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Thread: Using an 1991 E34 as a primary car

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    1991 BMW 525i E34

    Using an 1991 E34 as a primary car

    I thought that might be interesting to share with you my experience of switching a contemporary car for this almost antique car for commuting every day, including travels for business purposes. I did this expecting to make the car reliable, because my business agenda is very tight.

    Part of my motivation is that use condition is no severe, at all. The car is primarily used to drive from home to the company, mostly highway. It’s a country side town, so no traffic jams. Twice a month I drive to Sao Paulo for business, a 330 km, dual carriage trip. No snow, no beach, no salt, no dirt road. My garage is also nice: underground, and dry.

    E34 vs. W124 – I aimed for the 1989-1992 era. At those times, premium auto makers spend money with quality of parts vs. onboard technology. E34 and W124 are over engineered. Also for personal reasons, since this was a time I was enthusiast about cars. I read lots about w124 and e34 (there so much more content about w124, though). I picked the e34 for three reasons: (1) found an e34 525i aut with 43 k miles in pristine conditions (2) bmw e36 with M50 engine was more popular in Brasil than w124/ w201, so mechanics were more used to them (3) I was a bit cautious about w124 head gasket, air conditioning and wiring harness issues. Nevertheless, I might own a w124 at some point. Enough of talking. Let’s go through the sequence of records:

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    1991 BMW 525i E34
    1) Acquired in 2016 may 25th . Drove 708 km to bring the car home. I came with 1999 750 wheels, but I brought the originals with me (with the OEM tyres on them). As I said the overall condition was very good. Paid US$ 10.600,00 for it. (Yeah, I known, bloody expensive for the car).

    IMG_20160525_163142.jpg

    Every thing seemed to be working well. Except CD changer in the trunk. Took it with me loose in the back seat. Spare tyre never been used. Everything original, nothing has been rebuilt. Driver's seat and arm rest showed some aging marks. Air conditioning weak. It was smelling like mold, that kind of bothered me, but I believed I minimize it significantly. Paint was original, shining, but I noticed some signs of wear on some corners, probably result of a bad polishing job. Other than this, perfect, nothing was missing in the car, everything else sounded like new. Suspension was smooth, and no noise was heard, even on rough pavament.

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    1991 BMW 525i E34
    I drove my bmw home - 708 km. The car was solid. I put it at my garage until having time to find a mechanic and take the car for the first check up. I kept my other car, an 2014 audi A4 avant, until I was sure about the e34 reliability. Eventually I took it to the shop, crossing fingers, expecting that the check up result wouldnt be too harsh $$$.

    44.400 miles (Jul 01st 16) - Check up wasnt too bad: Change battery (couldnt find 65 amp, got a 70 amp), motor oil, oil filter, transmission oil, changed a radiator (got a brand new Behr) and Sachs rear shock absorbers. That costed US$ 2,250,00 (I know, the price of another e34 in the US). It is important to highlight that owning any car, particularly imported one in Brasil is very expensive. Any part will cost freight plus 60% tax, over item +freight value. For example, my shock absorbers were got by US$ 82 each at rockauto.com, but final price of the pair ended up US$ 450, including freight and taxes.

    Now it is time to the e34 start to work - I put it on the road

    Bmw 524 no pátria 2.jpg

    This is me arriving at the office, after a 330 km travel plus 1 hour traffic jam in Sao Paulo. People were like: Is this you car?
    Last edited by MarceloSoares; 03-04-2017 at 05:22 AM.

  4. #4
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    are slow
    Beautiful car and extremely rare to see low mileage E34s.

    If you want a W124, don't buy into the head gasket alarmism. It's as simple as not overheating and overall the older Mercs are even more solid in terms of construction, but an E34 is always going to be more fun to drive. A great option be the 400E, the M119 is basically indestructible.

    I don't know the laws in Brazil, but you might be able to source R12 refrigerant.
    Last edited by XAlt; 02-28-2017 at 07:35 PM.

  5. #5
    Join Date
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    Texas
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    E21, E24, E34, E46
    That's a nice car!

    I've driven mine every day for over 6 years. If you spare no expense on preventative maintenance, it will be very reliable and last forever. It's had millions of small problems, but very few can stop the car from driving. The fuel pump and cooling system are the big ones.

