BMW E39 M5 touring build #2

[BSSBMW]

Being a habitual BMW owner, fettler and all round addict I have got to intimately know the product over the years to a point that there are certain models that I feel comfortable with that I can buy them relatively cheap, be generally reliable and maintain them for not a lot of money yet should the worst happen you can claw back most if not all or in some cases more than what it owes you if you buy right.

E46's and E39's fall into this camp for me and having owned many of them and worked on a ridiculous amount of them they tend to be my go to cheap barge, petrol powered of course with no less than a 2.8 mill powering said barge.

Tourings (estates to the layman) usually take preference for their load capacity for hauling frag and doing dump runs, family stuff etc so several of them have seen action in our household, some of them nice (a manual E39 540i Sport touring, E39 M5 touring build) and some not so nice...... see below.



When our most recent house move was on the horizon a wagon was needed to be used as a tool for aforementioned dump runs and assisting on the day of the move so back in Jan 2020 a trawl through usual places found this E39 528i on FB market place down in Bournemouth.
A tatty 528iSE in Biarritz blue over Sand beige with a few nice options such as glass roof, power seats and MID radio that after the train journey down from East Grinstead it turned out to be even more tatty than in the pics, but upon inspection was good enough to make the journey home and be pressed into use so a deal was struck and £700 handed over.

Six months later it met a grizzly end as while parked next to the road as a wannabe drift c*ck in an MX5 ploughed into it when he lost it on a bend.



Severe damage to the OSF corder bending the chassis rail in the process meant this wagon was on a one way ticket to China.

Every cloud and all that..... their insurance paid out £1200 plus I got to keep the car so cats cut off and that was another £700 back before a mate took the remains off my hands as part of another deal as he wanted the engine out of it.

6 months trouble free service and £1200 up was a lucky win with that one so where are we now on the cheap E39 touring barge front.......?

Between the demise of the Biarritz barge and the present time anther E39 touring came and went in the form of the aforementioned E39 M5 touring build.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

This left a wagon shaped hole in the fleet so this needed to be addressed. I put the feelers out with all my "car mates" that i was on the hunt for another cheap E39 touring and a couple of months passed with several links forwarded to me of potentials which were discounted until at the beginning of Jan a mate sent me a link to an ad on FB market place.





A 170k mile 2002 530i Sport auto in Sterling grey with black leather, a boring combo to me but a popular on one the whole not that really matters that much when we talking cheap bangernomoics barges, but no grey leather! I have a loathing for hush puppy grim grey leather in cars!

Before even contacting the seller I did a reg check and found the spec of the car,

S202A Steptronic
S470A Isofix-System
S520A Fog lights
S853A Language version, English
S210A Dynamic stability control
S227A Sport susp.+low-slung+ride-height ctrl.
S249A Multifunction f steering wheel
S302A Alarm system
S316A automatic trunk lid mechanism
P337A M Sports package
S386A Roof railing
S403A Glass roof, electrical
S428A Warning triangle and first aid kit
S430A Interior/outside mirror with auto dip
S434A Interior surface aluminium
S441A Smoker package
S459A Seat adjustment, electric, with memory
S481A Sports seat
S494A Seat heating driver/passenger
S500A Headl.washer system/intensive cleaning
S508A Park Distance Control (PDC)
S521A Rain sensor
S522A Xenon Light
S534A Automatic air conditioning
S601A TV function
S609A Navigation system Professional
S620A Voice control
S632A Preparation BMW Handy (Motorola)
S677A HiFi system Professional DSP
S694A Provisions for BMW 6 CD changer
S710A M Sports steering wheel, multifunction
S715A M Aerodynamics package
S760A High gloss shadow line
S775A Headlining anthracite
S785A White direction indicator lights
S788A BMW LA wheel, Individual
L812A National version Great Britain
S850A Dummy-SALAPA
S863A Dealer List Europe
S877A Omission of non-combined operation
S880A On-board literature, English

I had struck optionmeister gold! A highly optioned car from new with some highlights being xenons, powered tailagte, heated memory seats, glass roof, DSP hifi, power fold mirrors etc makes a nicer barge to waft about in and should its time come to an end, it has a lot of desirable frag for E39 perverts.

Another plus point was the car was in walking distance from my house so a phone call to the seller and i was on my way round with a jack in the boot of the car to have a gander. Jacking up all four corners revealed none of the usual sill/jacking rust that can afflict E39's now they are old cars nor any rusty brake pipes, we were onto something. Everything electrical on the car worked even the AC blowing cold and even more amazing was none of the high gloss shadow line trim (the hideously expensive gloss black trim around the side windows) was suffering from the usual oxidisation, not that a trivial thing like window trim matters on a cheap barge but surprising to see none the less!

A short road test to make sure the auto box was ok and nothing else untoward confirmed it would be ok then it was time to have a look at the paper work, expecting to see a few old MOT's and the odd Euro car parts receipt normally par for the course with cheap old car fodder......



