Ok.

Lets say you have £6k to spend.

Car must not be massively expensive to run, but must be reasonably fast. 25mpg+ and a budget of about £1600 a year to cover all running costs except fuel. It must also have a decent sized boot and preferably be a 4 door although a coupe is not out of the question as long as it has decent sized back seats.

My thoughts have been

E46 232/325/328/330

E39 528/530

A couple of more interesting thoughts have been

E36 M3 but i'm guessing running costs could be too high

E39 540 bad MPG but you can pick up a decent one for £4k which would leave change for an LPG conversion. Same for 740 but I expect servicing/parts would get silly.

Also any savings on purchase price can be hung onto to cover unexpected repairs, so it the car costs 4k then 2k in the bank to pay any big bills.

Any thoughts?

Peter Fenwick wrote: Ok. Lets say you have £6k to spend. E39 540 bad MPG but you can pick up a decent one for £4k which would leave change for an LPG conversion.

Use the extra £2k to put towards fuel?

I personnaly would avoid a LPG conversion purely on the fact that I would need to go well out of my way to find a filling station that actually sells the chuffin' gas in my area.  If LPG is easy to get hold of in your area, go for it.

Does your £1,600 running cost allowance incl road tax and insurance?

After today, I will have completed a years worth of cost recordings for my car inc fuel.  I'll be interested to see what my figures are.  Off the top of my head, I'm adding upwards of £1,600 inc tax and insurance.

Another thought has sprung to mind.

If you are looking to put a kiddie seat in the back of the car, have a think about ISOfix points.  Not sure what BMW models have them fitted but basically it is a locating lug that allows you to attach a kiddie seat directly to the chassis rather than using a seat belt.

The pre facelift E39s didn't have ISOfix in the rear, not sure about post facelift models.

The E46 might have them, her pal who has the E46 based Compact has ISOfix as standard and uses an ISOfix kiddie seat for carting around her sprog.

£1600 is to cover everything. So tax, insurance servicing and tyres.

It's actually £1680. I put aside £140 a month and this pays for everything.

The LPG conversion was just a daft idea. I also wouldn't put money aside to pay for fuel. On refelction a V8 is just going to be too juicy. I also suspect that the servicing is another step up from the 6cylinder cars.

To be honest a good clean E36 low milage 328 would be ideal. I'd be able to buy one for well under £3k, possibly closer to £2k so I'd be able to put any problems right, fit an M50 manifold and enjoy. Insurance isn't going to be too bad, tax is £180, mpg is 26-28 around the doors and 35 on a long run and i'd have a chunk left to do something else with. My only issue is Nikasil.

Oh, not fussed about isofix although it might be useful.

As an aside, I have noticed that Saab 9-3 2.0ts are a very nice price. 6k will get a 2003/4 car with 50k on the clock and might even stretch to an Aero 2.0T. Evo rate them as drivers cars with makes a change for Saab and you get so much more for your money than a BMW. For 6k the best 3 series is going to be a 2000/01 330 or 325.

Much as I love BMW when you look at the prices they are very expensive for what you get, especially if your looking at 3 series.

OK - by process of elimination....

M52 E46 - engines bulletproof, biggest concern would be the floorpan issue.  At this stage, because of cost of repair vs. value of car, an issue like that would turn a nice car in to a scrapper.  Eliminated.

M54 e46 - floorpan solved but the m54 likes a little drink of oil.  Eliminated.

M54 E39 - fairly bulletproof, except M54 prone to the same thirst as above.  Eliminated.

M52 e39 (dual Vanos, so 1999 or 2000) - by a process of elimination, the winner.  No fundamental engine concerns, body is fairly rust resistant, plenty of space, comfort and reasonable economy.  Best of all, the price point allows you to pay top money for the best car and still have plenty of change from your budget.  Little to choose between 520i, 523i or 528i in terms of economy or servicing, etc. so no reason not to have a 528i.

Been having the same debate myself contemplating a replacement for my e39.

Tell me more about this floorpan issue.

M54 oil consumpsion. Yes my 530 did drink about 500ml every 1000miles although this varied depending on how enthusiasticly I drove. I never found it too much of a problem but I suppose I could end up with a car that is supping 1 litre every 1000miles without fail.

An e39 528 does sound good. The best ones don't go for more than about 4-5k and I should be able to find one with a decent spec. The trouble is i've owned an 530 so it's like treading the same ground as before but just not as good if you know what I mean.

