e39 530i

[bodger]

what are these like to live with, what are these scary maintenance bills i am hearing about?

[Alex]

my dad had a 52 reg 530i sport individual spec lovely car and canny quick too

[jamie323i]

Good cars the E39,my father in law had one,usual electrical niggles still apply as do coolant problems,water pump has plastic impellars which have a habit of comming off!!

Steptronic is the gearbox to have for easy re-sale,make sure it is silky smooth,pulls away in 2nd,so dont think its broke!

[Morat]

The weak spot is the cooling system. The expansion tank is plastic and mounted directly on the radiator. They can crack, then dump the coolant.
There are also reports of the rad fan breaking up (mainly in the states so it could be a temperature related thing). If this lets go it can be quite spectacular. Lots of high speed shrapnel capable of exiting through the bonnet, or taking out other parts of the engine.
Water pump as reported.

Otherwise they are great, and a new rad/tank on our 540 only cost about £350 fitted from a main dealer.

Oh, the matrix display loses pixels. Again, replaceable.

[stevotheevo]

i had the manual 525 version for a while, only issue i had was the jerky gear change from first to second, just couldn't get used to it, other than that a fantastic car.