Kees

The others were bargains for their apparent condition, this one definitely looks to be a little rougher around the edges than the others. Also has the highest ks out of the 3. Also has the startup rattle that was noted by the second one for sale. However, I reckon the seller will probably get more than the second one which was listed for 55K, simply because he can adjust his price if required. Someone will definitely want it. Still a tidy car overall. Also, have the front seats been swapped for standard e39 seats? I thought all M5s had sports seats. Have never seen one with standard seats. Standard seats an option?: Under-tray seen better days No floor mats N

I think you just won Bingo! 3 NZ New Le Mans Blue E39 M5s for sale within a month and 5 days! What are the chances!!

Might also be worth blasting some water behind the plate with the hose to loosen the adhesive as much as you can without having to pull on the plate. Have had the issue in the past and just used water to get it off. Fishing line is a good idea though.

I tried to write a polite response which I emailed to him. It consisted of two sections as I'm hoping it can act as a way to conclude contact. I first gave some advice on what I would do in regards to diagnosing the severity of the leak. I made sure to explicitly state it was my personal opinion and I am not a mechanic, and to seek proper advice and opinion from Audi. I then reminded him of the service and inspection done the day before the deal was finalised. I stated I had no knowledge of the leak which is a fact he knows, I pointed to the fact Audi had inspected the car with no such leak noted, and concluded I do not accept responsibility for fixing the leak. I tried to phrase things as professionally as possible. I'm currently a third year law student so I tried to be as careful as possible in how I explained everything. Hoping the email I sent him can conclude contact, or at least allow for me to conclude it myself. I provided advice as to what he could hypothetically do in terms of sorting the car to a standard he is happy with, and confirmed where I feel my position stands on the matter. Have not had a reply yet.

Nope, I don't think I would ever personally guarantee a vehicle I'm selling. Have written him an email explaining I claim no responsibility for repairing the oil leak, if he comes back aggressively, I might send him the relevant provisions of the CGA.

Good point, might as well try rip the band aid off as he's not going to be happy sugar coated or not so would be best to be straight to the point and very clear. Really appreciate the advice!!

Yup, that was over $930 alone! Yeah very true, I guess there's always risk when buying a used car, especially an older high spec European one, so the buyer has to mitigate their own risk how they see fit. Any ideas on how I handle things when I speak to him next? Do I just explain it doesn't really seem fair for me considering I did everything he asked, and was transparent about the car so I shouldn't be held responsible for how the car is now.

Good point! Not really fair and does seem off to ring me demanding money for something I had no knowledge of existing. I'll try get him to understand my perspective: I had no knowledge of the leak. The car was serviced and inspected the day before sale and collection. The service information is in the 30 pages of info in the clear file. I told you about what was noted on Audi's inspection report. I got the car a WOF and a year rego as you requested prior to sale and it was inspected by Audi. I did everything you asked and was transparent through the whole process.

Yeah I think you summarised it perfectly. I genuinely feel I was very transparent with the car. The clear file I gave him was over 30 pages of information, receipts, etc on the car, including the receipt and report from Audi themselves, it was literally everything related to that car. And the thing is he knows I was very transparent with the car, because on the phone he was getting quite frustrated with me but when I reminded him that the car was inspected by Audi in the service the day before we did the deal he seemed to calm down. He also mentioned the first place he took the car (I'm guessing yesterday) diagnosed the leak as somewhere else so in itself its not confidence inspiring that Audi have now diagnosed the crankshaft seals and probably given him a sizeable quote to rectify it. How do you think I should progress, as he wants to hear back from me soon? I was thinking I should suggest to him getting the under-tray back on the car nice and clean, and then monitoring how much oil leaks onto it to gauge the severity of the leak. I'm hoping the leak is not very severe (which I'm guessing it isn't as you would smell burnt oil if its constantly dripping on the exhaust manifold), so that it shows him its not worth dropping the engine and gearbox for an oil leak like that. It may just be that the under-tray had 20,000+ km of oil leaking on it. Like I feel bad he is unhappy but I was not hiding the oil leak from him as I didn't even know about it! And as you said, it's not my car anymore so it's not really fair I contribute to fix something like that.

