Latest in my long line of "what impractical car" advice.

A friend of mine had an E38 728. He never let me drive it, but in a 'floor it 2up to see how fast will it go before you have to slow down for the end of the driveway' test, both cars performed similarly well. I'd definately have one.

My (manual) BX did not fare so well in the same test, despite having, on the face of it, more favourable 0-60 and PTWR figures.

Bloody good by all accounts, and yes.

It was a cracking 4.4 litre V8 second generation commonrail (from memory, don't quote me on that), with lots of power and quite good economy as far as V8 engines go, but they only made them in LHD and are still HFM? money if you can even find one for sale (are there any foreign autotrader sites? might be a place to look).

Google for "john burns bmw" without the quotes to find a brilliant site with loads of stuff about all things BMW.

I've heard that the 728i is nowhere near as underpowered as you might expect, and actually quite reasonable too on fuel.

Are they as s**te on fuel as the Omega 2.5TD I had? 36mpg on a long, uber-gentle motorway journey at 55-60mph with the cruise control on most of the way? 28mpg on mostly open road driving, not doing more than about 80 on the motorways?

From what I've heard about the 525i autos, I can't imagine them to be really much different, economy-wise, than the 525TDS models as long as there's not too much town driving involved. Would I be about right, or not?

Best I ever got out of a 2.5 TDS (touring) was ~40mpg. Almost the same as a petrol one. Mind you, they go just as well as a petrol one too.

JB

My E34 525 petrol auto well beat those figures. One reasonably gentle drive to Aberdeen saw just under 39 mpg - less than one full tank.

Guess I might need to go "POV" Spec on my 7 series then ;)

Fabulous, not RHD

No, yes, yes, not sure

My 4.0 M60 did ~23mpg, mostly *fast* A roads, the 4.4 M62 is less revvy and more economical. Bushes shocks and water-pumps should be considered consumable, nothing too pricey otherwise...

Be aware of the Nikasil and oil-pump issues - not a problem if dealt with in a timely manner.

The adaptive 'box is brilliant, the interior sumptuous and the handling truly remarkable for something so large - not much will stay with one cross-country.

Where have you been Al? How's it going? Still got the Alpina?

Lots of 728s had a rather nice "sports pack" with very fine 18" multispoke wheels, wider at the back, which makes them look harder than most V8s...

Far from slow either. :)

That is what worries me after Vamp's issues. And he bought at the higher end of the market. Was it just the V8s that suffered the Nikasil probs, or did the E32 6 cylinder models suffer too?

The sixes did too, but for some reason to a lesser extent. Perhaps the cylinder wall temperatures are lower.

I'd be surprised if there were any Nikasil engined cars still around which are fine at the moment but likely to give problems in the future.

Here, but a bit busy for Usenet...

Still enjoying the ALPINA though I'm going to have to treat it to new front shocks and bushes soon - not cheap!

Happy New Year! :)

Yeah, but Look at Vamp's recent issues. Potentially there are some Nikasil issues still arround.

Are you confident it didn't have the obvious problem before he bought it? ;-)