What do you expect from an elderly car?

Seeing how some people have come here with tales of woe regarding a recently purchased E34 I feel compelled to speak.
It's silly to come here and blast the brand that brings us all here. If you're pissed because you were hosed on a used car go shoot the guy who dumped it on you. We don't care to hear you whine.
Your car is, at best, thirteen years old. You paid five grand for a car that was forty new, there is going to be a difference.
Do you have service records? If not then VERY likely your new car wasn't well maintained.
Come to grip with the fact that our old cars aren't new and can't be expected to perform that way.

I'll add my 2c.

I spent six months looking for the car I wanted.

There was plenty I could have bought for less money but buying a 'cheap' Euro car with an unverifiable history will rarely turn out to be cheap in the long run.

You may be lucky and get a true bargain, but more often than not you will wind up with problems that will raise their ugly heads once you take delivery.

Decide what you want, don't buy the first thing you see and look for something that's been maintained and has records to prove it.

However make sure you still get an inspection as records can be doctored.

http://users.net2000.com.au/~rowmat/BMW/books.jpg

If you don't, and get caught with a lemon, don't blame the car.

As already discussed, you're most likely buying a vehicle for maybe 10% of it's original purchase price.

Remember you ain't buying a Honda or a Chevy. ;)

If you can do your own work, these cars are great. But if your at the mercy of a shop....then every trip is a painful experiance.

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Originally Posted by Blitzkrieg Bob

If you can do your own work, these cars are great. But if your at the mercy of a shop....then every trip is a painful experiance.

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A $2,000 repair bill on a $40,000 car is one thing but when the same car is now worth $4,000 that $2,000 bill is half the resale value.
So yes, DIY'ing is a definite cost saver.

My car came with complete service records from 1991 from the man who bought it new, then from his son - documenting all 353 000 km's when I bought it. I bought it with peace of mind.

Then again, sometimes you just get lucky - my Lincoln came with no service records, I bought it on Ebay, and it was super reliable. Roll of the dice indeed.

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Originally Posted by Blitzkrieg Bob

If you can do your own work, these cars are great. But if your at the mercy of a shop....then every trip is a painful experiance.

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every trip in my car is just as grin inducing as yours.I might do a oil change now and then otherwise its all done at an Indy...it does not lessen my enjoyment.I can vouch for the fact that we own special cars...i took a very vey nice 1998 540 six speed for a drive this morning....i was a little apprehensive to get back in the ol 535.....but it was an absolute joy to drive home!

bought my car at 235 000 kms probably one of a handful of 525i's m50s brought australia with a manual gearbox, with full service history it has some problems. but it is a quasi-project car now in that i can learn more mechanical skills and it doesn't cost me bs amount of money. it is what it is, probably the best cruiser ever built in the last 20 years. used to drive 40 kms everyday in the on the motorways of brisbane, easy miles used to get up to 140 kph most mornings on a certain stretch (hehe).

I still have her but she doesn't do much work atm, I have been given rental cars to travel 40 kms to another job site(another company one that is fair with travel), my first was a brand new corolla they can't hold a candle to the e34. next was a kia rio that couldn't hold a candle to either my e34 or sold e28 that was built 25 years ago.
took her for a short spin today to warm her up before changing the oil hehe, i'd forgotten how good she was.

And no I don't listen to people when they say you should get something new, because they obviously got an idea stuck in their head. thats okay, I bought an e28 as my first car (now sold) and this i bought at 22. I am not dead it hasn't killed me still got it 2 years after the fact and i don't owe anything to this car, maybe i should go get a mazda or toyota and get a 20k+ debt?
wrong!

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Originally Posted by repenttokyo

Then again, sometimes you just get lucky - my Lincoln came with no service records, I bought it on Ebay, and it was super reliable. Roll of the dice indeed.

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In early 2000 I bought a Merc 300cd sight unseen from a guy in Los Angeles. He was very upfront (needed an MC, he said, among other more minor points) and accommodating (took the car to a shop of my choice for a PPI) but the transaction was an adventure regardless. We had the shop install a new master, and my wife and I flew out for the 2200-mile drive home to Wisconsin with a handful of wrenches.

For the most part the trip back was uneventful. The diesel motor leaked a bit, of course, so I bought a gallon of oil in Flagstaff as a precaution, and topped off the crankcase a couple times. After a cold overnight stay in Santa Fe, the car got balky at startup -- it took about 15 minutes of cranking, and we left a 2-foot patch of soot on the pavement of the hotel parking lot.

Around Joplin I noticed that the front brake calipers were leaking. By the time we got home one of the rears was losing fluid as well; the fourth gave up shortly after we got home.

Fortunately, it was a Los Angeles car -- the seals on the calipers were shot but there was no trace of corrosion anywhere. I rebuilt all four calipers; have to confess though that one always wanted to squeal a bit after I got done with it.

The car got clobbered on a Milwaukee freeway in June 2003, rear-ended by a kid in a rusty Ford Ranger.

As pointed out on another thread, this forum is to help owners with troubles so one does`nt read all about the good cars! Some of us were lucky enough to get well maintained car and only have to do preventative work, which is a damn sight cheaper than a mitsubarota and nicer to drive! I can see no replacement which works as well,and can be looked after by the owner if he wants, thats why I wemt from a 535d to mine and if anybody recommends a car with bumpers ,I`ll listen!

Me and my brother do as much work as we can and the rest gets done at my reliable indy. My experience with my 525i has been a good one.