It transpired that the car was first registered by Barrons BMW Hindhead as a dealer demo hence the high spec which was then sold on at 3 months old and stayed in the same family till a couple of years ago when the current owner bought it.
I was shocked to flick through what turned out to be a car that only ever went to a BMW dealer up till 2017 apart from tyres, wheel alignment and the odd MOT and local tyre fit places. Some big dealer bills were in that lot including new shocks and springs all round at about 130k miles, most of the cooling system replaced, brakes, thew CCV system plus other bits and pieces.
It even had the original bill of sale as an approved used car at 3 months old for the princely sum of £19795 plus a T reg Audi Avant with a trade in value of £16200!

This was gold dust and stuff that excites the inner dork in me, hell they even had all the invoices for renewing the tracker subscription!

So after that distraction back to the car, it had recently failed an MOT on two front tyres, head light aim and a sharp edge on the driver door mirror where it had been hit.
The seller was moving the car on as he needed a van for work so had put a pair of tyres on the front, taped up the mirror and had not got round to sorting the headlights and after hitting a fox the plastic front sport bumper exploded just like old Mondeo ones did so was replaced with a copy one from ebay that was still in bare black plastic. With an offer accepted, I left my other car there, I drove the wagon 5 min home on trade plates then walked back and picked up my M3.

So there we have it, back in a daily bangernomics barge that needed a bit of work but In actual fact had to bones of making into a nice E39 despite the mileage.

Edited by BSSBMW on Saturday 8th October 15:23

[d_a_n1979]

Perfect; another decent touring and a 530i Sport at that

We'll just wait quietly by the side until you finally decide to shoehorn another S62 in there

[Court_S]

That looks like a pretty tidy find, especially one so close to home and with a good service history.

[BSSBMW]

d_a_n1979 said:

Perfect; another decent touring and a 530i Sport at that

We'll just wait quietly by the side until you finally decide to shoehorn another S62 in there

Haha!

I would be lying if I said another project hadn't crossed by mind as this car has so many of the options already that needed to be retro fitted on the last one to get it to the same spec as an M5 but the price of E39 M5's and parts have shot up since I bought the last one in 2020 so I don't think if would be economically viable this time but you never know what the future holds!

Maybe if the engine of box die in this something will happen but I can't see that happening anytime soon.

[Sf_Manta]

Now that's a car despite being a banger nomics.. worthy of some light restoration to bring it back to a tidy example.
That's the thing about milleage, it's not really an issue SO long as maintenance is kept up with. I'd go on condition and how the car was maintained (history) over milleage.

[BSSBMW]

Sf_Manta said:

Now that's a car despite being a banger nomics.. worthy of some light restoration to bring it back to a tidy example.
That's the thing about milleage, it's not really an issue SO long as maintenance is kept up with. I'd go on condition and how the car was maintained (history) over milleage.

Upon closer inspection it seems that this car does deserve better than being run as a banger like the blue 528i but you have to draw the line and not get too carried away, especially when I have other cars more worth of attention.

You are right though re condition over mileage. Mileage hasn't fazed me too much in the past on certain cars, I once bought a 10 year old E46 328Ci with 217k miles for a £1000 and ran that for a year and 11000 miles before selling it on at 228k miles still going strong not using a drop of oil!

[Sf_Manta]

BSSBMW said:

Sf_Manta said:

Now that's a car despite being a banger nomics.. worthy of some light restoration to bring it back to a tidy example.
That's the thing about milleage, it's not really an issue SO long as maintenance is kept up with. I'd go on condition and how the car was maintained (history) over milleage.

Upon closer inspection it seems that this car does deserve better than being run as a banger like the blue 528i but you have to draw the line and not get too carried away, especially when I have other cars more worth of attention.

You are right though re condition over mileage. Mileage hasn't fazed me too much in the past on certain cars, I once bought a 10 year old E46 328Ci with 217k miles for a £1000 and ran that for a year and 11000 miles before selling it on at 228k miles still going strong not using a drop of oil!

Fair point!, though I'd go as far as fixing the mirror and get the bumper resprayed so it's at least presentable.

[Court_S]

Sf_Manta said:

Fair point!, though I'd go as far as fixing the mirror and get the bumper resprayed so it's at least presentable.

I agree, it’s too nice to be treated like a stter (and I’m not even an E39 pervert!).

[BSSBMW]

Sf_Manta said:

Fair point!, though I'd go as far as fixing the mirror and get the bumper resprayed so it's at least presentable.

Indeed and it is on the list of things to do......



Having bought the car with a recent MOT failure it it was time to sort that out and have a good poke about to see where we were at with it. As mentioned it had failed on two front tyres, a sharp edge on the drivers mirror and head lamp aim which was due to the usual broken E39 adjusters.
The PO had gone as far to tape up the door mirror, put a pair of budget tyres on the front but had done nothing about the headlights. As soon as I got the car home they were whipped off and given to one of my techs to sort out as he has a little side line in refurbing E39 headlights so a new set of adjusters and a polish up then fitted back on the car meant a fresh years MOT.

While on the ramp I found it had virtually new Yokohamas on the rear, recent rear pads and discs plus recent drive belts and a general lack of corrosion for a 20 year old E39 and no play in any of the ball joints although some of the bushes are starting to look past their best, notably the four rear subframe bushes and front ARB bushes.

