sharkfan

CCV for sure, and check the top of the chain guides to check for chain, guide or sprocket degradation.

Another cheese part on the Tourings is the inner CELIS tailgate rear lights - when I got my car the inner tailgate brakelight failed so I had to buy a bright shiny new one - last year I replaced the right inner rear one as it had got dreadfully faded and now after 10 years and some years of UV polish to try and extend its life the inner left one has started to fade - fecking thing. That and the fecking headlights - why does nothing last on an E39 !!!!!!!!??????? I have a pair of near 40 year old E24's with perfect front and rear lights so they knew how to do it once - why the buggering hell do E39's have lifed parts.

Just trickled over 152,000 miles.

And the law of ever-diminishing-returns-after-a-dodgy-auction kicks in... down to £17,500

Whilst the E39 is a big leap forward in terms of technology from the E34 and great when it's all working the fact is the quality is a fairly substantial step backwards - none of the bits that might need to be changed or moved have any real quality in the materials they're made of - it's quite frustrating for a car that is so very, very good when it does all work.

Spent the day changing the waterpump - it's not even two years old - why oh why did BMW design the E39 out of cheese based materials /rant While I was in there I fitted an 88 degree thermostat from an E38 740d - no previous running problems but once again when the waterpump bearing failed quite dramatically it is a very short hop from the V8's standard 105 degree running temperature to very high temperatures, while the 88 is much nearer the similar temperature of the M5 and affords you a much greater safety margin when the cheese-based coolant system melts again.

Very pricey imho especially compared to the c£7.5k rhd example recently advertised.

As an Alpina owner I have somewhat of an interest in general Alpina values (but not of the low mileage garage queens which mine are far from) but would any others care to comment about the price... also perhaps considering the very pretty but evidently a Sytner special B3.5 that sold for c£16k a month or so back...

Congratulations Dave, but only 31 miles in two years... surely it needs a bit more of a run out than that... just to get it up to normal running temperarature.

Made of 'bits' and not made by the constructors such as BMW Motorsport and Alpina.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/bmw-540i-e34-manual-6-speed-very-rare-original-genuine-car/193585103831?hash=item2d129243d7:g:Y5kAAOSwN41fFX~M From the MoT history it has 220k miles now and was off the road from approx Feb 2008 to Feb 2020... I think the 540i/6 Touring on retro-rides might be the better buy...

My only thought about anything over 400-ish from a BiTurbo is how well the rest of the old oily bits will hold up; didn't you have a rocker arm snap in two on your previous BT Si? If you're going to go down the route of really stretching the Alpina design wouldn't you want make sure everything was upgraded to as new or as strong as possible? That, and some monster brakes instead of the BT's ancient Lucas-Girling 4 pots. Great work Simon, and good luck for your September target.

Ruby black and I remember being astonished at how good it looks on that Z4 shape back when they first came out. Congratulations Anil, it looks ace.

Only a small amount, less than £10, all in change from the ashtray where we keep car-parking money. The car had been in the week before for a service and my wife thought a £2 coin was missing so when they said it had to go back in for another item to be done we just counted up what was still in the ashtray and more went missing. We reported it and spoke to the Service Manager who was apologetic but didn't seem surprised and said there are lots of people, mechanics, valeters, bods who move cars, etc, who might have been in it. I pointed out that someone could be making between £50 to a £100 a day, perhaps as much as £400 a week from doing this - from his face he hadn't thought about it like that before. He gave us our money back and said he'd take it up with the Dealer Principle but we heard nothing else. The car (2015 435d) now goes to our indy for everthing except warranty stuff. Guildford.

Vixpy, by email, just asking if I might be interested - it was around the time I learned I needed a new engine block for the E39, and some other issues meant I was considering putting my own E34 or E38 up for sale, so it was a sad but easy no.