  6. #6
    Join Date
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    1991 BMW 525i E34
    Thank you gentlemen,

    Another charpter, still catching up with time:

    4 months and 4 k miles later, I still got two issues: (a) the mold smell in the cabin (b) oil leakage, dirtying my garage. Both were kind of embarrassing, and my wife was refusing to ride in it.

    29/09/16 - 47,3 k miles - found an oil leakage source and had my steering gear rebuilt (US$496.00 - this time only 50% more expensive than the equivalent service in the US).

    Also gave a major cleaning in the interior, brushing carpets with vinegar+ sodium bicarbonate and alcohol. I took the lower panels of the dash and cleaned inside as well - it worked! mold odor went away. I still got this leather smell on. Some friends even found it pleasant. Although it wasn't that bad, my wife could tell when I drove the car, because the smell would stick in my clothes. She was now riding in it, but still complaining about the smell. The good thing is that once she accepted ride in it, she realized how smooth the car was, riding around the town. She acknowledged that the car was smoother and quieter than my 2 year old/ 25k miles Audi A4. One day, at the highway I asked her to guess the speed we were driving, she said 110 km/h (70 mph), I said, no! its 145 km/h (90 mph). Now she was ok riding around the town, but no long distance yet, and, of course, still wondering "why on earth this man decided to drive a 25 year old car"?

  7. #7
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    hiss by my window
    Congratulations on removing the odor, that's no easy task. Given that this car seems to have seen moisture you may want to inspect the wiring bundles beneath the rear seat fuse box. Corrosion there will cause all sorts of hard to track electrical faults.
    Oh, nice looking car, what color is the inside?

    If you can leave two black stripes from the exit of one corner to the braking zone of the next, you have enough horsepower. - Mark Donohue

  8. #8
    moroza's Avatar
    moroza is offline MORΩN ΛABIA BMW CCA Member
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  9. #9
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    1991 BMW 525i E34
    Thank you Ross,

    Another Charpter

    October 2016. Got to 49 k miles, after driving 6 k miles. Busy month 4 Issues came up: Tire, air conditioning, another oil leakage, and coolant leakage

    1) Climate was getting hot in Brasil - up to 40 degrees Celsius - took other 3 colleagues out for lunch (company's directors), and the air conditioning let me down. Everybody sweating. Was kind of embarrassing. Took to the shop - found out there were some boards broken inside the compressor. Change air and filter. Got it fixed for US$ 280. Works fine now.

    2) One day driving to São Paulo I found the car started to ride rough - back tires got deformed. Those were Kuhmo, manufactured in 2012, less than 7 k miles. They sound like new. But the car rode less than 1k miles from 2012 to 2016, therefore, the tyre must have gotten squared... Got a new pair, Continental Contact for US$ 250,00. Was not expecting this expenses, tires appearance were great.

    3) Found a spot of red oil in my garage again. Took it to the shop. Mechanics solution was to desassamble the front part fo transmission to change gaskets and a ring that fits inside for US$ 382.00. Got it done

    4) Also got an warning message saying that coolant level was down. It was leaking, actually. Took to the shop again. Had two major coolant system hoses changed for US$ 100,00.

    Below some pictures from inside

    IMG_20160722_100331.jpg

    IMG_20160722_100426.jpg

  10. #10
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    hiss by my window
    Ahh, love the silbergrauhell comfort seats.
    It looks fantastic, why did it stink?
    Kumho tires? Direct to the trash bin.
    Last edited by ross1; 03-04-2017 at 09:23 PM.

    If you can leave two black stripes from the exit of one corner to the braking zone of the next, you have enough horsepower. - Mark Donohue

  11. #11
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    It doesn't stink... but it is not that brand new automotive leather smell that my wife would expect - it approaches a horse saddle smell. Besides, the smell, good or bad, sticks in my shirt when I drive, and I think that is the real problem for her now. For example, she would choose this car when she is dress up

    But is no longer my priority to change smell, because is not a matter of cleanness anymore.

    On business situation, taking out people for lunch our picking up people at the airport, it doesn't seem to be an issue anymore. Actually some even spontaneously mentioned the smell as a good thing... so I leave as it is.


