alex.baker89

Hi all,

I've owned quite a few BMWs over the years and am happy to say I've just bought myself an E60 530i, which I should be picking up towards the end of this month.

A bit about the car and why I bought it..... I currently have an E46 325 M Sport saloon which I've spent time & money working on, and can confidently say I know my way around the M54 pretty well now. We're expecting a new arrival in September so I thought a larger car would make sense, hence looking at E60s. I initially wanted to find a touring, but settled on the 530i saloon because the one I found was at the right price, and with an amazing spec.

The car is a late 2003 registered 530i SE. Unbelievably it's a very rare manual car with beige nasca leather and fine wood trim. It's a pretty high spec car with adaptive xenons and the very nice 14-way comfort seats which even have the rare massage / heating and cooling function! It's done 144,000 miles and the current owner has had the car for 10 years. He lives in a remote part of Scotland (which is why I bought the car without seeing it, but for a very good price at under £3,000). The car comes with stacks of paperwork and has been serviced every 6k miles, by a local independent specialist with trained ex-BMW techs. All music to my ears, but let's hope no issues arise!

Given the car is a pre-LCI, non-shadowline SE I would ideally like to replace the front bumper for a genuine M-Sport bumper. I can't find much online to suggest how easy or difficult this might be, but I assume the brackets / mountings are going to be different. Given the mileage of the car I'll be checking the typical M54 weaknesses first (OFH gasket, valve cover gasket which has apparently been recently replaced, vacuum hoses, upper/lower intake boots, PCV and 'sweaty' power steering lines, etc). By all accounts there are zero oil leaks and the car has been very well looked after by a long-term owner, so I'm not too concerned about a long journey back down to London after collecting the car. I'll be taking my Carly up with me to check codes as well as long/short-term fuel trim data / oxygen sensor outputs, MAF g/s data etc, to make sure it doesn't run too lean or rich.

Anyway, glad to be here, glad to own such a rare manual E60 and can't wait for an exciting ownership experience!

As always, it's a BMW so I go into this eyes wide open

JayArras

to the forum, Alex! Be sure to post some pics when you get the car.

seanjordan20

Welcome. Congrats on the purchase and we look forward to hearing about all the good things you'll be doing to the car

alex.baker89

Thanks for the replies. I've made arrangements to pick the car up on 26th, so after this I can check everything over on the long drive back, and should have some pictures up not long after.

By all accounts it seems as if the current owner is quite meticulous in his maintenance of the car. It's funny reading through all of the beginners PDF docs on this forum because it mentions buying a Lexus if the typical BMW niggles aren't for you. Ironically, that's exactly what the owner has bought as a newer 'upgrade'.

I've also since learned that the diff & gearbox oil was changed at circa 119k miles and the oil removed was in great condition. On top of that, the car is currently sitting on a set of aftermarket wheels just for winter tyres. The owner is removing these and putting some CSL wheels on the car, complete with summer tyres with a decent amount of tread. I sure hope they're genuine CSLs because if I don't like the look of them on the car, they will fetch strong money!

donpb

to the forums!