Any "beater" DD BMW advice?

Been thinking about this for years. Is it realistic to DD an early 2000 E39?

I've read threads about guys finding rust free cars with 200kmi or similar high miles and daily-driving them with "routine" maintenance etc. Of course the cooling system would need I be done if it wasn't by then.

I have a beater high-milage F150 and I've driven almost nothing BUT high-milage beaters my entire life. Just wondering if these can realistically fill that role?

If you can find an e39 that's been maintained properly for those 200,000 miles, it's realistic.

I think it depends on your perspective on beaters. One school of thought is buy it, drive it until it won't go anymore, dump it and repeat. The Bimmer may not yield a Honda-like experience with that approach. OTOH, if you have a little mechanical empathy and skills, I think you can keep just about any car going indefinitely on a beater budget.

I envision one with perhaps a crunched rear fender and faded paint and ripped seats that I can pound out, slap seat covers on and paint up like a rally car!

I've got 110,000 on my E46 and in the 85,000 miles I've owned it I have done nothing except change oil, brakes, and 1 wheel bearing. The clutch is maybe not up to 4500 rpm drops but it is still just fine for daily use. Yes, I am planning to do the cooling system soon, but other than that, I really don't expect to need to do anything more than oil and brakes for another 5 years. Even the windows all work fine.

[edit] Oh, I forgot. I also changed the transmission and diff oil at somewhere around 80,000 miles.

In reply to ebonyandivory:

Thanks for posting this, I have had similar thoughts for last couple of months, I just haven't pulled the trigger yet. The early 2000's BMW's seem really cheap to me, I was worried about upkeep as well, but I would probably buy it drive it and when it crapped part it out and do it again. Seems easier since there is no shortage of them, at least in my area. Is there a certain one you are looking at? Seems 5 series are cheaper than the 3's. I know I want a inline 6 or a 4cyl. Good luck with your search and let us know if you find one

BBC

I'm at a loss for an explanation but I really want one with maybe mismatched fenders, semi-stripped interior, a roof rack with my camouflage canoe on top. Maybe a small raise in height!

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/12/ur-turn-my-bmw-winter-beater/

I dunno...if the price was super cheap, it's likely a car that's been massively neglected. Old BMWs don't seem to hold up as well to neglect as Japenese cars do. I don't have personal exeperience with them, but I'd be cautious of any whooped old Bimmer. Unless you do want to just drive it until something invetiably renders it undrivable and then ditch it/kill it with fire/do a sledge hammer for charity auction...

If you can find a clean one with lots of miles it's do-able. I'd steer clear of the V8 cars as they are more maintenance intensive. The BMW straight six cars are pretty darn bulletproof. Expect misc. electrical gremlins, warning lights, and an interior that needs help though.

It's all about finding the right car. One that already has mis-matched fenders, dents, and has been abused will turn out to be an expensive "beater", and not much fun at all. Check classifieds in retirement communities and wealthy neighborhoods--- you may be able to find a 250K well maintained car for peanuts. You can always make the car ugly if that's what turns you on.

I paid about $750 for my '95 e34 525iA with exactly 200k miles. It had a straight and clean body and interior, and a bad engine. A junkyard engine, and some maintenance parts, and I would had it on the road for about $1700. In about 2 1/2 years of ownership its done another 25k miles, and has needed a decent amount of maintenance, but its all been DIY stuff.

You didn't say what your budget is, but if you shop carefully, you may find a car that's to nice to beat up the way you said.

My Dad had an E39 that he bought new in 2003. It wasn't the cheapest car to keep. Along about 2008 or so it started having various issues, some of them quite expensive. The headlight units started having issues with failures, but not in the traditional sense. One day the left would be out, the next the right, sometimes the tail lights would randomly not work, etc. It took the dealer a LONG time to solve the problems, and another shop couldn't do it either. They ended up just replacing the entire lighting system one piece at a time until it worked. All the components still checked OK, it just would work right.

The entire dash also went out too at one point. Something happened and it fried all the components. Everyone of them had to be replaced. The cost was north of $13k, but BMW split the difference given its previous issues.

It also ended up with the seat mechanisms failing. If you search BMW twist, almost all E39s will end up with this at some point. Fortunately, its one of the easier fixes.

