BMW 730d - Any thoughts?

[samuk]

Hi,

I was thinking of buying a 2004 730d, and before i do i thought i would post and check if any one here owns one who can tell me something about the car?

I noticed most 730d of that age have similar milleage..100k? is there a reason for this? i would have expected more?

any faults or common issues with the car?

i do not want to endup with a car that costs me 100's or even 1000's to fix..?

Also do they all come with the same options, as i have noticed there are loaded a fair bit with options..?

so any advise appreciated..

thanks in advance

[The_Doc]

the reason they all have 100k+ is that they do that sort of milleage usually with ease.

where as 100,000 used to be a car's retirement age, it's virtually the Frisky Forties for modern BMWs

[DennisCooper]

Every car over the course of a normal length of ownership time will costs hundreds and usually thousands to 'fix' in mandatory running costs at the very least. I suspect you might mean something that costs hundreds or thousands when it's unexpected. In that case you are out of luck on pretty much ANY car out there. Small niggles, medium niggles and large components failures happen all the time on every car out there - BMW auto gearbox failure - £1500-2250 reconditioned, Idrive controller - £900 new, very hard to find second hand. I'm sure it's the same sorts of costs for other brands and marques.

What you need to do is realistically evaluate the car you'd like with potential issues being thrown up with the realistic size of your wallet and go from there. With BMW's and Mercs/Audi's for that matter, you do need to have some contingency for if/when something expensive does go wrong. There's no hard and fast rule something will break though, theres hundreds of examples of BMW's running on their original gearboxes with no fluid changes at 250K+ miles, and others who did change fluid and it failed at 75K miles....

Cheers, Dennis!

[samuk]

The_Doc said:

the reason they all have 100k+ is that they do that sort of milleage usually with ease.

where as 100,000 used to be a car's retirement age, it's virtually the Frisky Forties for modern BMWs

Yes unwas expecting like 140k+, more then 100k..

7 series seems to be averring 100k mileage..not more..is that not odd?

[gizlaroc]

You have always been able to contract hire new 7 series for around 1/3 of the cost you could buy one with cash and cover depreciation, so many only do 10k miles a year for the first 3 or 4 years, so when it gets to 7 years even if it does 20k miles from then on it means there are a lot at the 100k mile mark.

How much is a 100k 2004 car going for now??

[samuk]

I have been offered one for £7k.

It's allot of a car for that money I think.

Do they all come with the same options?

[nrick]

Hi

Had a 53 plate E65 730d Sport, had the pleasure from 50k to 140k and only gave it up as I had a car thrown in with the new job. I have to say without a shadow of doubt it is one if not the best car I have ever owned. In constant driving 30k-40k a year it never let me down, got me home through the great Gloucester floods, and only cost tyres and servicing.

I jumped out of that into an E60 520d sport auto and although it was a good car, did 100k in it and survived a 7 car pile up and drove home, it was never the same.

When I gave the car back it drove and looked like new. It averaged 38mpg (520d was 44mpg) and could cover mileage like you wouldn't believe.

It had rear ent, silver with black leather, rear phone, auto boot etc.

[bennyboydurham]

I posted up a long term report ages ago about my 55 plate E65 730d. It's done 80k now and is none the worse for it. In fact, non car people are astonished that it's 6 years old.

In short, these are immensely capable cars and if you can stretch to a facelift model (05 on) then you're getting a better car. The vastly improved iDrive and calmed down styling are worth the price of admission alone.
Don't be put off by the size as the E65 can pick up its skirt and hustle along at a pace fast enough for 99% of situations. Reliability-wise it's been pleasantly dependable over 50k miles and 4 years:
-sat nav died (warranty job)
-leak on the cylinder head (warranty job)
-outside passenger door handle failed (warranty job - they replaced the whole door handle assembly at vast cost as it had to be repainted etc)
-rear passenger door handle failed (new cable - £50 indie job)
-outside passenger door failed again (sadly out of warranty and beyond the warranty of the warranty work, annoyingly! £50 indie job - new cable)
-opposite rear door handle failed (see a pattern here - oddly the driver's door get the most use and has been fine!) (on the 'to do' list at the next service)
-the button to open the right hand side armrest compartment lost its paint and then snapped off (probably through me opening and closing it every journey as the phone snap in charger is in there - button was about £5 from the stealer but it was a fair old job to strip down the armrest as the iDrive controller lives there)

And that's about it, not bad for a car with more gadgets than the Space Shuttle. Most of my issues have been niggly and annoying ones rather than wallet killers, touch wood. Service items like oil, filters, brake fluid etc cost no more than any other car I've had.

Option wise I can't speak for the pre-facelift cars (beard fail, I know) but in the post '05 cars you get as standard:

Nav
Bluetooth (late '05 cars and onwards have the 'full' bluetooth which pairs with any phone, earlier cars get a daft BMW phone in a little drawer which you put your SIM into)
Xenons
Electric front seats
High Beam Assist (sensor activates full beam when you enter a dark lane and dips it if a car comes the other way - pretty cool)
Retracting steering wheel

Good luck with the search, it'll be worth it.

Edited by bennyboydurham on Saturday 8th October 22:39