Thats why I came here to ask. i'm not balling out of control. Maintenance I can handle, but I don't want to be bogged down with seemingly unnecessary repairs all of the time.
Although you can do the work yourself, BMW parts are ridiculously expensive. In ten years of BMW ownership I can't remember an unscheduled repair that cost less than $500 - almost all were over $1000 (parts only). If either of these cars have 10K in receipts behind them, they may not be that bad. If not, expect significant repairs.
Both are really nice looking cars and its amazing how much they have depreciated. The non-M parts of the two cars are very similar. HVAC, gauge clusters are common elecrical problems, seemingly moreso on the 7. General wisdom on the E38 is to budget 4-5K per year in maintenance - a lot of money to spend on a car that only costs you 11K to begin with. I got my 740i Sport with only 61K miles. I was over 80K when I got rid of it and had done valve covers, oil seperator, two expansion tanks, a radiator, headlight adjuster, intake flaps. The car would have needed shocks and control arms had the previous owner not done them at 40K when the Dinan suspension went in. At that mileage you are great risk for transmission failure. I had a 3d party warranty with mine for most of my ownership. It would have been hard to stomach if I hadn't. Just some things to think about.
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2008 BMW M5 6-speed
Silverstone II/Indianapolis Red/Aluminum
Enhanced Audio, 20-way seats with Active Backrest, iPod, Comfort Access, Shades
Ha, no trying to ball on a budget. e38's have always been a car I loved and this just happened to pop up extremely local to me. I plan to make the move to a four door and figured I might as well look to a 4dr I might actually like. There are plenty of strong, well maintained cars with over 100K on the odo. But I have no personal experience with either of these two cars, hence I asked here.