Talk to me about the BMW 7 series (E32 or E38)

What does one need to know about these. Thinking about one for a daily, family, big fun car. Saw a nice one in Atlanta with a 5spd.

Thanks,

J

OK, well... let me qualify by saying I love the E38. I have a friend who is a BMW master tech and huge BMW fan, and a fellow track junkie. I consider myself a pretty good wrench. I had an opportunity to pick up a really nice 750 for an excellent price. I asked him to tell me what to look for and he said "A car you can afford, like a nice 740". Keep in mind I have an old 911, an old M3 and an E30 race car... so he gets that I'll sell organs to keep the right POS working.

Long/short... Make sure it has less than 9 cylinders and you are unafraid of electronic communication systems

I heard (when i asked about it on here) that the transmission only last 100k (which seems to fit with the amount of dead ones on craigslist), otherwise they look to be good cars.

The "transmission only lasts 100k" problem seems to be common with the sealed for life BMW transmissions. Supposedly they last longer if you change the trans fluid on a regular basis but most garages will go "but it's sealed for life"...

Having driven both I have no idea why someone would buy the V12. It feels absolutely no faster only smoother running.

I would love to pick up a short wheelbase (i not iL) 740i sport.

I'll guess the one you saw with a five speed was a late E32 735i. They were great cars, with the final version of the M30 big six, and should run just about forever. The five speed cars were fairly rare in the US, I think about 1500 of them were sold here. A friend of mine has one and he loves it. They never sold manual transmission e38 cars in the US with manual transmissions, but a few have been converted by their owners. A 740i sport with a stick would be a seriously cool car.

BoxheadTim wrote: The "transmission only lasts 100k" problem seems to be common with the sealed for life BMW transmissions. Supposedly they last longer if you change the trans fluid on a regular basis but most garages will go "but it's sealed for life"...

Yeah, tell me about it. I've got my E66 750Li going in this week for some warranty work (again!) and I called to add a transmission fluid change. I asked for a price first from the girl who schedules the appointments - she put me on hold and came back after talking to the service advisor "It's around $500 (gulp!) but the fluid is lifetime fluid and doesn't need to be changed." I corrected her that the factory manual says change the fluid at 100k miles, and my car has 75k miles on it and doesn't shift as nicely as I'd like it to or as nicely as the 20k mile 750Li service loaner I get, and, well, a fluid change will hopefully prolong the life of the transmission quite a bit. Besides, if I get the transmission failure after a fluid change that happens sometimes, I want it to happen before my 100k mile CPO warranty runs out.

Thanks for the info. Does the 7 series manual have issues? I'm also going to look at the 5 series, as there are more manuals around. Same issues for those?

BoxheadTim wrote: The "transmission only lasts 100k" problem seems to be common with the sealed for life BMW transmissions. Supposedly they last longer if you change the trans fluid on a regular basis but most garages will go "but it's sealed for life"...

The 7s tend to need transmissions at 100k no matter what. Just budget for it. A good rebuild will be around $3k. I had these guys (not a canoe, just a happy customer) rebuild the tranny on my wife's RX300 and couldn't be happier. A 540 6-speed trans will fit an E38 without issue and the swap costs about the same in parts as a rebuild.

The 7 you want to get is a 2001 740i sport. The short wheelbase cars got the real sport package (it's just appearance stuff on long cars). Widescreen nav, M-parallel wheels, sport springs and shocks, better torque converter, shorter rear end gear (not lsd though), and shadowline trim.

E38s, as with all bimmers, need to have the entire cooling system treated as a wear item. Also, valley pan gaskets and other fairly trivial motor stuff will need done at around 100k. You'll have to do lower control arms and some other suspension bushings around this mileage as well.

Jeff wrote: Thanks for the info. Does the 7 series manual have issues? I'm also going to look at the 5 series, as there are more manuals around. Same issues for those?

If you're talking about the e32 735i with a manual, the engine/transmission combo is the same thing that was used in the 535i of the same era. No particular problems, they were very robust.

Yeah the E32 with a manual seems to be exactly what I want. I'm also interested in the E34/39 wagon. Decisions decisions !

I don't think you could get an e34 wagon in the US with a stick, I believe they were all 525i/auto cars. A friend of mine converted one to a M30 3.5 liter with a 5 speed and it made for a really nice car. There are e39 525/528/530 wagons out there with manual transmissions but they are few and far between (there's a very pretty black on black 528 sport wagon on eBay right now, but it's an automatic.) The 540 wagons only had automatics in the US.