M5 E39 to E60 (via a Benz!)
M5 E39 to E60 (via a Benz!)
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sshenton1975

Original Poster:

791 posts

247 months

Saturday 7th June 2014
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Evening all

Bit of an update on the family car situation

Bought an E39 M5 in 2011 to act as my daily driver, having previously had a very late E39 530d M Sport.
The M5 was in LeMans Blue which I absolutely loved. And that engine.....oh yes that engine! The V8 howl was released with a bespoke exhaust system and I enjoyed 15K miles in it without any issue.
I spend some money chasing some rust - typical areas - boot lid, petrol cap etc.


Having its new exhaust fitted


In the end I got fed up with chasing rust and so moved on to 500HP courtesy of a Mercedes CL600 twin turbo



Ive had the Merc for 2 years now and have loved it - made a few mods such as lowering links and bespoke exhaust. The torque on these is addictive and 60mph to 120mph is unbelievable.

So where are we today? Well last weekend I succumbed to M Power once more and traded the Merc for a beautiful E60 M5. I did a lot of research on the problems related to the M5 of this area, in particular clutch, flywheel, SMG etc. I found one at a dealer with very little history but looking very clean - 65K miles on a 55 plate. Did some research and discovered that the car had been owned for 6 years by a city trader for who money was no object. The car therefore has been to BMW dealers only (I have tracked the history) and 500 miles ago received a brand new engine with an invoice for 18k!!!! I am still in the running in period!! At the same time it had its 2nd new flywheel in 5 years and clutch etc

I'll let the pics do the talking



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It's pretty clean to be honest - so far I have had the wheel refurbed properly (tyres off) and repainted in shadow chrome - I loved this finish on my E39 and it works really well on the E60 too.
Ive replaced the bonnet, boot and wheel badges and for now, that's it. Gradually I shall work around the car with my machine polisher but for now I am more than happy to just enjoy the car - especially when you hit the M button and move from 400 to 500 bhp!

Yes, these cars do have a reputation for fragility but hopefully someone else has already taken th hit on my car and I can now enjoy a few months/years without huge bills!

Hope you like

Simon

Hereward

5,000 posts

256 months

Sunday 8th June 2014
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Nice sequence of cars and great pics. Glorious day for a hoon today (well, in Surrey anyway).

Shaoxter

4,563 posts

150 months

Sunday 8th June 2014
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Nice!
Will be a totally different character to your CL600.

sshenton1975 said:
I found one at a dealer with very little history but looking very clean - 65K miles on a 55 plate. Did some research and discovered that the car had been owned for 6 years by a city trader for who money was no object. The car therefore has been to BMW dealers only (I have tracked the history) and 500 miles ago received a brand new engine with an invoice for 18k!!!! I am still in the running in period!! At the same time it had its 2nd new flywheel in 5 years and clutch etc
Surely it would have been more economical to scrap the car for parts? A 65k miles 55 plate doesn't even fetch £18k...