Guys, it's been a while... about 3 weeks now, and due to a crapped out camera, I wasn't able to take any pictures. 3 days before my birthday I was rear ended from a complete stop by a guy doing about 50mph on the way back to work. The resulting impact shot me into an SUV in front of me and sent the front end through the engine. Long story short, the car was written off yesterday and I felt really bad about it because I really liked that car.

Here's where things get interesting.

Insurance is paying out my car plus 2 months of medical (medical payment will come at the end of next month). I'm factoring that amount into my "spendable" replacement car money and just signing over my medical to my boss who's fronting the cash in the mean time. I've narrowed my search down to a 95 540/Auto, black/black 91k miles and a 97 E39 540M/6 speed, Canyonrot/Black with 130k miles.

Both are roughly the same price. Both are gorgeous in their own unique ways and both look to be very well maintained by their previous owners. I really wanted an Arctic silver E39, but they're going for 2-3k more than my spending allowance which is why the Canyonrot is fine with me.

Anyway, my concern is the nikasil/alusil thing with the 4-liter V-8's.

* Which was the one to look out for?

* Is there a way I can check if this has been done? (was carfax reported when the dealerships did the warranty engine replacement? is there a -campaign- sticker somewhere stuck in the engine compartment where it shows that "xxx" service was done meaning the engine was replaced?)

The campaign sticker thing was something I used to have to do when I was a mechanic for Chevrolet. We would get recall work sent to us and we would have to put a small 1" x 2" sticker with a code for the kind of repair done for that particular recall.


Last is more of an opinion question ... E39 or E34? I'm leaning toward the 39 since it's a newer model but really loved the 34 I had before as well. Do the 39's drive the same, or better in terms of road-handling, cornering and the like?

Also.. I heard a rumor that the 540's get almost better milage than my 525 did (I averaged 14.9mpg mainly city driving, and have been told by several 540 owners that they average 17-20 in the city!). Is there any truth to their claim?