05-02-2013, 12:29 PM
H'okay. As a good bunch of you know, my gf Lauren rocks a 2000 Orient Blau/Dove Gray BMW 540i Sport because it takes no less than 320tqs to get her to her office 1.2 miles down the street. As you would expect with a 136k mile, 13 year old, $65k MSRP German sport sedan, some shit is broken on it. After diagnosing all the current issues and tallying up the damage I issued an ultimatum. Either we sell it as it sits and buy something newer with a bit of warranty left on it and lower operating costs, or we go full commitment and bring back all its former glory. She poked around and cannot find a car under $15k that she likes half as much this old money pit, so full commitment we go.
I don't have many pictures of the old girl but this will do for now. I'll add plenty once we start accomplishing things on it.
![[Image: wllCi.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/wllCi.jpg)
The Backstory:
In college she was driving a rental car special Altima, beige paint over beige cloth seats and she absolutely hated it. It has 110k miles and was starting to have intermittent electrical issues. She has also rear ended a pickup truck and been in a few other altercations, so it really wasn't much to look at. She decided she wanted to replace it all together and we spent 6 months test driving everything under the sun. We looked at RX-8s, new Scion TCs, an MKV GTI, E46 3-series and a bunch of other stuff.
We just happened to see this car lurking in the sales lot at Mid-Atlantic with 110k miles on it for a smidge under $11k. Turns out it was a single owner car and the guy had been anal retentive about maintenance, and aside from a power steering line, needed nothing. We test drove it (with Jake I think) and she kinda-sorta liked it but wasn't sure if she wanted a Blue car. She spent the entire next week stressing about whether it had been sold, so we went back the next Saturday and took it on an extended test drive and this time she was hooked on it. We sat down with Greg to talk bidness and he said "Ok, I'm going to give you a no bullshit, bottom dollar price, I can sell you the car for $9400." I said "ok." and we did the paperwork on the spot.
In the past two years she's put ~26k on the car and for all intents and purposes its been really good to us. I'm not sure if I can remember all the issues off the top of my head, but I think it was something like:
-New PS lines installed by Mid-Atlantic for ~$400
-ABS Module failed (common on these cars because they put the delicate electronics 6" above the right headers) so I had it rebuilt with a lifetime warranty for ~$170
-Driver's side headlight balast failed (pretty weird thing to break) ~$100
-Both front window regulators snapped because its an E39 ~$150?
-Coolant Expansion tank busted ~$80
-Valve Cover Gaskets + Serpentine Belts ~$100
Considering the rap sheet most owners of high mileage 540is rack up in two years, this has been a pretty solid car, thank Jeebus for PO's that fix things when they break. Still, short of doing a Rotisserie style restoration at 100k, you're just not going to get away with owning a high mileage 540i and not having to do anything to it, and this one is no exception.
The Situation:
-The Valley Pan Gasket and Intake Manifold gaskets are all but non-existent at this point. The car is hemorrhaging coolant from the right rear corner of the valley pan, and the intake manifold gaskets are causing some knarly vacuum leaks, it idles like its got some crazy ass cams in it right now. The repair requires removing the intake manifold and valley pan and basically replacing every gasket as you put it back together.
-The front suspension needs refreshing. Again, thanks to our Good Guy PO, the tie rods and sway bar end links are tighter than a nun's knees. Unfortunately the front shocks, control arms AND thrust arms are all starting to go. None of them are shredded, but with all of them a bit worn out and the weight of that M62 on top of them is causing a lot of wandering and shimmying at highway speeds, especially under braking when the weight transfers to the front of the car.
-Here's the fun one. The car likely has several oil leaks. The Valve Cover Gaskets were the worst ones, but I think something in the bay is also leaking. Could be from the oil filter housing or maybe I'm just seeing residual from the VCG. Unfortunately, I'm 99% sure the rear main seal is leaking. Quite badly. Its a $30 part and at least an entire weekend's worth of work to drop the trans, if not more.
-The entire car needs a cosmetic refurb. Headlights are cloudy, paint is starting to fade and oxidize, especially on the plastic parts like the door handles. The interior is in pretty good condition but the light gray seats are brown from grit and grime and the entire interior needs a very deep cleaning. I also need to re-wrap the trim to clean up the rough spots from where I did it 2 years ago.
The Plan:
We're going to chunk this shit out into a few major battles to spread out the cost and work.
Step 1: Valley pan/Intake Manifold gaskets/other stuff that looks brittle and leaky in the general vicinity. We're also going to give the entire engine bay and under carriage an extremely thorough cleaning so that we can identify everything that's still leaking. Should cost no more than $250-275, planning to knock it out the weekend after Mother's day. If the project goes well we might start on some of the cosmetic stuff.
Step 2: Suspension. Luckily all the parts can be replaced without jacking up the alignment, and it actually looks like a fairly simple project all things considered. The prices I have worked up now come to about $700, but I'm going to see if I can find some used or bought-but-not-installed shocks or something to soften the blow. We'll hopefully get that knocked out a month or so after the first attack.
Step 3: Oil leaks and rear main seal. The parts for this are going to be dirt cheap, but I'm going to have to crowd source a lot of help to drop that big ass automatic out of there in a reasonable amount of time without crushing myself.
Step 4: Finish up the rest of the cosmetic work and any of the small stuff I'm not thinking about. She's always wanted it to be louder, so we might drop it off at my shop and have them chop out the resonator or rear can to give it a more noticeable V8 growl. I could also stick a cone filter on the end of the Maf and cobble together a heat shield for that wooshy intake sound.
Step 5: Let her flaunt her stuff at Bimmerfest East this year instead of taking the E36. Because my girlfriend's car has more displacement than your girlfriend's car.
