New to forum,advice on E34 540i

[Fred/Houston]

Hi,
Howdy, my name is Fred & I reside in Houston. I just bought a 540i last Sunday so I will be keeping up with this forum to learn more about my car.
I stole the car for $1800. It has 176,000 miles and almost everything works perfect in this car. I still can't beleive my good fortune.
I am seeking a front bumper, the drivers window won't open and the seat has a bad cable and only 1 side tilts down.The led light for the alarm doesn't work, and I'm having troubles with the key in the drivers side,it may just need oil.
Everything else works fine and the car runs beautifully. I found a front bumper off of a 525i and I was hoping it would fit my car. I read that the 540i bumpers are different but went to realoem.com and they look exactly the same?
I was hoping to pick up the bumper tomorrow and just wanted to be sure I don't get stuck with it.
Thank you
Fred/Houston
1994 E34 540i
1986 E28 535
1982 E28 533i

[bbig119]

Welcome and congrats on the good find! Post some pictures of your foot fortune when you get a chance. The seat is easy to fix, the alarms are a bit testy on these cars and since they were evolving quickly there are several different renditions making it difficult to find helpful postings. I'm sorry but I don't know the details about whether the bumper for a 540 is different than a 525. I know it can be, but I'd also imagine that the 525 bumper will fit if you want it to.

What year is it? If a 95, I think they had upgraded bumpers and that may be worth looking at.

[632 Regal]

Hi Fred and welcome

The bumper on the 540s have brake duct cooling built in to it. Not sure but I think you can convert that stuff into the 525 bumper but dont hold me responsible if I plain dont know squat.

[Boom n Zoom]

As Regal mentioned the 540's have brake ducts.

I don't know the exact differences between the bumpers but below is a link to add 540 brake ducts to the front bumper.

http://www.bmwe34.net/e34main/upgrade/540_ducts.asp

You can probably remove the old ducts from your original bumper and fit them up to your replacement bumper without too many problems.

OK, had a look on realoem.com the mount points seem to be the same for all the e34 models so fitting won't be a problem you can add the ducts if you want or not, your choice

Cheers!

[Fred/Houston]

Thank you.
That answered my question. I was going to buy a front bumper tomorrow for $250 and found much nicer ones on German ebay for less, even with shipping included.
I couldnt find a difference between the bumpers on realoem either.I'm sure I can find those brake ducts cheaply and will add them if the bumper I buy doesn't already have them.
Fred/Houston

[Kalevera]

Thank you.
That answered my question. I was going to buy a front bumper tomorrow for $250 and found much nicer ones on German ebay for less, even with shipping included.
I couldnt find a difference between the bumpers on realoem either.I'm sure I can find those brake ducts cheaply and will add them if the bumper I buy doesn't already have them.
Fred/Houston

Call me incredulous, but most sellers on german ebay want a few hundred Euro to ship something like a bumper to the US.

Then there's the problem of none of the sellers taking PayPal.

How are you getting around these issues?

[Fred/Houston]

Fortunatly, I have a friend in The Netherlands with a UPS account. I use the German translation engine to talk with the few Germans that don't speak English & it can be very frustrating. My friend in The Netherlands speaks German if I run into a problem.
Paypal is an issue too so I get my brother in Spain to wire the money to Germany since wiring from the U.S. incurs a $65 charge.
Between the cheap price of parts and the expensive price of shipping I pretty much break even vs. buying the part in the U.S.
The only difference is a much wider variety and quantity of items to choose from.
I only buy hard to find or very selective items through German ebay.
Fred/Houston

[Kalevera]

Impressive -- might as well buy an entire M5 body kit.

I know what you mean about the levels of frustration

[Traian]

As Regal mentioned the 540's have brake ducts.

Not all the 540's have brake ducts, only the pre-1995 ones. On the '95 models it's a regular bumper, identical to the other models. I guess that was an 'update' for that model year.

[Boom n Zoom]

Not all the 540's have brake ducts, only the pre-1995 ones. On the '95 models it's a regular bumper, identical to the other models. I guess that was an 'update' for that model year.

Thanks for the info on that Traian, wasn't aware that the '95 was different