After some thought, I've decided that it would be best for me to sell my m5. I don't want to and never thought I would, but my car situation has gotten stupid and I must buy a practical daily driver. My s54 e30 is 99% finished (100% not practical) and my Land Rover decided to start being a Land Rover recently, so I have lots of stuff to spend $$$ on and not enough to continue to maintain and improve the m5.
The car is very unique to our market, it is Diamondschwarz over black/cloth interior. The paint is very rough and needs to be resprayed everywhere, it's peeling on the roof and creeping down the pillars. There is a dent on the RF fender but other than that the body is extremely straight. The front bumper lower lip is cracked at the seam where it joins the bumper, it could probably be repaired but might as well just get a new bumper. It has genuine Hella smoked tails and smoked front smileys, but the lenses are pretty pitted and one is cracked. There is some lower door trim rust on the drivers side door, but it could be just surface rust, definitely no bubbling or anything like that, I just didn't want to take a chance by pulling the door trim off just to check. I was going to address this when I painted the car. The silver lining here is that since its a euro car there aren't VIN tags on every panel so replacing the door wouldn't be the end of the world. The rear fenders are also rolled heavily but very nicely. The car currently has staggered throwing stars on it with 25mm spacers all around, 245's in the front and 275's in the rear, lots of space for big wheels and tires. I would sell the car with a set of freshly re-finished BBS RC302 Motorsport editions or the M-systems, I think I would prefer to keep the M-systems for the e30.
The interior is in decent condition, the seats are all great except for the drivers side, which has a hole in the center of cloth panel, the dash is in great shape and the carpet is clean. The door panels are typical e34 door panels and they suck. My plan was to buy 1995 door panels and wrap the wood grain pieces with the M-cloth. The headliner was re-done and is decent, not sagging. One of the windows works about half the time, but it's one of the rears and is fairly low on the list of priorities for me. A/C doesn't work, stereo sucks
Mechanically the car needs some work. First, the most important part- the engine. The car has 224k miles on the original s38. It runs awesome and is still extremely quick, sounds great, etc but it does burn oil. Compression numbers are excellent 155-165 across the board IIRC, leakdown is high on two cylinders, I think around 30% cold, the rest of the cylinders were 15% or under. I have this documented somewhere and will try to find it, worst case I'll test it again. During the leakdown air was audible in the crankcase, I'm of the opinion that it needs rings/pistons. My plan was to overbore, buy custom pistons and replace the rod bearings. The pricing on this is not as bad as you would think, the bottom end is definitely not the expensive side when it comes to s38 rebuilds. The car does have new plugs, rebuilt MAF, new injectors (bosch, not lucas), s50 euro tensioner, new thermostat and valve cover gasket. There is more that I've done, as well as a large .pdf of mainenance from the previous 3 owners, but the updated version is on my other laptop, which I bricked the other day in the garage. I still have the .pdf as I received it when I got the car. I've been changing the oil at 3-4k with Lubri-Moly GT1 10-60 or Redline 50wt, it burns about a quart every 1500 miles or so. The car still pulls very very strong on the highway.
The transmission is fine, no issues, and I'm not sure of the age of the clutch but it also feels normal. The diff is a 3.91 and occasionally will grind at low speeds in parking lots and whatnot. The noise went away last time I changed the fluid (mobil75w-90) but eventually came back after 3-4k miles.
The suspension is tired, it is on Eibachs with a coil cut in the front, with koni adjustables all around. I don't know the age of the shocks but I think the fronts need to be rebuilt. It also needs thrust arms as of late, I recently replaced the rotors and pads (Hawk HPS) in the front and the vibration (which I thought was warped rotors) is definitely more noticable now from the thrust arms. I also has some play in the LF tie rod. Hubs feel ok. I will probably replace the arms and bushings, tie rods before it sells.
All in all, it's a bad ass car and I would love to keep it but I simply cannot afford two projects of such proportion on an entry level engineering salary. Not responsibly at least. I get thumbs ups and comments all the time driving it, despite it's rough appearance. If you don't work on your car yourself, be prepared to dump a ton of money into this car, just being honest. This car is for the true enthusiast that is willing and able to tackle a project like this, for me it was this or the e30 and there is no way I can let the e30 go.
I will sell the car for $5,000. If you don't want to pay that, it's ok. I can stuff this thing away in the garage and keep it, but I'd rather see someone else enjoy it
20140917_180935 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_181046 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_181030 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_181008 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_174111 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_174101 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
I can get some better pictures this weekend, the sun was going down when I took these so I could only take pics at certain angles.
I'm sure someone will ask about trades and I don't think I'd be interested in any, I'm looking to buy something reliable that I can drive every day, has cold a/c and I don't have to work on constantly. Naturally, I'm mostly shopping for e39 m5's or MAYBE a really nice e36 m3. I would be willing to trade with cash for the right car but that is unlikely.