    I didn't know the seats style was called Silbergrauhell, thats is useful, thanks for sharing
    Last edited by MarceloSoares; 03-05-2017 at 05:27 AM.

  12. #12
    Join Date
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    1990 BMW 535I
    I just purchased my first bimmer as well! 1990 535i e34, I will be daily driving it just the same as you! My main challenge will be keeping the salt away until the Vermont winter ends.

  13. #13
    Join Date
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    I've had mine for about a year and change now. I use it as a DD so i don't rack up miles on my m3. Only issue i have with the m30 is the gas mileage.
    Herr, wirf Hirn vom Himmel! ... oder Steine, Hauptsache er trifft.

    88 Alpineweiss / black E30 M3 -Project.
    Brilliantrot / black US SPEC 3/90 prod e34 M30b35 535i 5spd - Modded.
    98.5 Tiag Silber /black e36 m3 - Modded.
    99.5 Estoril Blau /dove e36 m3 - Modded.
    07 Crimsonrot /black E83 X3 6spd - Stock..

  14. #14
    Join Date
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    E34, E30, 240sx
    I bought mine about 12 years ago with 192,000 miles on it and now it has 314,000 miles used as daily.

  15. #15
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    It is amazing to hearthat, Struka! Your testimonial will definitely drag some that are stillwarry to embark on a e34 in. 314k miles and still a daily driver show the quality of those machines


    Here, still 52 k miles. Its 5 months and 2k mi without any mechanical issues. Already thinking about some cosmetic maintenance, for example driver's arm rest. Now car is not leaving the garage often since I got my drivers license suspended by 2 months (4 tickets in less than 12 months).

    IMG_20170404_202142_edit_edit.jpg

  16. #16
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    1991 BMW 525i E34
    Now reaching 55 k miles. As far as maintenance, no issues, no spent. So I started renewing the interior. Using the info provided by the fellow above (interior color is silbergrau hell), I imported an arm rest (left) from BMW (OEM Genuine Part). This single item costed US$ 553, after freight and brazilian taxes. Good thing is that the color matched perfectly. So I went to buy the other one (right), but order was cancelled as BMW discontinued this item. Tried to find an used one, no success so far... Now thinking about find someone here in Brasil that could refurbish it.

    Also ordered new gauges for the cockpit cluster (tachometer and temperature), since mine displays many orange dots when lit, one of the few parts showing its age in the interior.

    Bellow the car in a business trip to the town of Guaira (450 km from São Paulo)

    IMG_20170620_174356.jpg

  17. #17
    Join Date
    May 2016
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    1995 BMW 525i
    hey Marcelo, nice ride! it's cool to another calypsorot, and that picture ^ looks like 1995 haha real vintage
    this is mine bought it for 1.6k from the first owner at 97,500 miles, (103,000) 3 months later :P
    since then I refreshed suspension all around and fitted hr springs and b8 bilsteins, bbs rc090 and new tires and the car drives great

    DBDD1D0B-430E-46FC-BCB9-AC9E9695D68B.jpg

  18. #18
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    Welcome to the daily driven club lol! Beautiful example of an e34

  19. #19
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    95 525, 93 M5, 05 X5 x2
    Quote Originally Posted by MarceloSoares View Post
    Now reaching 55 k miles. As far as maintenance, no issues, no spent. So I started renewing the interior. Using the info provided by the fellow above (interior color is silbergrau hell), I imported an arm rest (left) from BMW (OEM Genuine Part). This single item costed US$ 553, after freight and brazilian taxes. Good thing is that the color matched perfectly. So I went to buy the other one (right), but order was cancelled as BMW discontinued this item. Tried to find an used one, no success so far... Now thinking about find someone here in Brasil that could refurbish it.

    Also ordered new gauges for the cockpit cluster (tachometer and temperature), since mine displays many orange dots when lit, one of the few parts showing its age in the interior.

    Bellow the car in a business trip to the town of Guaira (450 km from São Paulo)

    IMG_20170620_174356.jpg
    It's easy to refinish the arm rests. Lots of DIYs on this. I use silbergrau hell paint available from Classic Leather Dye. The match is spot on and you can use it to re-spray the plastic trim around the seat base. These trim pieces usually yellow over time.

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