The good news was that all of its issues were mostly electrical. The bad news is that almost all of its problems were mostly electrical. Most things were plug and play, but you had to find the items that were bad. That wasn't always easy.

On the driving front, it was great. It drove much better than his new 3 series, which to me is just like any other Camry or Accord, the culprit is the power assist steering. Gone is the great BMW steering feel.

If it hadn't been so problematic and expensive in its old age, I probably would have bought it. It still looked and drove like new.

What I really meant is not worrying about a dent or two, I'd pound/pull them out as best I can and paint enough to prevent rust, if the paint matched or not, I wouldn't care.

Also not caring if the interior was impeccable. Stains, rips, anything that brought the price down but had no effect on getting from A to B. And I'd be unafraid of taking the kids to our favorite fishing hole that's at the end of a very narrow dirt road ie: Desert Pinstriping"

http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/cto/4613160021.html

http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/cto/4624809992.html

http://hartford.craigslist.org/cto/4630663306.html (This one has new "shucks"!)

In reply to ebonyandivory:

Looks like you have quite a few good ones to choose from there

BBC

In reply to Billy_Bottle_Caps:

Yes. This place seems to be a cheap BMW haven for whatever reason.

I live in a very rural yet upper-middle-class area and more urban/professional areas are 1/2 hour drive away with plenty of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals (BMW-Merc-Audi owners) nearby.

I've done it, they are awesome daily beaters and the prices have really come down.

Edit: that seat twist thing is overplayed in my view. I've owned four E39, looked at a dozen more and never seen it.

In reply to chandlerGTi:

Can you provide any details? (About your past purchases etc.)

The red one is a Sport package car, which have very good seats in them, as well as somewhat better suspension. It's also nonmetallic paint, which should be easier to match. It should be simple to source a fender and door skin for it. It's also a post-facelift 2002, so it should have missed the overboosted, numb powersteering that pre-facelift cars were known for. Can't tell the mileage or service history from the ad. I would offer $1700 for it and budget $600 for the body parts and a couple hundred for respray.

That car is almost identical to mine, except the color scheme, and mine's a 2003. Mine has the bi-xenon HID light package and the heated seats.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have this in mind:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bSxca8xb-Fs

I have been looking for a 318i local and what I am finding is that the E36 are more expensive then the E39's, honestly I am looking for something that is a manual and under 150k, is there something really wrong with the E39's or are the E36 have nostalgia value? My sister and both my parents had E39's I wouldn't mind one for the right price.

A 3 or 5 series with the Sport option and a five speed would be more fun, and I suspect that since they were more likely owned by enthusiasts, on average they probably have been better maintained than a typical base model automatic car.

The problem, at least with the 5 series, is sport/manual cars aren't nearly as common.

I DD a 2001 525i Sport - 163k miles on it at this point. I'm kind of picky about maintenance, so I've done a lot of stuff over the years, but the cars drives like new for the most part. Big things to look for at that kind of mileage are the cooling system (obviously), the suspension will be pretty much done and will want replacing if you have any thoughts of it feeling BMW-like (not just the usual sort of imprecision of an old, worn suspension, but stuff actually failing - ball joints, other parts of the kooky rear multilink setup, that sort of thing - that will make the car actually dangerous), and the CCV system will have failed - if it's an M54 car, depending on the failure mode this could cause lots of bad things to happen (like sucking all the oil out of the pan into the intake manifold in about 12 seconds), but thankfully it's cheap and easy to replace. Everything else can be put on the "fix it later, if I feel like it" list.

I DD a 99 328i with 212K on it. I bought it with 194k and did a full refresh on it. New tires, shocks, struts, springs, bushings (strut/shock/trailing arms/diff), and fixed a few oil leaks. Most of the cooling system is new too. I bought it for $2k and spent $3k on it in the first 6 months. That's parts at cost and free labor too. It was worth it to me because now I have a solid DD that drives great. YMMV...

I was looking for a relatively cheap e46, but e39s were cheaper, roomier and generally less beat on than their e46 counterparts. Mine is a little scruffy, but it had all the right maintenance stuff taken care of.

Plus I'll get a kick out of a roof rack with a few sheets of plywood on top at Lowes!