 15 miles so it’s ok).
So if you've ever wanted to buy an E31 now might be the time lol
It'll be a superb car for someone
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff