Hi all!

This will be my documentation thread for the lifespan of my wagon. I'm a super technical and archival person, and with Evan's E61 being one of my inspirations to pull the trigger on this, I figured I should do my due diligence and make my own.

Build Detail:
- 2008 BMW 535xi Sports Wagon (Touring)
- Premium, Sport, and Cold Weather Packages
- Previous packages net Xenon headlight and auto high beams, Logic7 sound system, voice command, adaptive lights, Multi-Contour seats, heated seats and steering wheel, and a few other nice things
- Finished in Deep Sea Blue Metallic (A76)
- Dakota Gray leather on Dark Poplar wood trim
- Produced 11/2007
- Bought with 109,927mi
- Bone stock as the day it rolled out of the factory
- 2 paint imperfections in 12 years, insane

Some backstory on the wagon, and how I got it:
I sold my 1995 Nissan 300ZX (NA) on November 13, 2020 and walked away with $7,200. After looking at a few other cars, I had seen this E61 up in Elkton, Kentucky. The relevant info here is that I'm in central Georgia, a little outside of Atlanta. I had been interested in cars with the N54 before but was always scared away from them for one reason or another, but this one seemed to be different. My father works for BMW and he was able to check the VIN and see the dealer service history as well as the options that were on the car. First things first, I had zero knowledge of these wagons at all or their rarity, and I had apparently stumbled across one of the best deals on the East coast. I'm not afraid to discuss prices because I don't understand people who are snippy about that kind of thing. Maybe that's just me being young and naive. It was listed by a woman for $8,000 on Facebook, which after talking with her husband (the duo ran the only Euro shop for miles in that part of Kentucky), I got it down to $7,700 and drove the ~360 miles up to get it on November 29th. It was a buyback for the typical sunroof drain issue, the first and second owner basically threw in the towel after the first year and wanted something else. The third owner was a doctor, who had it until 2019 when he traded it in at a Ford dealership, which is when the owner previous to me bought it for cheap because the Ford in smalltown KY didn't know what to do with this nice BMW. And now it's with me!

The drive back south was effortless and wonderful. My loving girlfriend who accompanied me didn't end up doing her shift driving and I made all 360mi no sweat, it's the most comfortable I've been in a car in a long time. Coming from the ZX, this car is amazing and surpasses all my wildest expectations. The Z was my first car and I feel like I've skipped a step going from that to this, like where do I go next?? I guess I'll have to get a B8 RS6 or something to top it haha.

Here are some (dirty) of the pictures sent to me from the previous owner of detail items I requested, and then the first picture I ever took of it. I cannot for the life of me get the pictures to be a little smaller, so sorry for the literal wall of dirty car pictures.








If you have any questions or any things that you see in the future that make you say, "wow he's a dumbass", let me know! I'm an open book and I can't wait to share the story of this car as it progresses further. I will be making semi-regular updates to this after I catch the thread up to the current day. If anyone wants more E61 on their Instagram feed, mine is @kikoeta.jp. Have a good one everybody!

 

For $7,700, that's a damn good deal! Especially with all of the packages it has.

What's your build plans for it?

 

My '09 came with pretty much the exact same option specs, but I've certainly improved them a bit since

Welcome and I'm excited to see what you do with it.

 

I'm going to use it to get me through college before I really do anything extreme to it, I would like to pursue my frugal full bolt-on setup with turbos through FCP Euro with the lifetime warranty they offer. I priced my whole build out and it's a pretty penny but definitely worth it for something I plan on keeping until ICE engines are banned haha! I was shocked at the price after looking at BaT listings, my reasoning was even if I wasn't happy with it, I could just sell it on there.

 

I see your CIC retrofit and wireless CarPlay and I'm immediately jealous! I don't mind playing my music off a USB for now, makes it kinda fun. Like creating a mixtape on an actual tape kind of fun I guess.

Thanks for the welcome and I can't wait to see where it takes me!

 

Hey! Been a long time since I updated this. I figured I would provide a little more description as to what has happened since I bought it.




Here are some pics from the day after I got it home, it was sporting a good coating of road grime and was absolutely filthy. They didn't detail the interior to my standards when they had sold it to me, so I took care of that soon afterward. You may notice it's sporting a Kentucky dealer plate, that was a cool collectible, and it's filled in with sharpie and there are no stickers, so I'm sure it will come in handy when I want to test drive a project at some point.



Had to work the next day so the wagon got a taste of Italian catering. Before I quit, there were a few more like this and it handled them wonderfully.



Had a friend with an E46 M3 drop by to visit me.





It was definitely time for a wash at this point. This was freezing cold, I bought it in late November so this must have been at least December by the time I got around to detailing it.



I'll forever be in love with these taillights, they make everything better.





Just a few various glamor shots of times it looked nice. Not that it doesn't look nice ever

 

So pretty much nothing happened that was remarkable in the life of the car until around April/May 2021. I used it as I like to use my cars, which is as much as I can. I was just under 112,000mi on it at this point, so about 1300mi put on it overall. Wonderful car during this time, I'd get an occasional cold start misfire, which is a problem I bought it knowing about, but it wasn't bothersome and went away when warmed up (if it even occurred).

It was on April 17th, 2021 when I was coming back from the Clean Culture car meet that was being held at Road Atlanta that we get into some of the "fun". I was coming back with my girlfriend and little brother in tow after a long day of walking around and enjoying cars from across the country, and we were on I-85 headed back towards Atlanta. I was changing lanes and I heard a large metallic twang/thump, and I looked over at my girlfriend in justified fear, as we were about 40 miles from home at this point. Well, the expected happened, and I quickly got the low tire pressure warning and pulled off the road as quickly as I could. I got to flex my F1 pit crew skills with the tools that BMW provided me after GDOT kindly told me it would be 3 hours before I got a HERO truck out there to ensure I had some visibility and was safe doing the change on the side of the road. I enlisted my two passengers as lookouts and changed it, went to TRY and put more air in the spare at 2 places before finally finding a 3rd that didn't eat my change. We got some late-night Waffle House and I internally cried at the thought of having to buy a new set of tires. Good times.

Fast forward to early May and we're finally getting around to getting me new tires. I was blessed with not having to worry too much about going to school since it was virtual at this point. My father works for a BMW dealership near us, and apparently, if a car that they've taken in is going to become a CPO, they have to ditch tires below certain tread wear even if they're perfectly fine. The number is around 6/32" or something like that, don't quote me. However, this meant that I didn't have to get new tires, as we found a pair of 245/45/R18 Hankook runflats that just have an ungodly amount of grip for what this car is. Saved me $600, and I got a pair of lightly used $800 tires for free!



Spaceship mode!




Also got some shots of the underbody, everything looks good under there and still does today.

 

I had forgotten to mention in the previous post that a 40-height tire is what should be run on these cars, but we couldn't be picky with a free set of tires. The 45-height will eat potholes and the larger sidewall makes me feel a little more stable at speed. Moving on!

Finally bit the damn bullet and bought injectors and supporting components. That misfire that I mentioned previously just became too much to handle, it was annoying. My fuel economy tanked a bit as well, I used to get like 18/25 city/highway, but it dropped it as low as 15/20. I had to go and grab an injector puller from a different friend with an E46 M3 that he had for one of his N63 cars. In case anyone is wondering, it will work on an N54 injector and it worked well. If you can't bum it, it's a great tool to buy. Here's a quick video of a back road run I did on that day with little power. It looks dumb because of the FOV, I was going 45-50mph in this narrow 25mph with my 4100lb car haha.


Anyways, on July 19th at around 114,672mi I installed and coded (myself!) the injectors, coils, plugs, a new DRL bulb, and oil + a filter. I forgot the little metal collar on 2 of the injectors before metaphorically peeing my pants as I realized what I did. I was dusting my hands off after putting them all in and I saw two collars remaining. I got everything back in with the collars, it wasn't more than 2 minutes they sat in their holes. I got the Bavarian Technic cable as well, which proved very helpful immediately and will continue to save me money. INPA is great and all, but the BT cable is so simple. I took like no pictures of this event which is odd for me of all people, but I got injectors in and calibrated properly by myself. Car was a ton of fun after that, I got power back and I'm enjoying my better gas mileage. I'm due to get my intake blasted, I really want to have a catch can by the time I get that done just so I don't have to worry about it.

Moving on to August, I got accepted to Georgia Tech (THWG!) and prepared myself for city life. The wagon handled move-in day beautifully. everything of mine fit and I had a little room to spare. I was very excited about that, it's cool to know I can use my car to take the majority of my life somewhere. Well, got moved in, met my roommates, all is well. The next day, and I mean the NEXT day, day TWO of Atlanta, I am driving up North Avenue with all my roommates in the car and we get to a confusing intersection. Me being a suburb guy, I'm used to dedicated turn lanes, so I defaulted to that. I was in the leftmost lane of travel, as I approach the red I dip into what I think is the turn lane. This intersection has a big kink in it, it connects two streets at about a 35 degree angle, and I'd never seen it before. This isn't helped by the fact that I was reinforced in my wrong thinking by the arrow on the signal light, indicating to me that a left turn was possible here. I was in the oncoming lane of traffic, and the light turns green right about as I am coming to a stop. I quickly realize my mistake and try to cut back into my lane, at which point the lady behind me has decided that she would like to pass this absolute idiot at high speed, so of course we collide. I hit her driver's rear quarter and wheel with my tire and part of my bumper. I had a clean driving record of about 3 years at this point, so this was a kick in the balls to say the least. Did I mention that all my roommates were in the car? Good times. My car wasn't hurt too bad, hers was much more damaged (2011 Kia Forte, lighter car). I had some cosmetic stuff on my passenger side of the front bumper and a very tiny scratch on the quarter panel. This wasn't too bad for me just because I want the Umnitza M-Sport bumper anyways. I ended up paying her in cash for the damages, my insurance wouldn't have been to kind with the rates if they heard about it. Damage to the ego, not much else. The car still operates wonderfully and I drove around 200 miles doing a climate study not a week after that incident happened.

It could very well be placebo, but I do notice it feels a little different at speed. I am going to get it checked out at my earliest availability, but nothing but the tire and bumper were visibly damaged in the accident. I'm probably due to replace front suspension components anyway, might be time to do coilovers.

Present-day, I just finished up coding my high beams to stay on with my fogs thru NCS Expert, which only took me about an hour! I need a newer Daten for the double impulse euro-style hazards I think, but the highs with fogs is a very much needed thing for me.

 

Hello again! I have remembered I have an account here and can post my trials and tribulations.

Not much happened in the earlier parts of 2022. The car was just driven and I was going to school. I picked up a new job at a local track and have enjoyed myself ever since.

August is when it started costing me more money. I had it flip out on me (wipers on, many lights and malfunction warnings, lights flickering, etc) as the battery died while I was driving. I took it to BMW of Gwinnett Place to get it serviced, getting a new battery, full transmission service with mechatronic seals, and transfer case service. It was only a few months later that it began to leak some more oil, causing me to get a laundry list of components. I did the valve cover, the valve cover gasket, the serpentine belt, and a few other things along with an oil change. I ran into some issues taking the fan out of the car, so I made a short video in hopes that it can help some people. That can be found here:
This oil change may have been ill-fated, as the dealer thought my oil pan gasket was leaking. Having the Carfax, I noted it was replaced at 97k miles, which seemed like an oddly recent thing to be leaking. I took the car out for a very spirited romp around 285 (Atlanta's perimeter ring road) and noticed the next day that there were oil spots on my driveway. I haven't ever had the car leak oil onto the ground before, so this concerned me greatly. In hindsight, it was so simple, but I was stuck on it being the oil pan gasket. The turbos are unfortunately on their way out. Hard driving pushed oil past the seals, and it is a repeatable phenomenon. They served the car a wonderful 124k miles, however, it's time for some more power.

Currently, this is where my build stands:
- 124k miles
- Bone stock N54
- Index 12 injectors, plugs, coils July 2021
- Hawk ceramic front pads, Akebono rear pads, ATE fluid, and Zimmermann rotors
- Battery, transmission fluid, filter, mechatronics sleeves, and transfer case fluid Aug. 2022
- OFHG, serpentine belt + pulleys, valve cover, valve cover gasket, oil cooler line, LiquiMoly MolyGen 5W40 oil, and aluminum mickey mouse flange Oct. 2022

What's next? Well, the slow progress of going FBO with the car. I have a set of , 2" inlets, a BMS charge pipe, RB PCV valve, MHD, and all the hardware I need coming to my house soon. I'll be accumulating the intercooler from a 535d along with some downpipes and an intake later on. I promise to make some content for the E61 community, as it seems that those who do turbos either are tight-lipped or not makers of content. Either way, time for another fast wagon!

 

Thanks so much for sharing with the community. I'm looking forward to seeing how things go with the turbos as that's something I may deal with in the future. Best of luck!