[Biturbos4] what do you guys think about 94-98 BMW 540i?

[Quincy Chiang]

A buddy of mine at work recent bought a '95 540i 6-sp, dark green with ivory leather, with ~100k miles off ebay from $9k USD.  He flew to Chicago and drove it back to Calgary just before Christmas.  Now I'd never buy a car sight unseen like that, but my buddy lucked out, he happened to be the only bidder, and the car turned out to be very clean and in really good shape.

A few of us at work went for a ride in my S4 first, then in his 540.  While they all commented the torque and power of the S, and how quiet and effortless it accelerated, we were very surprised with how hard the 540 pulled from 4 - 7k rpm with 4 passengers on board.  It felt almost as fast as the S, but it's more vocal, and you know it's working hard, but not straining.  The handling isn't as tight as a stock S4, probably due to it being a 8-9 year old car.  The interior has the typical 90s Bimmer feel, look OK but not as nice as Audi's interiors (but who does anyways?), and it isn't very spacious given the size of the car.  Overall it's a nice car, but I'd worry about maintenance without warranty, but you get that with any German cars.  I've also heard of the nikasil problems, but like you said I think it's all taken care of.  

He's now thinking about getting a supercharger for the 540i, in that case, I'll have to at least chip my car to keep up!

Quincy


-----Original Message-----
From: robert weinberg [mailto:centaurus3200 at yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 10:31 AM
To: Biturbos4 at www.audifans.com
Subject: [Biturbos4] what do you guys think about 94-98 BMW 540i?


another car i was thinking of is a 1994-1998 BMW 540i
6 speed. resale seems pretty strong though. around
16-19k with 75-85k on the clock. heather and were
bored this weekend and went to a bimmer dealer to
peruse and kill time. had a BEAUTIFUL decked out black
on black 1995 540i 6 speed. looks incredible. the
leather is perfect. the dealer was real nice. no
pressure. man, that 4.0L V8 is a sight to  see.

i know the 94-95 V8 had problems  with the nikasil
bores pitting and causing preamture blowby. this was
fixed in 97. the older cars got new motors, when
necessary, for free with a different bore coating. the
problem was due to a high sulfer content in US gas.
being california has lower sulfer content, it's not
really a problem. but who knows, eh?

question is, do i waste my time with the 540i? this
engine issue is a little freaky, but kind of a needle
in a haystack as far as the problem manifesting
itself. other than that, these cars a bulletproof. 

any thoughts on them? some of you might know, i joined
this groups looking to gather information about the
audi A6 2.7T 6 speed.

Robby

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