Big stuff buying advice is required please.

[wezzer-45's]

Hi ladies and gents.

I'm after some buying advice for my father in law.
He's after a big car with a big engine and lots of toys for about £2500.
It seems that the 7 series fits the bill well, but I have no idea of the bad bits to look out for.

I am a motor technician but unfortunately I have no experiance of big BMW's.
I drive an e30 m3 and my wife drives a 320cd so I know the smaller cars quite well.

With regards to the 7 series, What are the v8 engines, gearboxes and diffs like for high mileage? also how reliable are the electrics as they seem to have electric everything?
Are there any engines to try and avoid and what are the pro's and con's of the 7 series?
It will only be used approx 10 miles per day so the fuel consumption isn't really an issue.
It appears the 750's have everything fitted and seem to be reasonable prices but will these lead to financial suicide if anything goes wrong?

The same goes for the 5 series, Are there any models/engines to avoid, and again, what are the pro's and con's of these cars.

Any advice would be appreciated as I have been set the task of finding a car for him.

Many thanks,
Paul.

[dan101smith]

A top model 7er for £2.5k is very likely to give you trouble. That's the bottom end of the market for the E38, and the E32s are nowhere near the car the E38 is.

If you're looking at a 5 series, then I'd avoid the 535i - all the consumption of the 540i but with similar power to the 530i, and the V8s got different (read: WORSE) steering setups.

He ought to be able to pickup a decent enough 528i for that kind of cash - anything bigger/better and you'd really need to go over it with a fine-tooth comb.

[wezzer-45's]

There seems to be a lot of 7's that look really nice from the adds for between £2500 to £3000.
If I were to buy a V8 or 728 with full history and about 120,000 on the clock, will I have much to worry about?

I agree that some cars in some of the trade adds do look rough, but with some searching there are a few private adds with well looked after, full history cars for this sort of money.

What I really want to know is the danger areas of these cars.
ie, is the nicosil bores still an issue, or were all of the affected cars sorted out by the dealers under warranty, and was this issue only on the V8's or did it affect the 6cylinder cars aswell?

I know my way arround cars, but it's the hiden issues I want to know about.

cheers,

Paul.