Technician117 joins the E28 club

[Technician117]

Hi everyone. I wanted to introduce myself and my first E28. My name is Tim and I bought an ’88 M5 in early August this year. You could technically say I bought the car from the listing on this forum, although I did see it posted elsewhere. Anyway, here is some background on the car and what it’s been up to since beginning stewardship with me. It will be a struggle to stay concise, but I think it’s fun to share the stories which will also help memorialize them!

The previous owner is a member here, as I hinted at above. He owned the car for a few years after acquiring it from the estate of the prior owner. I don’t know if he checks the forum now that the car is sold, but he can correct me on any missed points. I think besides the great opportunity to own the car for a good price, it was a bucket list car for him. He put about 900 miles on it and took care of a few more maintenance items.
The real hero that exemplifies car stewardship is the owner that passed away unexpectedly. He owned the car from 1999 until 2020 and amassed roughly 150k miles of use out of the now 323k miles on the working odometer. In that time, he spent copious amounts of money to maintain it. Even still, she needs more work. Mostly “tinker” items that I’ll work my way through. He may have passed away suddenly, but he was dutifully tracking his maintenance and repair by saving almost all records for the car since the mid 90’s (he had receipts from the guy he bought it from in 1999). He went as far as saving emails between him and that previous owner discussing the purchase of the car. The best part is the seller (at the time) dictated what he knew of the prior owners and work done before HIS purchase. These emails are the only way to know that history! I just find that stuff fascinating.

Best I can tell from research, this car spent its life in South Carolina, Florida and Georgia. There is NO rust on the chassis. It’s been painted and is of driver quality, which is perfect since I plan to drive it a lot (and already have been!). The stack of records included a sub folder dedicated to receipts for the engine rebuild and basically full car overhaul. Sleuthing through everything was/is fun, trying to piece together the life of the car. From that, I determined the engine rebuild and a ton of other work only have about 25k miles on them. Other work like the complete cooling and AC systems overhauled and additional sensors, hoses, etc. all replaced as well. More recent work included new SLS shocks in the rear and other suspension work, brakes (including caliper rebuilds), etc.

Speaking of lots of driving, my best friend and I flew down to Atlanta from Buffalo NY and drove the car home over 3 days. That was a great experience that my friend recorded and put up on YouTube. We drove a lot of fun roads including sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which I’ve driven before but never gets old. We didn’t have any actual problems, but did suspect the ignition system was a bit weak, especially when it was raining later on the first day and the engine seems to hiccup a bit. We stopped in a plaza parking lot and swapped out the cap, rotor and spark plug wires with parts I had shipped down to the seller’s home. We couldn’t change the plugs because not only did we not have the correct spark plug tool, the NGK plugs I bought had a different size head on them, so the correct plug tool wouldn’t have worked on them anyway. I have since bought a socket and replaced with new Bosch plugs.

I’ve done some additional work since then. Some things were quite lucky considering the 1,200 mile drive I took home. A couple days after getting home, I noticed a wet spot on the driveway towards the back of the car. Upon investigation, I found the fuel filter rubber hose was COMPLETELY dry rotted. Fuel was leaking from the cracks. WOW! So, I proceeded to replace the rubber hoses back there and the filter itself since I bought one anyway. The next thing is related to the belts. I gave them a visual inspection prior to leaving with the car and they looked fine except the AC belt having a small chunk out of it. The “interesting” thing was it seemed like the crank pulley had a bend it in as while idling, it looked to have a wobble. Once home, I went about changing all three belts with new ones. I quickly discovered that the crank pulley (and damper) was actually LOOSE and only held on by 3 of the mount bolts… and all 3 were finger tight (loose)! I bought all new bolts and added blue Loctite prior to installing the new belts. Old cars are always an adventure!

I hope to contribute when and where I can as I continue to learn more but also experience more. I’ve been driving the car a lot and have taken it to a few BMW CCA events. The first one was a car show related to a GermanFest. Leaving GermanFest, I came out to the car to discover a note tucked in the driver’s door handle. Someone has already put their hat in the ring for if I decide to sell! ha

Thanks for reading!

Tim

[Mike W.]

Welcome to the group Tim!

[HayekFan]

Wow, and an M5 no less. Got any pics?

Your trip home was kind of the mirror image of mine. I flew from Alabama up to Vermont to pick it up and then drove it back over a couple of days. You really get to know your car quickly when you do a long first drive like that.

Very cool about the previous owners' documentation. Wish my car had more of that.

[1st 5er]

Congrats on the purchase.
Enjoy the ride.

[Technician117]

Wow, and an M5 no less. Got any pics?

Your trip home was kind of the mirror image of mine. I flew from Alabama up to Vermont to pick it up and then drove it back over a couple of days. You really get to know your car quickly when you do a long first drive like that.

Very cool about the previous owners' documentation. Wish my car had more of that.

Nice. Indeed, you really do get to experience the car and get to know it. I've purchased two other M5's this way. Fly and drive. This one was the furthest.

The documentation was a big reason I bought the car. The seller didn't go into much detail... once I got the car home and started going through the records/receipts, my feeling about the deal and the car kept getting better and better. There is a nagging driveability issue I'm working through plus the minor items but the car is basically new/fully maintained and probably drives better than M5's with half the mileage.

No pics on here yet. I don't have a hosting site setup.

[stuartinmn]

Welcome to the club!