Good deal? What do you think?

[peregrine40]

Im looking at a car for sale locally. Theyll give it to me for $5000. Its a 1995 525i, and its in pretty dang good condition. The only knocker is 160,000 miles. Everything works great, body is great, drives solid. Runs great. I really loved the car, hadnt driven a bmw before, love all the power options, everything is just so high quality. So do you guys reckon its a good deal at that price?

[da_bull]

Make sure you got a little saved up just in case they havent properly maintained the car (Inspection I or II, suspension stuff starts going at about that mileage, etc.). The mileage isnt bad, these cars will go about 300K before you have to swap motors. KBB shows $5495 for a private party sale, assuming its an auto in good condition, so your right in the ballpark. Its a heavy car, the 530 has a little more spunk, but I really like mine. It has a few electrical quirks that you might have to overcome in the future, but most of the guys on here can help a through that. If you really like the car and can afford it I'd say you cant go wrong...

my two disc-shaped-copper-pieces-with-pix-of-dead-presidents-on-them

[jnstrcklnd]

Listen to him, (Da Bull.) He knows what he is talkin' about.

[Eric S.]

Prices are always going to be all over the place on those older 5-ers, especially with high miles. I'd actually recommend you look into a good '91 thru '93 535i. It'll have a more powerful inline 6 than the 525 (over 200hp versus 184hp), yet offers all of the same smoothness & reliability benfits. There was a guy on this forum who back in late 2004 who bought a Sport Package-equipped 535i as I've described above, with about 110K on it for about $3500.

But good used E34's aren't exactly on every street corner, and the 525 was the only I-6 5-er in 1995. So if you're really enamored of the 525 you've discovered, I HIGHLY reccommend you pay the price to get it checked out by a competent BMW mechanic, BEFORE you buy it. Regardless of your choice, you'll still need to have a couple thousand $ you can put into it over the coming year or so to get everything sorted out on it.

[peregrine40]

Well, I tested it a bit, and everything was nice and tight, I was pretty surprised at how well everything worked. Im at sea level, so powers actually pretty good, handling was great for a car that heavy too. I had looked into other fivers but the nikasil thing is...not worth dealing with in my opinion. I need good gas mileage too...One thing I was curious about though on an unrelated level is if all the supercharger kits for the 325 fit the 525?

[da_bull]

Originally Posted by Eric S.

Prices are always going to be all over the place on those older 5-ers, especially with high miles. I'd actually recommend you look into a good '91 thru '93 535i. It'll have a more powerful inline 6 than the 525 (over 200hp versus 184hp), yet offers all of the same smoothness & reliability benfits. There was a guy on this forum who back in late 2004 who bought a Sport Package-equipped 535i as I've described above, with about 110K on it for about $3500.

But good used E34's aren't exactly on every street corner, and the 525 was the only I-6 5-er in 1995. So if you're really enamored of the 525 you've discovered, I HIGHLY reccommend you pay the price to get it checked out by a competent BMW mechanic, BEFORE you buy it. Regardless of your choice, you'll still need to have a couple thousand $ you can put into it over the coming year or so to get everything sorted out on it.

da_bull is d-u-m-b, I meant 535 lol...

[Eric S.]

Originally Posted by da_bull

da_bull is d-u-m-b, I meant 535 lol...

d-u-m-b? Hardly! But yes, this buyer probably wants to avoid the V8 models and I admit - I had to look it up (yeah, I "cheated") and was surprised to find that both the 530 and 540 were V8s in that era (1994-1995)! Whodathunkit? :lol:

[peregrine40]

Yeah, id like to avoid those, which leaves the 535i, which I like but are just hard to find. I think Ill go for this, its just in such great shape...how often do the timing belts and whatnot need to be changed on these cars?

[jnstrcklnd]

every 60 - 80,000 miles