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3,036 Posts
Hello, and welcome to the board.
Do you have any experience driving M5s? If not, go to a local dealer and get the experience, then you will have something to compare to.
On a low mileage 03, there really should be no problems, except undisclosed damage repairs.
PAINT
Look carefully for stonechips, and especially for clearcoat delamination around the stonechips.
If you want to check for undisclosed respray, take the car to a high-quality paint shop, and ask them to use their electronic paint-film thickness meter on all body panels.
UNDERBODY
Put the car on a lift and look for yourself for loose cables or damages.
TIRES
While the car is on the lift, look over sidewalls and thread-area of each tire carefully.
GEARBOX
With the gearbox cold, and the engine at idle and car slowly rolling at 5-10 MPH engage each gear in turn. The gear feel should be "big high quality gearbox", not "hard to manouver", "overly notchy" or anything else.
BRAKES
Look at the brake discs. Wear pattern should be symmetrical. If not, find out why.
Check the brakes yourself: drive at 30 MPH and rapidly step on the brake pedal. The sensation of deacceleration and immediateness of the braking should be positively overwhelming. If not something is wrong.
Also go backwards and brake hard. Should feel the same.
(When yo go forward as slow as 30 MPH and brake hard the front axle brakes do most of the work, so the rear brakes can be almost non-existent and you still get apparently good brake performance. For this reason you should also go backwards.)
HANDLING
Drive the car at different roadspeeds, and flip the steering-wheel rapidly from side to side, progressively pushing the car to roll ever harder and harder. If there is any assymetry whatsoever between when turning left and turning right in this fashion, something is wrong with the suspension, and you definitely should find out why.
MAINTENANCE
Make them renew the brake-fluid and the coolant, unless it has been done in the last year. If engine oil is older than a year, change it.
PERFORMANCE
Read post #11 in:
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1898
Follow those instructions, and select the mode for fuel consumption per hour.
With the engine fully warmed up, drive several WOT (wide open throttle) accelerations. Notice the fuel flow per hour numbers. If everything is ok the numbers should increase continously to about 140 litres per hour at WOT at 7000 RPM. (don´t worry about bouncing into the rev-limiter)
If possible, have the dealer check the compression. As a bare minimum have them pull the fuse to the fuel pump, start the engin and run it until it stops, then start it a few times until the remaining fuel in the fuel rail is consumed, then check the "relative compression" by measuring the current into the starter motor with a current probe and an oscilloscope or the similair function of the DIS tester.
THINGS NOT TO DO
1. Never drive with DSC disengaged. Sooner or later it will save the car and yourself.
2. Never push the engine before it is warm.
3. Never get so excited you put the wrong gear in.
THINGS TO BUY
1. A bottle of fine single-malt scotch for your local service master-mechanic. Sooner or later you will need the good will of that person, so better get started on the right foot right now.
2. Get the longest warranty you can.
3. The rubber maintenance vaseline "Gummipflege" works extremely well. Buy a tube or two from the dealer. Put it on the door seals every two months or so, and the car will stay quiet inside.
4. Leather-lotion. Use sparingly, but regularily.
5. A US$ 100 ODB-II fault code reader. Sooner or later you will need it.
(see
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=54359
)
6. I imagine you have a lot of salt on the roads in Colorado during winter? If so invest in a good bodywork void anti corrosion treatment for the car, where they put sticky anti-corrosion stuff into every hollow there is on the car. It will smell of petroleum for a week, but the smell goes away very rapidly. (Do not spray the void right below the passenger compartment air intake filters. Instead inspect regularily and keep that area clean form leaves and dirt.)
7. Finally, really Cool sun-glasses are a must, now that you are going to be driving an M5. ;-)
David
Do you have any experience driving M5s? If not, go to a local dealer and get the experience, then you will have something to compare to.
On a low mileage 03, there really should be no problems, except undisclosed damage repairs.
PAINT
Look carefully for stonechips, and especially for clearcoat delamination around the stonechips.
If you want to check for undisclosed respray, take the car to a high-quality paint shop, and ask them to use their electronic paint-film thickness meter on all body panels.
UNDERBODY
Put the car on a lift and look for yourself for loose cables or damages.
TIRES
While the car is on the lift, look over sidewalls and thread-area of each tire carefully.
GEARBOX
With the gearbox cold, and the engine at idle and car slowly rolling at 5-10 MPH engage each gear in turn. The gear feel should be "big high quality gearbox", not "hard to manouver", "overly notchy" or anything else.
BRAKES
Look at the brake discs. Wear pattern should be symmetrical. If not, find out why.
Check the brakes yourself: drive at 30 MPH and rapidly step on the brake pedal. The sensation of deacceleration and immediateness of the braking should be positively overwhelming. If not something is wrong.
Also go backwards and brake hard. Should feel the same.
(When yo go forward as slow as 30 MPH and brake hard the front axle brakes do most of the work, so the rear brakes can be almost non-existent and you still get apparently good brake performance. For this reason you should also go backwards.)
HANDLING
Drive the car at different roadspeeds, and flip the steering-wheel rapidly from side to side, progressively pushing the car to roll ever harder and harder. If there is any assymetry whatsoever between when turning left and turning right in this fashion, something is wrong with the suspension, and you definitely should find out why.
MAINTENANCE
Make them renew the brake-fluid and the coolant, unless it has been done in the last year. If engine oil is older than a year, change it.
PERFORMANCE
Read post #11 in:
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1898
Follow those instructions, and select the mode for fuel consumption per hour.
With the engine fully warmed up, drive several WOT (wide open throttle) accelerations. Notice the fuel flow per hour numbers. If everything is ok the numbers should increase continously to about 140 litres per hour at WOT at 7000 RPM. (don´t worry about bouncing into the rev-limiter)
If possible, have the dealer check the compression. As a bare minimum have them pull the fuse to the fuel pump, start the engin and run it until it stops, then start it a few times until the remaining fuel in the fuel rail is consumed, then check the "relative compression" by measuring the current into the starter motor with a current probe and an oscilloscope or the similair function of the DIS tester.
THINGS NOT TO DO
1. Never drive with DSC disengaged. Sooner or later it will save the car and yourself.
2. Never push the engine before it is warm.
3. Never get so excited you put the wrong gear in.
THINGS TO BUY
1. A bottle of fine single-malt scotch for your local service master-mechanic. Sooner or later you will need the good will of that person, so better get started on the right foot right now.
2. Get the longest warranty you can.
3. The rubber maintenance vaseline "Gummipflege" works extremely well. Buy a tube or two from the dealer. Put it on the door seals every two months or so, and the car will stay quiet inside.
4. Leather-lotion. Use sparingly, but regularily.
5. A US$ 100 ODB-II fault code reader. Sooner or later you will need it.
(see
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=54359
)
6. I imagine you have a lot of salt on the roads in Colorado during winter? If so invest in a good bodywork void anti corrosion treatment for the car, where they put sticky anti-corrosion stuff into every hollow there is on the car. It will smell of petroleum for a week, but the smell goes away very rapidly. (Do not spray the void right below the passenger compartment air intake filters. Instead inspect regularily and keep that area clean form leaves and dirt.)
7. Finally, really Cool sun-glasses are a must, now that you are going to be driving an M5. ;-)
David
