Hi all. After seeing the for-sale note above, you really got me thinking about everyone's comments. There are some very good reasons a car looks this good at 311k miles. As I suspect the owner will attest, this doesn't happen by accident. So why do some of us make it to that kind of mileage with our cars looking and running like bluecar88's and others have 150k miles on them and they look like ass?
I have a few ideas, since my royal blue metallic with pearl beige leatherette (just like this one) also mostly looks like this car with nearly the same mileage. (except for the rust that went out of control a few years ago when I was preoccupied)
1. Garage - well, I am garageboy, after all. Keeping your E28 in a garage, even if is the most basic garage, makes a tremendous difference in every climate. Whether keeping it out of the snow in northern regions, or out of the intense heat of southern regions, subjecting it to less acid rain, tree sap, etc., a garage is the single best thing you can do for your car's longevity. Even in temperate California.
2. Paint - while all of their metallic-paint (2-stage) cars are subject to peeling clear coat, the darker color later model cars seem to be fairly tough. The clear coat on my baltic blue E28 (83) did not start to age until I started storing it outside, and in a matter of a couple years, it looked like hell on the hood and roof (trunk was re-cleared in 1992).
3. How you clean it - exterior - I am not one of those people that has to clean my car every few weeks when it gets dirty. I let it get dirty and be dirty, but when I wash it, up to months later, I do it by hand, and with the highest quality products (Meguires, Zymol, Zaino Bros., P21S). Some people wipe the rain off when it's dirty, and this is the worst thing you can do. Washing it with harsh soaps isn't good either, even if you are applying wax after. I think there is such as thing as washing your car too much, aside from the obvious psychological weirdness of such behavior, since you're wearing down the paint (single-stage) or clear-coat (2-stage) every time when you wash, and moreso when you wax it. Over 20+ years, it adds up. If a bird takes a major dump on your paint, sure, clean it off, but don't be obsessive about it.
4. How you clean it - interior - This is one of my biggest pet peeves about cars, especially BMWs made in this century. With my E28, I have always made a mess in the car when I'm using it (for camping trips and other things like that). But when I'm done making a mess, I clean it up. People are allowed to eat and smoke in the car, but it cleans up nicely. The pearl beige leatherette (leatherette (vinyl) in general) is so bullet-proof that you can make a mess again and again and again, and it will clean up to the way it looked like back in 1987. It's truly remarkable material. However, If I spill something on it, I don't leave it there for months - I clean it up. And of course, once a year, I do a major scrubbing, using quality products (Meguires, Zymol). Use vinyl cleaner, then vinyl protectorant. Use the vacuum. Clean out everything. Scrub the carpets if they get stained. It will clean up nicely. On the other hand, my E39's leather looks like ass, and eventually I will have to deal with it somehow. It lasted for about 40k miles, and all solutions I have seen, other than recovering the seat with new leather, seem to look like crap.
5. Driver's seat - weight of driver - My driver's seat would look as good as bluecar88's driver's seat if I wasn't such a fat sh*t. I am guessing bluecar88 is under 200 pounds, because that makes a big difference.
6. Detailing - this is one of those issues that people get all religious about. Either you're a Believer or you're a Non-believer... no one seems to be in the middle. I have a really good detailer, but he is quite expensive. So I use him only when absolutely necessary, and not every year, like some. Frankly, any time he's detailed my car, I've taken fairly good care of it afterward to not require annual "checkups". But I am quite convinced that in the hands of a competent detailer, it's always good to restore the paint every few years to the condition it came out from the factory, and restore it to that condition every time you wash it.
7. Maintenance - this probably should have been #1 in my list. When you maintain your car on a regular schedule of time and mileage, you're always looking at the vehicle with an eye towards what is obviously wrong, and what is not-so-obvious. Because you're dealing with issues proactively, you're essentially "restoring" the car - instead of doing a complete restoration after 20 years, each time you are doing maintenance on the car, you're doing a mini-restoration - a little bit at a time.
8. Quality of parts - well, here is where I break from my idol, Robert Pirsig, in terms of what we should use in our cars. I don't have to have a roundel stamped on every part - but only when I can make an informed decision on the quality of the part, and whether going aftermarket will cause other problems down the road. For example, I have learned that BMW performs spin balancing and strict quality control on their brake rotors and so I will only buy factory brake parts, but I also know the Bosch WR9LS spark plugs can come from anywhere. Also, I have embraced "used" parts on plenty of occasions as well, but only when it makes sense, like a differential from a trusted supplier. But a lot of modifications folks make to their cars degrades the longevity of our E28s, in my opinion. And the cheap oil filters and fuel injectors and exhausts and oxygen sensors and bulbs can turn these cars into crapbuckets.
9. Gasoline - you can argue all you want about octane and how much money I've wasted putting brand-name premium fuel in my 528e, but I know that the health of my fuel system in this car has been enhanced over the years by using quality fuel. So if I'm using quality gas, replacing the fuel filter every 30k simply based on mileage, replaced fuel line with bmw fuel line whenever I have found it to be aging, I'm confident that car has fuel pressure figures within range of what it was when new. This is why after 300k miles, the car starts and runs very much the way it did back in 1987. I suspect bluecar88's is the same.
I've heard it said that you can tell what someone's house looks like from seeing their car, and what their car looks like from seeing their house. This is universally true. And I am confident, from looking at bluecar88's photos, that the internal maintenance on the drivetrain has been done with the same meticulousness as we see in these photos (I bet his house is pretty nice, too
).I think we all want to buy this car (except the eta hata crowd) - I've sent this advert to a few people that have been asking me about cars for years. I sure hope your car goes to an appreciative home.
Regards,
.steve.
NYC
1988 528e, 5-speed, 80k, The Time Capsule
2001 525i, 5-speed, 115k, The Toaster
1987 528e, 5-speed, 276k, The Organ Donor http://garageboy.com/images/misc/person ... c_5603.jpg
1983 528e, 5-speed, 317k, parted out, gone