Peter

The floorpan issue is one that goes back to the e36.  Where the rear subframe connects to the floorpan they can develop a tear in the floorpan.  My understanding is that the turning effect of the wheels/axle creates a stress/force that can rip the weld points on floorpan.  This was (is) a known e36 potential problem and more prevalent on the larger engined cars, presumably because the extra power/torque increases the twist effect.

There are weld points forward and rear of the axle on each side.  When the e46 came out the reinforced the forward weld points on either side.  My assumption is that this increases the stress on the rear points, or more specifically the nearside rear weld point (because of the main direction of turn/torque in the drive because on the e46 the failure point is almost always around the nearside rear subframe mount.  There are a couple of links attached to give you a sense of what its about, including one related to my sisters car.  This isn't an engineering answer so excuse the crudity of the explanation!

BMW have repaired a lot of cars, including my sisters, as goodwill gestures but I don't know if they are still doing it, my experience was a couple of years ago.  The proper repair involves basically striiping the rear end of the car, cutting out the centre of the floorpan and welding in a new section.  If you do a nose about on realoem you'll find that there is a specific part number for the replacement floorpan section (see part 1 on link below).  Between parts and labour there's a couple of grands work in it.  There are patch-it type fixes but not sure how effective.

BMW then updated the e46, in line with the introduction of the m54 engines in 2000 and reinforced the rear mount points too so there have been few issues on those.  When I was checking it out for my sister I did find that there were practically no other Tourings affected that I could find.  In her case it failed at about 6 1/2 years old with less that 60k miles.  The car was never abused and was more a family hold-all than a load lugger.

http://www.bavarian-board.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=34492&KW=floorpan - http://www.bavarian-board.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=34492&am p;am p;am p;KW=floorpan

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=230988&highlight=subframe - http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=230988&hig hlight=subframe

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5153753 - http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5153753

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=AR52&mospid=47670&btnr=41_1267&hg=41&fg=25 - http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=AR52&mospi d=47670&btnr=41_1267&hg=41&fg=25

Re. the m54 engine.  My main concern about it isn't particularly the consumption but more about the long term effect of a car regularly running low on oil because people don't dip their cars too often.  My nikasil 523i still feels and runs like a new engine at 140k+.  Not too sure if a neglected M54 would feel or sound so good at similar miles. 

The 3.0 is a peach of an engine, really loved the power and delivery in my recently departed 330 but having driven my sisters 328i alongside the 330 its not too much of a poor relation unless you are really given it loads all the time.  In fact, her touring is a contender for replacing the 5 because I know the floorpan has been done and the M52 in these is pretty robust (overheating problems see to be the only real killer of them).

BTW. the other thing that I would personally avoid is any of the diesels.  Fab engines but there are too many stories of potential woe (swirl flaps, turbo's, fuel pumps, etc.) to make the extra few mpg worth the risk against potental bills of well in to 4 figures for the cheapest of these.

Don't worry, not going near a diesel!

My problem is by the time you discount all the cars that have potential problems, there are practically none left.

I do wonder about BMW when they do seem to have more than their fare share of serious problems like Nikasil, vanos etc

Peter Fenwick wrote: Don't worry, not going near a diesel!

Glad to hear it Sir!

Peter Fenwick wrote: My problem is by the time you discount all the cars that have potential problems, there are practically none left.

I wouldn't rule any of them out, just take some extra care to check for the big ticket issues and ideally buy a one owner from new car direct from the owner! 

Otherwise, for the safest bet, buy the nicest m52 engined '99 or '00 you can find, bought on condition and history first and mileage second.

Dergside wrote: and ideally buy a one owner from new car direct from the owner!

Not easy to find especialy given my desire for a manual and a car that isn't green or silver. Add these things up and you end up with very few cars to choose from.

I mean what is the deal with silver cars! It's god damn shiney grey FFS

Peter Fenwick wrote: Add these things up and you end up with very few cars to choose from.

Patience.....!

And, be prepared to look nationally (might be easy for me to say when a flight to see a car in Durham rather than Dorset is still just a flight rather than a few hundred mile drive).

I would have to say that your £1600 running costs is a good allowance.  I've just added up my running costs for the last year and if I hadn't gone to BMW for servicing and I had smaller tyres that weren't chuffin' runflats I would have been around your allowance.