The car is very unique to our market, it is Diamondschwarz over black/cloth interior. The paint is very rough and needs to be resprayed everywhere, it's peeling on the roof and creeping down the pillars. There is a dent on the RF fender but other than that the body is extremely straight. The front bumper lower lip is cracked at the seam where it joins the bumper, it could probably be repaired but might as well just get a new bumper. It has genuine Hella smoked tails and smoked front smileys, but the lenses are pretty pitted and one is cracked. There is some lower door trim rust on the drivers side door, but it could be just surface rust, definitely no bubbling or anything like that, I just didn't want to take a chance by pulling the door trim off just to check. I was going to address this when I painted the car. The silver lining here is that since its a euro car there aren't VIN tags on every panel so replacing the door wouldn't be the end of the world. The rear fenders are also rolled heavily but very nicely. The car currently has staggered throwing stars on it with 25mm spacers all around, 245's in the front and 275's in the rear, lots of space for big wheels and tires. I would sell the car with a set of freshly re-finished BBS RC302 Motorsport editions or the M-systems, I think I would prefer to keep the M-systems for the e30.
The interior is in decent condition, the seats are all great except for the drivers side, which has a hole in the center of cloth panel, the dash is in great shape and the carpet is clean. The door panels are typical e34 door panels and they suck. My plan was to buy 1995 door panels and wrap the wood grain pieces with the M-cloth. The headliner was re-done and is decent, not sagging. One of the windows works about half the time, but it's one of the rears and is fairly low on the list of priorities for me. A/C doesn't work, stereo sucks
Mechanically the car needs some work. First, the most important part- the engine. The car has 224k miles on the original s38. It runs awesome and is still extremely quick, sounds great, etc but it does burn oil. Compression numbers are excellent 155-165 across the board IIRC, leakdown is high on two cylinders, I think around 30% cold, the rest of the cylinders were 15% or under. I have this documented somewhere and will try to find it, worst case I'll test it again. During the leakdown air was audible in the crankcase, I'm of the opinion that it needs rings/pistons. My plan was to overbore, buy custom pistons and replace the rod bearings. The pricing on this is not as bad as you would think, the bottom end is definitely not the expensive side when it comes to s38 rebuilds. The car does have new plugs, rebuilt MAF, new injectors (bosch, not lucas), s50 euro tensioner, new thermostat and valve cover gasket. There is more that I've done, as well as a large .pdf of mainenance from the previous 3 owners, but the updated version is on my other laptop, which I bricked the other day in the garage. I still have the .pdf as I received it when I got the car. I've been changing the oil at 3-4k with Lubri-Moly GT1 10-60 or Redline 50wt, it burns about a quart every 1500 miles or so. The car still pulls very very strong on the highway.
The transmission is fine, no issues, and I'm not sure of the age of the clutch but it also feels normal. The diff is a 3.91 and occasionally will grind at low speeds in parking lots and whatnot. The noise went away last time I changed the fluid (mobil75w-90) but eventually came back after 3-4k miles.
The suspension is tired, it is on Eibachs with a coil cut in the front, with koni adjustables all around. I don't know the age of the shocks but I think the fronts need to be rebuilt. It also needs thrust arms as of late, I recently replaced the rotors and pads (Hawk HPS) in the front and the vibration (which I thought was warped rotors) is definitely more noticable now from the thrust arms. I also has some play in the LF tie rod. Hubs feel ok. I will probably replace the arms and bushings, tie rods before it sells.
All in all, it's a bad ass car and I would love to keep it but I simply cannot afford two projects of such proportion on an entry level engineering salary. Not responsibly at least. I get thumbs ups and comments all the time driving it, despite it's rough appearance. If you don't work on your car yourself, be prepared to dump a ton of money into this car, just being honest. This car is for the true enthusiast that is willing and able to tackle a project like this, for me it was this or the e30 and there is no way I can let the e30 go.
I will sell the car for $5,000. If you don't want to pay that, it's ok. I can stuff this thing away in the garage and keep it, but I'd rather see someone else enjoy it
20140917_180935 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_181046 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_181030 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_181008 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_174111 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
20140917_174101 by braswell.jonathan, on Flickr
I can get some better pictures this weekend, the sun was going down when I took these so I could only take pics at certain angles.
I'm sure someone will ask about trades and I don't think I'd be interested in any, I'm looking to buy something reliable that I can drive every day, has cold a/c and I don't have to work on constantly. Naturally, I'm mostly shopping for e39 m5's or MAYBE a really nice e36 m3. I would be willing to trade with cash for the right car but that is unlikely.
Comment