If anyone is willing and able to come help turn wrenches and wrestle parts into place during the suspension and rear main seal projects, they would be rewarded handsomely with copious amounts of food and beer, and have our eternal gratitude.
I don't have many pictures of the old girl but this will do for now. I'll add plenty once we start accomplishing things on it.
The Backstory:
In college she was driving a rental car special Altima, beige paint over beige cloth seats and she absolutely hated it. It has 110k miles and was starting to have intermittent electrical issues. She has also rear ended a pickup truck and been in a few other altercations, so it really wasn't much to look at. She decided she wanted to replace it all together and we spent 6 months test driving everything under the sun. We looked at RX-8s, new Scion TCs, an MKV GTI, E46 3-series and a bunch of other stuff.
We just happened to see this car lurking in the sales lot at Mid-Atlantic with 110k miles on it for a smidge under $11k. Turns out it was a single owner car and the guy had been anal retentive about maintenance, and aside from a power steering line, needed nothing. We test drove it (with Jake I think) and she kinda-sorta liked it but wasn't sure if she wanted a Blue car. She spent the entire next week stressing about whether it had been sold, so we went back the next Saturday and took it on an extended test drive and this time she was hooked on it. We sat down with Greg to talk bidness and he said "Ok, I'm going to give you a no bullshit, bottom dollar price, I can sell you the car for $9400." I said "ok." and we did the paperwork on the spot.
In the past two years she's put ~26k on the car and for all intents and purposes its been really good to us. I'm not sure if I can remember all the issues off the top of my head, but I think it was something like:
-New PS lines installed by Mid-Atlantic for ~$400
-ABS Module failed (common on these cars because they put the delicate electronics 6" above the right headers) so I had it rebuilt with a lifetime warranty for ~$170
-Driver's side headlight balast failed (pretty weird thing to break) ~$100
-Both front window regulators snapped because its an E39 ~$150?
-Coolant Expansion tank busted ~$80
-Valve Cover Gaskets + Serpentine Belts ~$100
Considering the rap sheet most owners of high mileage 540is rack up in two years, this has been a pretty solid car, thank Jeebus for PO's that fix things when they break. Still, short of doing a Rotisserie style restoration at 100k, you're just not going to get away with owning a high mileage 540i and not having to do anything to it, and this one is no exception.
The Situation:
-The Valley Pan Gasket and Intake Manifold gaskets are all but non-existent at this point. The car is hemorrhaging coolant from the right rear corner of the valley pan, and the intake manifold gaskets are causing some knarly vacuum leaks, it idles like its got some crazy ass cams in it right now. The repair requires removing the intake manifold and valley pan and basically replacing every gasket as you put it back together.
-The front suspension needs refreshing. Again, thanks to our Good Guy PO, the tie rods and sway bar end links are tighter than a nun's knees. Unfortunately the front shocks, control arms AND thrust arms are all starting to go. None of them are shredded, but with all of them a bit worn out and the weight of that M62 on top of them is causing a lot of wandering and shimmying at highway speeds, especially under braking when the weight transfers to the front of the car.
-Here's the fun one. The car likely has several oil leaks. The Valve Cover Gaskets were the worst ones, but I think something in the bay is also leaking. Could be from the oil filter housing or maybe I'm just seeing residual from the VCG. Unfortunately, I'm 99% sure the rear main seal is leaking. Quite badly. Its a $30 part and at least an entire weekend's worth of work to drop the trans, if not more.
-The entire car needs a cosmetic refurb. Headlights are cloudy, paint is starting to fade and oxidize, especially on the plastic parts like the door handles. The interior is in pretty good condition but the light gray seats are brown from grit and grime and the entire interior needs a very deep cleaning. I also need to re-wrap the trim to clean up the rough spots from where I did it 2 years ago.
The Plan:
We're going to chunk this shit out into a few major battles to spread out the cost and work.
Step 1: Valley pan/Intake Manifold gaskets/other stuff that looks brittle and leaky in the general vicinity. We're also going to give the entire engine bay and under carriage an extremely thorough cleaning so that we can identify everything that's still leaking. Should cost no more than $250-275, planning to knock it out the weekend after Mother's day. If the project goes well we might start on some of the cosmetic stuff.
Step 2: Suspension. Luckily all the parts can be replaced without jacking up the alignment, and it actually looks like a fairly simple project all things considered. The prices I have worked up now come to about $700, but I'm going to see if I can find some used or bought-but-not-installed shocks or something to soften the blow. We'll hopefully get that knocked out a month or so after the first attack.
Step 3: Oil leaks and rear main seal. The parts for this are going to be dirt cheap, but I'm going to have to crowd source a lot of help to drop that big ass automatic out of there in a reasonable amount of time without crushing myself.
Step 4: Finish up the rest of the cosmetic work and any of the small stuff I'm not thinking about. She's always wanted it to be louder, so we might drop it off at my shop and have them chop out the resonator or rear can to give it a more noticeable V8 growl. I could also stick a cone filter on the end of the Maf and cobble together a heat shield for that wooshy intake sound.
Step 5: Let her flaunt her stuff at Bimmerfest East this year instead of taking the E36. Because my girlfriend's car has more displacement than your girlfriend's car.
If anyone is willing and able to come help turn wrenches and wrestle parts into place during the suspension and rear main seal projects, they would be rewarded handsomely with copious amounts of food and beer, and have our eternal gratitude.
Now: 07 Porsche Cayman S | 18 VW Tiguan
Then: 18 VW GTI Autobahn | 95 BMW M3 | 15 VW GTI SE | 12 Kia Optima SX | 2009 VW GTI | 00 BMW 540i Sport | 90 Mazda Miata | 94 Yamaha FZR600R | 1993 Suzuki GS500E | 2003 BMW 325i | 95 Saab 900S
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