Fuel on the other hand, 15,580 miles at an average of 28.6mpg and depending on the fluctuating price of VPower/unleaded comes out at an average of 17.24 pence per mile for the year.

Andrew

Andrew Rolland wrote: ....and I had smaller tyres that weren't chuffin' runflats ....

Your sig might hold the secret to why these needed changing at such a high cost. 

Did a sum recently of all of the servicing and maintenance invoices I have in the file for my 5 over the past 6+ years and 100k miles.  There may be a couple of small invoices missing but all the big spends are there.  Total cost of maintenance comes to an avg. of €0.07 per mile - approx £0.06.  That includes some, but not all, tyre replacements, normal servicing and non standard maintenance, e.g. pads, disks, shocks, etc.  It doesn't include fuel, road tax, insurance, etc.

Easy choice for me really... 330.. best compromise of performance and costs...

For £6k you should be able to get a decent choice of saloons... prob 2000/2001 sort of age. May be higher mileage but as long as they've been serviced well you should be ok.

I got mine for just under £4k and got a full parts and labour warranty for it... it has saved me loads so far...

Coupe's will be less widely available at that price but still a few around £5-6k-ish...

My tuppence-worth anyway!

Happy hunting!

I've been looking at 330s and there are a few in my price range. Also seen some other stuff like 325Ti.

I've managed to persuade my wife to get a Mondeo TDCI so now there less pressure on me to get a big family sized car.

To give you a rough idea

 I use a local independant for servicing on mine 

 I had pollen filters , oil filter , air filter , plugs , oil  and inboard handbrake shoes  and the bill was £218

 last weekend i reset the mpg for the first time in months , i havent done any motorway journeys , just short trips (less than 3 miles each) and im not driving it like an old woman . Computer is showing 21mpg after 40 miles and still going up .

 For the kind of budget you have you could find yourself a late e39 ,  with full history and low miles (manual would be better on juice than auto).

 People are often put off by a large engine but because you dont have to rev them hard(usually less than 3k) to get them to go they use less fuel than say for instance a 2litre that's being rev'd round to 4 or 5 grand every gear.

hth

Peter Fenwick wrote: Don't worry, not going near a diesel! My problem is by the time you discount all the cars that have potential problems, there are practically none left. I do wonder about BMW when they do seem to have more than their fare share of serious problems like Nikasil, vanos etc

Peter, being honest with you,  anything that is created by humans will have parts that fail. It just depends on the nature of the beast and how good the manufacturer is at identifying and rectifying problems and taking ownership of issues raised.

I have worked in the motor trade now for 13 years and one thing I have seen change is how quickly a vehicle needs to be readied for the market. i.e. a car is designed, prototyped, tested (by a few blokes testing a few model variations) and unless the find anything terrible within the short test period, the car is fired into production very quickly. The longer a car takes to get from the drawing board to the first owner is money wasted so with the amount of technology that has to be squeezed into them nowadays needs a couple of years of intensive testing to realize any defects but by then,  manufacturer A has already flooded the market with their car which makes manufacturer B lose out on thousands of sales and the car will flop.

The newer the car you buy, the more problems they are destined to have. Warranty payouts are so much bigger than ever before on vehicles and that is because their test bed is now the public. You will not find a manufacturer that has made a trouble free car within the last few years. My only advice would be, whatever you do decide on, try and buy a model which was made near the end of the production series as most or all of the problems will have been ironed out by 5,6 years down the production line.

My old faithful E34 is now 15 years old and apart from a few wear and tear bits and some niggly things i never seem to get round to fixing, she's still as solid as the day she was born. I'd put a months wages you couldn't say that for a current E60 or any current prodution model for that matter. That is how Ican justify a V8!

With that in mind............

get a the bus! lol!

Mike

daddy cool wrote: Dont rule out the v8's Peter , they arent as juicy as you think  infact i would say from my experience that they are better on fuel than a big six .

A big fat DITTO on the above!

540 V8 wrote: daddy cool wrote: Dont rule out the v8's Peter , they arent as juicy as you think  infact i would say from my experience that they are better on fuel than a big six . A big fat DITTO on the above!

Yip.

I was after a late E39 530i.  Saw the E60 545i and on paper had the same fuel economy so that to me was a no brainer.

My E60 returned on average over a year 28.5mpg including a number of trips towing heavy stuff plus M'way cruises to the wrong side of the border so balances it out.

