88 735I - reliable and Odometer?

[jgallud]

I am considering purchasing a 1988 BMW 735i as a commuter vehicle. I have one picked out, but I concerned about reliability of the car. How expensive are the repairs and how often?

Also the digital odometer stopped working around a year ago. How difficult is it to fix the odometer?

thanks

J

[Philip39]

How long is a piece of string?? But seriously, if you are thinking about buying any BMW then you should try to find 1 with as full a service history as possible. This will of course increase the cost of purchase, but if these cars are neglected in any way, and you want to make it a reliable vehicle for commuting, it will work out as an expensive car, especially if you have the work carried out by a BMW garage.

I have a 730i se 1987, and it has some service history with it. When I bought the car it had a blown head gasket, and I paid £220 ($330) for it. It has full leather upholstry, electric seats, and all the other bells and whistles. I wasn`t able to verify the mileage because it had laid up and the battery was dead. When I charged the battery the mileage read 300,000 and wouldn`t move, so I asked a BMW technician what could possibly be wrong. He told me that there is a coding plug in the rear of the dash which memorises the mileage and if this is faulty then this problem would occur. I got a second hand one from a breakers yard and it now reads 160,100 and counting.

One other important thing is if you buy this car then the first thing YOU MUST DO is CHANGE THE RADIATOR (EXPANSION TANK) CAP!!!!

I changed the head gasket on mine and one month later had to put an oversize gasket on, well you do when the engine blows up and you have the head skimmed. (not so cheap after all :-(( )

The electric seats also give trouble but it is much less hassle to get a working second hand one and change the upholstery over...BELIEVE ME !!!

If I can help any more...please feel free to ask.

Philip Kilpatrick

[maxf]

Got an english import here in NZ - not bad to commute with, relatively good MPG if you learn the feel of the econo-meter thingie in the speedo.

Repairs have not been exhorbitant over the 20 months so far - it's keeping up with my wifes' little Jap people-mover for costs, and it's done 154000 miles vs her Nissans' 110000kms. A Bentleys manual is worth the cost too - abt $80US - if even to only mean you can get the main units out to replace any parts yourself or take just that subassembly to a specialist. Also lots of support online here & at places like roadfly.com too.

The 300,000 limit (miles or Kms) is a design limit in the odometer of the E32s... I'd be worried if the odo doesn't go but the speedo does. They have speed-sensitive power steering usually ("servotronic") and this runs off the speedo signal, so if the owner disables the speedo sender sensor in the diff they will have a very twitchy car at highway speeds. If the speedo works but the odo is still dead I'd be getting a dealer opinion on the condition of the "coding plug" (the memory chip for the instrument cluster) in case someone has been playing.

Final thought too... read up on the failures in the front clutchpack in the ZF 4hp22 tranny. Many have been rebuilt with the stronger seals, but you don't want to NOT know about the lose-forward-gears-on-too-much-idleing problem.

Max

[KING750]

I JUST HAD MY 89 735IL STOLEN, WONDERFULL CAR IF U GET IT IN GOOD SHAPE IF NOT IT CAN BE A PAIN,,,
PS! I WOULDN'T TRUST THE ODOMETER NOT WORKING,,

HAVE IT CHECKED