Hi all,
I just bought a 2007 E61 530xi N52 imported from Japan. It's super clean. Drives great. Only 95000 km. Lots of very thorough (government?) safety inspection records that I can sort of translate. I love it! I've seen at least one reference to Japanese cars somehow being different from USA/EU E60/E61s but haven't been able to figure out what those differences are other than right hand vs left hand drive. This car is left hand drive. I'm wondering if it's just a standard EU model with Japanese stickers on it sold for the Japan market.

One annoying thing I've found so far is that all of the tools to figure out if there are any recalls don't know what to do with my VIN.

Not that any of this really matters! I'm just curious if anyone knows



Edit: The local BMW dealership was able to check and no outstanding recalls.

 

Other than a different battery and usually (although it's probably been removed) a flare in the passenger footwell, I can't think of any other differences off the top of my head.

 

Interesting! I was wondering what the (empty) flare holder was for.