BMW 740

I know, I know, stay away you say, stay away!!! But, I've always liked these...

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/cto/4674581010.html

Doesn't look bad, but I'd wait for a nice 740i Sport to come along.

Figure about a $1/mile in maintenance on those and that doesn't include consumables. If you can do the work yourself, then the cost per mile is less, but the time spent with the car down goes up.

I've got a 94 740iL (previous gen) with 200k, fresh black paint ($1800 worth apparently) that I get to do some work to before it goes down the road. Buddy of mine runs a BMW shop and said that the front end rebuild is about $3000, to fix the miss in the engine is about $1500 and the car is worth maybe $3000. Oh and the driver's seat adjustment is broken along with the sunroof, there's a shudder from the rear end under acceleration from a stop so that's either transmission mounts, driveshaft support bearing or the quibo joint. Luckily the parts for those projects are available relatively cheap, but I get to do the work. So much for free cars from the in-laws....

So yeah, if you like the cars and don't mind doing the work, go for it. If you'd rather just have something nice to drive that is less expensive to maintain, I'd go with a smaller model or another brand altogether.

Typical dealer scare-away prices. I got a dealer price of $3400 to do a clutch on an E36 too. Is that typical or even an option for everyone? Of course not. A front end rebuild is doable in the driveway for well under $500. A misfire could be a spark plug. Or a coil pack. Or a bent valve. Or... Curious to hear how the mechanic knew it would be $1500 to fix. Drivers seat adjustment is usually simply time (no parts needed, usually) Nice cars, but complicated! Chris V on this website had one and loved it. Great online resources for DIYers for this model.

I love those 740I sports, but that iL is very clean, great highway cruiser, listen for timing chain noises

Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: Typical dealer scare-away prices. I got a dealer price of $3400 to do a clutch on an E36 too. Is that typical or even an option for everyone? Of course not. A front end rebuild is doable in the driveway for well under $500. A misfire could be a spark plug. Or a coil pack. Or a bent valve. Or... Curious to hear how the mechanic knew it would be $1500 to fix. Drivers seat adjustment is usually simply time (no parts needed, usually) Nice cars, but complicated! Chris V on this website had one and loved it. Great online resources for DIYers for this model.

Uh, yeah I said pretty much that already. However you do need to buy or build different pulling devices and tools to get the various bushings and bearings, etc apart.

He wasn't trying to scare me, he's a good friend and he has to put food on the table and his time is worth something. He would gladly do the work and give me a discount on parts, etc. He's got decades of experience with BMW's and loves the cars, but knows they are expensive to maintain just due to their complexity.

To track down the miss, the cooling system would be drained to take the intake off to replace the plugs, coil packs, stupid square vacuum lines and replace the leaking valve cover gaskets. Assuming there isn't more wrong with the motor once that work is completed, that would be for the time involved and parts. I suspect in 25+ years he's done a few of these V8's

On my seat, the plastic gear is stripped for the seat height adjustment, requiring replacement of that motor and gear assembly and you get to adjust the drive cables for the back rest while you're in there. You get to disassemble the seat back from the seat bottom to get at it to replace the damaged pieces.

I've already bought the front end bushings, tie-rod ends and brake pads I need from RockAuto and it wasn't bad. I'm not looking forward to taking it all apart to fix it.

Just pointing out that the cars are complex and while the parts can be reasonable, the installation time can be lengthy and require tools that you may not always have access to. Parts are cheaper than Porsche prices and quite a lot of parts share between different BMW chassis which helps a bit.

If you're okay with the potential of the car being down for a week or two every few months while you wait for parts and getting them installed, then go for it.

Personally I think the cars are too big and the V8 isnt exactly exciting to drive for the amount of gas they consume, but then I'm not exactly the type of person that would have bought one when new or even used.

My father had the short wheelbase version and I thought it was one of the best big cars I have ever driven, but yeah unless you do all the work, stay far away.

Unless I'm mistaken a BMW V8 doesn't need the intake removed to replace spark plugs. The ones I worked on in Range Rovers took about an hour to do all eight. That was the 4.4L M62 iirc.