I may have finally found my wagon for sale somewhere...02 525iT 5 spd manual. 49k miles. Pristine beige leather. fully serviced. Ok E39 owners, tell this E91 owner who is considering bumping up to an E39 form my E91 what I need to be aware of, other than the fact the car is not lightning fast.
What to watch... We have owned a E39 540 for many years, which brings its own set of challenges. The following information comes from an article written by Mike Miller in Bimmer magazine back in May 2009. As far as the 525 goes, you have the following items to keep an eye on: -Cooling system failures are common. Change your water pump, thermostat, cooling fan and fan clutch every 60K and your radiator, expansion tank and pulley every 90K. -Manual gearboxes and differentials are failing around 100K plus range. The oil should be changed every 30K. -Rear suspension carrier mounts fail around 60K resulting in a very rough ride in the rear of the car. -You may lose pixals in the instrument cluster. We had the original replaced free at 120K and then began seeing issues with the second cluster around 189K. -It seemed like the ball joints were being replaced frequently, and I think this was an issue with all versions of the E39. Good luck with your search, and I hope this helps out!
how often have you replaced automatic transmission fluid on the E39 540? BTW, rear door seals and front thrust bushings..... Thanks
Never We never did any preventive maintenance on the auto transmission. By the time we knew better, we had 120,000 miles on it and Mr. Miller suggested not going into it at that point so we left it alone. We sold it at 189K for a portion of its KBB value with a warning to the new owner about replacing the transmission in the near future. Never had any problem with the door seals on ours, and suspension issues were always being addressed! We ended up replacing it with the1989 E30, which we have owned for 6 months without a trip to the shop yet. I am much more comfortable working on this one myself as compared to the 540.
Really?? I thought the big thing about going with a manual was because they were far more reliable and durable than the automatics. Congrats on the E30, we owned 4 in my family and each one was built like a tank and proved to be pretty reliable too.
