Im looking in to buying a 92 525i wit 129,000 miles on it. I was wandering if its worth buying or is it just going to be a money pit at this point. Its a sweet looking car but Ive never owned a bmw and am not sure what to expect as far as engine live and overall longevity of the car. Having owned toyotas and hondas my whole life Ive come to expect at least 300,000 miles out of my cars.
A few questions:
In fact, I would be more concern with whether the tranny oil has been changed, especially if its an automatic. Further, regular changes of the differential oil, brake fluid and coolant are vital too. Changing fluids makes a big difference on these cars.
Finally, no matter whether you have the service records or not, consider having the car inspected by a good BMW independent. They should be able to find any problems and tell you what to expect. At about 1 hour labor or so, its not cheap, but good insurance. If you need to find a good indy, look here:
Good Luck!
"Drunkpunk" wrote
1) What does PFI stand for? If it's Port Fuel Injection, that's a poor use of the term, since every BMW (in the US) since around '75 has had it. Toyota and Honda are relatively late to that technology (as is GM.) 2) I assume you mean I6 rather than L6. The "I" stands for Inline (as opposed to "V" configuration of the engine cylinders. 3) Although *you* may have had Toyotas and Hondas that have lasted 300K miles, I doubt that that's the median life. 150K-200K is much more likely.Our '91 525i now has 200K on it. Engine uses a little oil, but still very strong. Original clutch. Suspension pieces have been replaced. Interior a little shabby, especially door panels (typical problem with them). Coolant system has been overhauled (must do to keep em running.) BMW engines typically last 200K-
250K miles. YMMV.IMO, since you won't expend the effort to use proper punctuation, you haven't apparently googled this group's archive for previous posts on the subject (there are MANY references to sites and boards with that information), I doubt that you will expend the effort on maintenance to keep it running for
250-300K miles.FloydR
A car of that age and mileage is going to cost pennies. If it breaks, throw it away.
Cars which do vast mileages usually do so with just one owner - and have to be looked after all their life. A BMW is no different from a Honda in this respect. So use the same criterion in choosing one as you did all your Hondas and Toyotas.
BTW, you must be very old if you've owned several Hondas and Toyotas and run them all to 300,000 miles. Many people don't drive that far in a lifetime.
Most were bought around the 200,000 mark and I used to drive 150-300 miles a day for work
Sorry about the punctuation I just copied and pasted engine info from carfax report as for past post on the subject I couldn't find any that directly refer to a 92 525i, and I know some makes and models with a good overall reputation can sometimes have a bad year, I.e. mid 80s jaguars.
Nedavno Drunkpunk via CarKB.com napisa:
Wooow, what sort of work do you do? I drive 7km (5 miles) total to the office and back. I drive 300 miles in one day only during summer holiday trip.
My impression is that the bad years for Jaguars started much earlier than the mid 80s.
For example, the Jaguar engineers designed the I6 DOHC engine during WWII. They wanted to put it into production as soon as possible, and there was no money available for engine testing and development. Hence, the early buyers acted as testers. I can't remember where I read that. Most likely it was from Road and Track while John Bond still owned the magazine.
Of course, if you really get down to it, all years which had Lucas electrics was a bad year.
Jim
So what modifications where made to it after this consumer testing that turned it into a race winning unit that also powered things from ambulances to light tanks?
Can't say. The user testing took place in the late 40s in the XK120 and the sedans. Jim
Mine has nearly 300k on it, engine is fine, i had 2 fail at between 130 and
160 with plastic water pump failure, this seems to be common. So i guess this one was changed long before i got it.Had loads of Toyotas too, but all from the 70's which where simple, the bimmer is a bit more complicated to say the least..
apart from a computer speaking German to me, and other little odds n sods, its been fine, even on 1000 mile a day trips...comfy, half decent handling.
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