Re: Considering E28 M5 (archive)

If you have the E30 M3, the M5 stuff should be somewhat familiar. I agree with Malcolm, buying it at $2500 presents little risk no matter what you get as long as the engine and tranny are in good shape.

If you're going to use it for schools, the interior should not worry you. If you do decide to get the interior redone, you could elect to go with vinyl or cloth. I just bought E30 sports seats BMW factory vinyl for $180 for one front seat. Not too bad if you think about it. You should have your interior pieces in vinyl for $600-700. This assumes you can repair the mechanical seat stuff yourself or have no issues with those. Seat cables are $10-11 each.

The rust spots are common in that area from road chips leaving exposed steel and easy to touch if you care. Average quality hood and fender resprays are no biggie.

Suspension work is not that bad though troubleshooting the shimmying front end can be exasperating. With cars like the E28 M5 you usually want to redo the suspension anyway to make the car tight.

I'd say go for it, particularly if you do your own work.

As for auto-x vs daily-driver, I'd go with daily driver!

Neil Deshpande
http://www.neilwerke.com

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I've owned a couple of older 5 series cars in the past and currently have a couple of E30s, including and M3, but I don't know much about the E28 M5. I've found one that has 150K, pretty beat interior, generally good exterior, except for some rust spots on edge of hood, right front fender, etc, and a number of door dings. It runs pretty stong, good compression, has lower spring set, but feels/sounds like it needs some suspension work. Other than the springs, shocks, and replacement muffler, it's all stock. That's all the bad news, the good news, I think, is that I can buy it for $2500. I was thinking of perhaps using it for driver's schools and auto-x, or cleaning it up, mechanically and cosmetically, and using it as a daily driver. I'd appreciate any feedback as to what else I should look at more closely before considering buying it, what I'd be in for as far as possible surprises and cost in doing repairs and and semi-restoration if I were to buy. What do you think of the driver's school and auto-x car vs. daily driver idea? Thanks for the help.

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