rootrider
Mr. TDI SportWagen
in an effort to stave off likely impending repair costs, to save money, and to grow up while still having fun, I am replacing this...
with this...
The wagon has a little over 140k miles/225k km and is still on almost all original mechanical parts. The car is still running/working great, but I am ready for a change. My 'commute' is much shorter than it used to be (about 10 minutes to the bus station parking garage, compared with a 1 hour drive before), so the diesel engine in the wagon barely has time to warm up. I also just wanted something more comfortable, and something that can be quick and handle well while still maintaining a more normal ride height.
The solution came by way of a manual e60 with the largest available I-6 engine. Manual e60's are rare here.. I know they're rare pretty much everywhere, but they're definitely rare here. I actually wanted an e61 (touring), but with only ~600 manual 530xi tourings sold between US & Canada, this wasn't going to happen. We needed a car that was going to be at the cheap end of the scale, but still in good shape.
I searched for about a month.. no manual wagon or sedan was for sale within 1000 - 1500 miles (1600-2400km) most of the time. But then this car popped up. It's a 2004 with 93,904 miles (151,124 km) at the time, and it looked really clean. It's a color combination I'm ok with (especially the black interior) as well. The car has about 50k less miles than the wagon, so this means at least a couple more years before this BMW gets to similar miles as what the wagon is now. We're not even sure if we'll be in the US in a couple years, so this suits us well.
This 530i has the sport and premium packages.. so it has dynamic drive (the active sway bars), sport suspension, fully adjustable power leather seats, bi-xenon adaptive headlights, the variable ratio steering, etc. It also has the smokers package (just means it has ash trays.. meh. It doesn't look like anyone has ever smoked in the car), white indicator lights, sunroof, alarm system, type 123 wheels (standard on the 530i), and the dealer installed an auxiliary audio port.
The car had 4 owners before me.. though two of them only owned the car for a short amount of time. So somehow this car had four owners over 90k+ miles that all took very good care of the car. There are a couple of paint scratches and chips, and a few marks on the interior. The leather looks largely unused somehow, and everything still works except, unfortunately, the iDrive menu button on the console (thankfully this isn't a big issue).
So, I contacted the dealer the day the car came in, and was down there two days later to buy the car. These cars hold their value so poorly that it was actually available for less money than what I expect to sell my wagon that is in worse shape and has 50% higher miles.
sooo.. it's a 2004 530i sport. It has about 94k miles now. It's Titanium Gray Metallic on the outside, and has the Black Dakota Leather on the inside. It's missing the cold weather package (or at least heated seats).. but I intend to add in heated seats at some point. It has the M54b30 3L I-6 engine with a 6spd manual transmission. I intend to leave the suspension stock, though I do expect to need to replace the dampers at some point. The car will definitely receive new wheels.. if I can find wide 18" concave wheels that I like.
so all of the above are dealer photos. I haven't taken many myself yet, but here's a couple from when I picked it up:
and these are from this weekend.. went on a drive:
will have to have my title changed.. no more VW's soon
proof pic coming at some point..
with this...
The wagon has a little over 140k miles/225k km and is still on almost all original mechanical parts. The car is still running/working great, but I am ready for a change. My 'commute' is much shorter than it used to be (about 10 minutes to the bus station parking garage, compared with a 1 hour drive before), so the diesel engine in the wagon barely has time to warm up. I also just wanted something more comfortable, and something that can be quick and handle well while still maintaining a more normal ride height.
The solution came by way of a manual e60 with the largest available I-6 engine. Manual e60's are rare here.. I know they're rare pretty much everywhere, but they're definitely rare here. I actually wanted an e61 (touring), but with only ~600 manual 530xi tourings sold between US & Canada, this wasn't going to happen. We needed a car that was going to be at the cheap end of the scale, but still in good shape.
I searched for about a month.. no manual wagon or sedan was for sale within 1000 - 1500 miles (1600-2400km) most of the time. But then this car popped up. It's a 2004 with 93,904 miles (151,124 km) at the time, and it looked really clean. It's a color combination I'm ok with (especially the black interior) as well. The car has about 50k less miles than the wagon, so this means at least a couple more years before this BMW gets to similar miles as what the wagon is now. We're not even sure if we'll be in the US in a couple years, so this suits us well.
This 530i has the sport and premium packages.. so it has dynamic drive (the active sway bars), sport suspension, fully adjustable power leather seats, bi-xenon adaptive headlights, the variable ratio steering, etc. It also has the smokers package (just means it has ash trays.. meh. It doesn't look like anyone has ever smoked in the car), white indicator lights, sunroof, alarm system, type 123 wheels (standard on the 530i), and the dealer installed an auxiliary audio port.
The car had 4 owners before me.. though two of them only owned the car for a short amount of time. So somehow this car had four owners over 90k+ miles that all took very good care of the car. There are a couple of paint scratches and chips, and a few marks on the interior. The leather looks largely unused somehow, and everything still works except, unfortunately, the iDrive menu button on the console (thankfully this isn't a big issue).
So, I contacted the dealer the day the car came in, and was down there two days later to buy the car. These cars hold their value so poorly that it was actually available for less money than what I expect to sell my wagon that is in worse shape and has 50% higher miles.
sooo.. it's a 2004 530i sport. It has about 94k miles now. It's Titanium Gray Metallic on the outside, and has the Black Dakota Leather on the inside. It's missing the cold weather package (or at least heated seats).. but I intend to add in heated seats at some point. It has the M54b30 3L I-6 engine with a 6spd manual transmission. I intend to leave the suspension stock, though I do expect to need to replace the dampers at some point. The car will definitely receive new wheels.. if I can find wide 18" concave wheels that I like.
so all of the above are dealer photos. I haven't taken many myself yet, but here's a couple from when I picked it up:
and these are from this weekend.. went on a drive:
will have to have my title changed.. no more VW's soon
proof pic coming at some point..
