Well, yes, i've done it, i know own a GREEN m5, 18" m Parallels, big brakes, 95 blah blah blah....
Its not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it has a few things going for it:
-VERY straight panels, no sign of any body work apart from a dust over the front end due to stone chips. Has got more than a few surface scratches, a car park door ding, and a small ding in the boot. hasn't really been given the love it deserves. Very little rust, none around the arches / filler cap areas which are prone on the e34's (yes it has rust on the boot lid tho...)
-Original windscreen - still with running in stickers on the inside!
-Genuine 85,000 miles, Only 2 previous owners, the one I bought it off has had it since it was 3 years old, and had 32,000miles on the clock.
-Dry engine with very little sign of oil leaks
-Very quiet 6 speed box, with a REALLY tight feel to it, much better than my old 6speed i had in the 3.6, and that felt tight especially with the short shift kit. can't wait to get a short shift on this one...
-Seat bolsters in excellent condition considering the milage, with drivers side the only one showing signs of discolouration to the leather
-95 spec, big floating brakes.
-Cruises comfortably at over 6000rpm in 5th, feels tight and straight, not twitchy at all
-Steering feels very tight and responsive compared to my 91 3.6
-Has original BMW alarm all functioning, wired to the full closure (um that could be considered a bad point really...)
-It has an aftermarket 'chip' based immobiliser (again is that good or bad?...)
The few definite badpoints:
-Its on its original clutch (which seems ok at the moment...)
-Looks as though its on it original EDC shocks (none appear to be leaking and EDC seems to work well) But it has had two rear springs just replaced.
-It hasn't been driven hard at all (i suppose that's a good point really, but it feels it needs to have the cobwebs blown off)
-Its GREEN
-Its got the ugly (e36 style, not the M Technic ones) wing mirrors
-i'm not convinced on the interior leather colour...
-Some of the interior is a bit grubby/worn
-Its got the bigger new-style lungs (looks no-where near as nice as the small lung front end IMO)
-The back parcel shelf is supposed to be black, but has sun-faded to a royal blue, i'll have to change that.
-Its got the auto dimming rear view mirror that i think is crap, much prefer the manual type
-The bloody air con doesn't work...
-The rear diff input seal is leaking and needs replacing, prob do the guibo prop dougnut at the same time. Diff seems fine tho....
-I can feel some flat spots in the response, it doesn't pull as it should every time when going to WOT, but i'll see to that with a good service and some high miles at high RPM!!!
-Its a bit grubby, particularly the boot carpet
-Has had kids in the back for a fair bit of its miles, so plenty of shoe marks in rear of front seats
And yes its a UK LE, so I won't be performing any major mods away from OEM (such as my '91 3.6 got 'treated' to), its still on all amber lenses (front, sides & rears), but prob will go clear or smoked, but we'll see.
initial impressions are.....
um.... its ok. It does feel a bit 'softer' than my 3.6, a little less raw, and I don't just mean the suspension, its like the engine is smoother in a less agressive way.
it also doesn't look as good as my 3.6 (IMO), but once i've given her some much needed TLC we'll see how I feel then, it even needs a good cleaning - inside particularly, so more pics will follow another day - in the mean time if people can avoid linking to the eBay advert as it gives the vin number and the number plate information, which I'd rather wasn't linked to me / my car etc...
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