Bit of a price difference though. I could afford an E39 530. I couldn't afford an E60 545i.

I also don't believe that I would get as good or even better mpg out of an E39 V8 than I would out of a straight 6.

The MPG figues that BMW quote for the V8s are a decent chunk lower for the big capacity engines and finding one with a manual box isn't half as easy.

To be honest i'm erring towards a late E36 328 coupe. The E39 just isn't DIY friendly and paying for someone to service/repair a car is what makes them expensive.

Peter Fenwick wrote: Bit of a price difference though. I could afford an E39 530. I couldn't afford an E60 545i.

Yeah there will be now, it wasn't so much two years ago when I changed.  Plus my first E60 was good bit below book.  I was comparing prices of 03/53 plates E39 530i's with 53 plate E60 545i's in the summer of 2007.

Peter Fenwick wrote: I also don't believe that I would get as good or even better mpg out of an E39 V8 than I would out of a straight 6.

I agree, you won't.  You would have to go to the newer V8s to get that.

The newer V8 4.4 litre in the E60 is far more economical than the older V8 4.4 litre in the E39 even though they are essentially the same engine except the newer V8 has additional inlet valve timing over the older V8.  Hence power is also up from ~286bhp to 333bhp.

The newer V8s will match the older bigger 6 pots, like the 3.0 litre engine in terms of economy, but yes the E60 will cost you more to buy unfortunately which you won't get back via fuel consumption savings.

Peter Fenwick wrote: To be honest i'm erring towards a late E36 328 coupe. The E39 just isn't DIY friendly and paying for someone to service/repair a car is what makes them expensive.

The E36 coupe is one sexy looking car, a neighbour had one of the last 328i Coupes with all the Mkit on it and it looked terriffic in the dark blue.

But would you not find that going back to an E36 after owning an E39 would a difficult move?  I suppose you would have been spoiled in the 530i you had.  You would have smaller amounts of space in the E36 after the E39 and the E36 (granted a 318i) I was in didn't have particularly comfy seats, but that could be due to the fact that I'm a bit wider than I should be...

Out of all the cars I've owned I did the most amount of DIY on the E39.  Front pads and discs, water pump, thermostat and cover, rear anti roll bar links, both front wheel sensors, both engine drive belts.  All easy stuff and your E36 328 will have essentially the same engine as a 530i (M54) except the M54 will have a slightly different inlet manifold and dual vanos. 

So I'm afraid I would have to disagree that the E39 is not a diy friendly car.  Haynes do a manual for it which helps a bit, after you have found and corrected the mistakes in it of course.....

If I were you I'd go for the E39 530i Sport in dark blue or black with as many toys on it as you can find.  That is theee most sexiest car IMO. 

Let us know how the hunt goes, best of luck with it.

Andrew

The big problem is finding a decent manual 530 sport that isn't up for stupid money. Some people still think these cars are worth £8-9k which is carzy money IMHO.

There are a lot more manual E36 328s and E46 330s around.

I will keep you posted on progress.

Peter - this has been hanging around on Autotrader for a while.  Seems like its a long way north though, but this might explain price and that it hasn't moved.  Spec looks like its std Sport but its got the all important self stirring box.  No association with the seller, etc.

http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-uk/www/cars/BMW+5+SERIES/Ne-2-4-5-6-7-8-27-44-49-53-61-64-67-103-133-146-236,N-9-21-43-50-59-62-240-4294966943-4294967078/advert.action?R=200936341124745&distance=428&postcode=E15+3AR&channel=CARS&make=BMW&model=5+SERIES&min_pr=1000&max_pr=7000&max_mileage=100000&vehicleYearOfManufacture=2001&vehicleRegLetter=Y - http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-uk/www/cars/BMW+5+SERIES/N e-2-4-5-6-7-8-27-44-49-53-61-64-67-103-133-146-236,N-9-21-43 -50-59-62-240-4294966943-4294967078/advert.action?R=20093634 1124745&distance=428&postcode=E15+3AR&channel=CA RS&make=BMW&model=5+SERIES&min_pr=1000&max_p r=7000&max_mileage=100000&vehicleYearOfManufacture=2 001&vehicleRegLetter=Y

Seen that one.

I have the green light to go and start looking next Tuesday so it may be on my list.

Soon to be changing your signature then Peter? fingers crossed!

Mike