A little warning for anyone with factory-spec 17"/18" BMW alloys as fitted 4-8 years ago (made by BBS I think).
Today my trader friend bought me a nice fully-historied 2001 E39 5-series to look at - bought it at auction before Xmas and now valeting it etc. Done 55k. It had a 'vibration' from the back. Judging by service records the orginal owner had it at a dealer and they changed a rear suspension bush (at considerable expense).
Anyway, I have seen this before so took a careful look at both rear wheels.
As I've seen 3-4 times before, one of the back wheels was slightly buckled.
If you look at these wheels you'll see that they are very weak on the inside, all the support (the spokes) is at the outer edge of the wheel and so they can buckle easily at the inside.
You can't really repair a buckled alloy - a brand new one is £250+ I think. Anyway, he went off to ring some BMW breakers for a replacement.
Incidentally, this car also had the ragged 1-2 synchro when cold. Not much you can do about that.
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Our local wheel refurbisher will repair buckled alloys as part of the refurb.
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I am wary of repairing buckled alloys. I had one done a few years back (by a very well known Birmingham-based refurbisher) and it buckled again after a few months - in the same place I think. I suspect that once the alloy has deformed it is weakened.
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I thought a proper repair included annealing to prevent a weakspot, or is my metallurgy a bit rusty :-)
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Had me worried for a second there but it would appear that mine have been acquired from a recent Z4 so I should be ok.
God knows what happened to the Z4 that they came off but I try not to think about that :-)
Blue
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Which particular style is this? I have 17" Style 66 M-Parrell Spoke I think it is..
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Sorry to veer slightly but it seems I was away from the forum whilst you bought your new motor Michael, got any pics?
Erm, it would also help identify your wheels I suppose, just to bring it back to the subject ;-)
Blue
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Certainly Blue, try these..
img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=530iqx8.jpg
img184.imageshack.us/my.php?image=530idarkbx4.jpg
img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=530i2ub7.jpg
Very happy with it indeed! Manual with Black Leather :) You guys were right, the waiting paid off, its a one owner from new car.
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Michael that is beautiful, I especially like the night time picture. To be honest I shouldn't have looked at them, it makes me unsatisfied with what I've got! The trouble is I don't have the patience to wait for the right car, I have to buy one straight away once I get it in my head to change. I'm too much of a big kid at heart! :-)
Actually I'm been unfair, mine is pretty much everything that I could possibly want from a 3 series, and she attracts lots of positive (and a fair bit of negative) attention, but I now think the next one has to be a 5...
Blue
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Mates at a local tyre fitters have noticed that certain newer ( in the last 5 years ) BMW's the larger size alloy wheels have a habit of actually cracking.
The first thing they do now when a newish BMW comes in on the space saver is stick air in the flat tyre & dunk it straight in the water, 70 - 80 % of the time the rim is cracked letting the air out & its scrap.
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Michael that is beautiful, I especially like the night time picture. To be honest I shouldn't have looked at them, it makes me unsatisfied with what I've got! The trouble is I don't have the patience to wait for the right car, I have to buy one straight away once I get it in my head to change. I'm too much of a big kid at heart! :-)
I absolutely love it and it was SO worth the wait. My dream car is an E39 M5 but there is simply no way I can afford to buy or run one of those whilst I am still at Uni, and you try insuring one at 22 anyway :p So the 530i is my little M5, if you like :)
The whole alloy wheel issue does sound a tad on the concerning side, though. I wonder if my wheels are affected?
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Very nice car. If you don't mind me asking what sort of money would buy an example in the same condition (age, mileage etc) as yours?
I am 40 so insurance shouldn't be an issue! One benefit of being older I suppose!!!
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Very nice car ... ... I am 40 so insurance shouldn't be an issue! ....
ok, but how about the other costs that aprilia warns you about, e.g. see:
here
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=43983&...e
and here
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=47807&...t
as long as you are aeare that like trophy footballer's wags, these bmws can be expensive to maintain.
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Very nice car. If you don't mind me asking what sort of money would buy an example in the same condition (age, mileage etc) as yours?
I was very lucky with mine, you'd need £8k+ to get one as nice as mine but there are not many around with that sort of mileage in that sort of condition. So you'd probably need a lower mileage one.
530i Sport's start at about £7k for 2000-X plates with over 100k on, and finish at about £18k for low mileage, fully loaded 03 plate Automatic Champagne II editions. Leather and Automatic Gearbox adds to the value, as does Communications Pack (Satnav, TV and phone). Cheapest to get hold of is a manual with the cloth/alcantara seats - its wrong spec so demand is less. Can find bargains that way.
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