Not trying to scare you but the E39 is not a car to own on a budget, the suspension is 2.5k to do, there's a lot to it when you include sub frame bushes, engine mounts, prop shaft guibo and little things like spring pads, new nuts and bolts, Mcung did his and did an excellent itemised list of what needs to be changed.Originally Posted by owly
If you do your own maintenance you can tip away at it, I did a full overhaul on my 525 and will be doing the same on the M5, I don't have the time or inclination to do it myself so in terms of labour costs and time, it's not worth my while tackling it piecemeal.
With the low levels of sulfur in modern diesels injectors are more common to failure, all of mine were completely shot at 118k. I did it the more expensive way at first, thought it was one injector, bought a brand new injector and then when that didn't solve the problem had the rest pulled and rebuilt, that car is now as smooth as silk and averages about 47 mpg.
Those are really the only two big tickets items I tackled in 3 years and 50k of ownership. The only reason I sold it was to bury money into the M5, if it hadn't become available I would still have it.
Outside of the above and tyres, it's not an overly expensive car to own, servicing is very reasonably, the M57 is an absolutely lovely engine, is incredibly reliable.
Even if you needed to tackle all of the above, the E39 gives you massive amounts of warning and time to get it sorted, they fail over time and the car gradually feels more and more loose, same story with the injectors, you'll start to get a rich smell of diesel in the cabin, fuel consumption will enter petrol territory and then finally the car will miss on idle, my injectors were going for a year before they finally bought the farm.
Buy it with open eyes, if it's worth investing time and money, get it right and enjoy it, they are a marvelous car.
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