[



What was very apparent was a couple of oil leaks, one from the rocker cover gasket and one from the sump gasket but not the common M52/4 oil filter housing gasket. The car was also over due a service so as the oil was going to be drained down it made sense to tackle the leaks at the same time.



[

Sump and rocker cover off revealed reasonably clean internals of the M54B30 engine.



A "Value line" Inspection 2 service kit ordered from BMW along with the relevant gaskets needed to fix the leaks.



Sump back all cleaned up and back on.



Air filter was 10 years old! It may have been sitting on a shelf in a BMW dealers parts department for a while before being sold and fitted, I would need to read back through all the invoices to see when it had its last inspection 2 service as the air filter only gets replaced on that service.



A brake fluid change was also done as that was looking decidedly old and is meant to be replaced every couple of years. The PO hadn't done any servicing in the two years he had it bar an oil and filter change so I seem to have caught it in time before it declined into poor maintenance which would have been a shame considering the first few owners who kept on top of it.



Inspection 2 service complete, The engine bay looks like it has never been cleaned in 20 years so that will need to be addressed at some point.



When looking thought the history I found that it had the radiator replaced by a BMW dealer about 7 years ago which that was still in good order but the fan cowling was clearly the original and at 20 years old its suffered from being brittle from all the heat cycles. It supports the expansion tank and as can be seen its broken where that mounts so this needs replacing and whilst there, a new plastic fan blade will be a wise move as these can shatter jettisoning the blades into the bonnet.

Fully serviced, MOT'd and comfortable with it being safe enough to be pressed into daily service.

[GrantD5]

Nice work, bookmarked. I have an M54 X3 so I'll be following.

[Jhonno]

Nice.. I can see this snowballing..

[Cambs_Stuart]

That looks like a great buy, it's obviously a car that's had a lot of attention until recently.

[pistonheadforum]

Really interested in following this OP as I have an older e39 530d touring manual (2001) sitting in a shed with a valid MOT and I'm wondering what to do with it.

No garages really want to touch it as it's much more a thing of love to keep it on the road.

Everybody says scrap it, but it’s a great car to own and use and I have managed to avoid any huge bills as yet. Possibly as it's a manual.

I genuinely don't know what to do with it and would love to just put aside a couple of thousand to do just enough to keep it on the road so very jealous that you have the skills to do this inhouse.

I get the feeling the e39 530d touring might be a future classic but at the moment I don’t know where to start.

[Its Just Adz]

Nice thread, such a great looking car.

[BSSBMW]

Jhonno said:

Nice.. I can see this snowballing..

Need to be sensible with this one but........ it is a good base to start with.

[BSSBMW]

Cambs_Stuart said:

That looks like a great buy, it's obviously a car that's had a lot of attention until recently.

It's amazing how quickly a car can decline with in a short space of time with one person so luckily its not deteriorated too much.

[BSSBMW]

The black sport leather interior has faired extremely well considering the age and mileage, I have seen plenty of other E39's with interiors in much worse shape with broken switch gear, thread bear bolsters, filthy shiny leather and lots of squeaks and rattles. The original M sport steering wheel and the aluminium trim and leather gear knob being the rear main giveaways that the car has done 170k miles from the inside.



None of the common dead pixels on the monitor. I swapped out the CD rom based sat nav computer for the later DVD based one and upgraded to version 32 software.




The old traffic master system still fitted and powering up. These are often disconnected as they could be a source of battery drains on this era of BMW.

What looks like graphics from an 80's games console but in a 00's car!





I gave the seats a clean a scrub with some leather cleaner plus a quick wipe down of the plastics with some Megs APC.

The interior took some vacuuming as well as there was plenty of wood dust everywhere due to the PO being a chippy by trade and using it for work.

A deeper clean is on the cards with removal of the seats and some of the plastic to get better access and reach all of the infernal wood dust!





A nice condition full leather gear knob left over from the 540i touring during the M5 touring build and a spare steering wheel left over from my M3 which is identical other that the M tri colour stitching and that it had covered 100k less miles of use! All contributing to making it a more pleasant place to be.

[BSSBMW]

Really letting the side down on the tourings overall appearance was the drivers door mirror and front bumper. The PO had taped up the mirror as it had failed the MOT on a sharp edge but this wouldn't do so a new outer trim and front cover were ordered up.







Back from the bodyshop, mirror cover and the copy front bumper painted so a wash kicking off with Bilt hamber snow foam and a good going over in all the nooks with some Megs APC has made the touring that bit more presentable with mainly the wheels letting the side down now.

The fit on the bumper isn't great to be honest especially where it meets the wheel arches and it took a lot of prep work to get a decent paint finish so I wouldn't recommend buying one if in need, just pay the extra and get a genuine one but as it was on the car already it would do for now.





Pressed into service in its natural habitat making use of the load capacity and self leveling suspension

[d_a_n1979]

Looks a solid car Barry... I'm very jealous

[jackcactii]

Even if it's a bit of a shed, I would've at least put a rag down under the stuff