So I just got the call I didn't want. About a month ago I sold my NZ New 2006 Audi S8 with 119,000km. I think I was as transparent as possible with the car. It came with a clear file filled with all the work that was done to the car and why the work was done. The day before money was transferred and the buyer took the car, I had the car serviced at Continental Audi so that it would be fresh and ready to go for the new owner. Continental Audi also did their typical dealer inspection. They noted: - Split CV boot - Minor oil leak near alternator - Abnormal sound when opening the sunroof (just needed some lubrication) - Some damage to the engine under-tray cover (as expected with a car of this age) I was actually pretty impressed with the car as I thought that if the dealer was OCD enough to note the sunroof squeak, surely the car must be in decent order. The buyer agreed and bought the car. I felt good about the deal because I genuinely thought the car was a great car (which I still think), and I had been extremely transparent with the whole thing. Fast forward about a month and a half to today, the buyer rings me saying over the weekend he was driving the car and the under-tray blew out on the motorway. He pulled over to put it in the boot and found it had oil on it. He took the car to Hamilton Audi who have diagnosed the rear crank seals are leaking oil onto the exhaust manifold and eventually down to the under-tray. This is an engine and gearbox out to fix. Apparently there's a decent amount of dried oil on the under-tray and it drips onto the exhaust manifold. However, this was never picked up on when it was serviced, it obviously never dropped a drip of oil when I owned the car, but most importantly; the car never smelt of burnt oil after driving it (which it would if its dripping heaps of oil on the exhaust manifold). If it is leaking badly onto the exhaust manifold he would have smelt it on the test drive, let alone the 1.5 months he's had the car. My guess is its actually not too bad and theres just some built up grudge on the engine cover. So what do you guys think I should do? I know that as a private seller I have no obligation to do anything but I do feel bad he is not happy with the car. But on the same vein, I literally had the car serviced and inspected the day before collection, and it came with a clear file of literally every single thing I had done to the car and the reason for it. The car was also NZ New with a full Audi service history, with the lowest ks of any PFL D3 S8 on the market at the time, and I sold it for under $20K which I think was pretty fair. It also had near new dealer fitted Pirelli Pzeros, the front pads and rotors were like 2000km old, like everything was done. Like at the end of the day its a 16 year old ultra-high spec European Limousine, I don't think its unreasonable it might have an oil leak. I'm sure most of us wouldn't be too unhappy that an old European car has an oil leak so long as its not pissing out oil, but the guy was really pissed off. And for under $20K, I think its unreasonable to be furious at a 16 year old car leaking some oil. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Something I will definitely do if it happens again. That is very true, didn’t consider that. Curiously though, the Peugeot is not registered in my name. I’m guessing they don’t have the information which tells them which drivers are associated with the vehicle under its insurance policy? If they do have that info the ID check would make sense, otherwise it’s still a bit weird I was pulled over.

On the topic of the police, I just got pulled over randomly and out of the blue about 20 minutes ago. Was not speeding so was curious as to why they had stopped me. Two officers got out, one went to the passenger side of my car, the other to the driver's side. I got asked for my license (as per usual), and I gave it to them. It was then photographed and handed back to me. (didn't seem to have been put through any system check etc) Was expecting the obligatory "any alcohol tonight", but the driver's side officer simply said "drive safe" and then they both quickly walked back to their car before I could even ask why I had been stopped. Ummm wtf..... Surely if it was a "random" check (which my 540i seems to get me occasionally) they would have to run my license through their system, check for alcohol etc. Even more puzzling is I was in my Peugeot 207 GTI which just generally blends in. Not even sure if its a legal stop because even for a license check they would at least run it through the system to check for demerits, disqualifications etc. And usually these random checks use checking for alcohol as the reason for the stop. And then to have a police officer either side of my Peugeot hatchback.... its not like its some dodgey blacked out slammed Commodore. Just seemed a bit suss... Anyone else had this happen?

Yeah I think thats how much it cost to list the S6. My S8 was around $200 to list though!

When I was selling my S6 I had people arrange to collect the car multiple times. One of them even offered to pay a deposit and I stupidly trusted he was being genuine and told him we could just sort it the next day all in one go when he came to get the car. Sent him my address and he said he would text me when he was leaving the following day. Never got a text. Never showed up. Then I had people offering less than half of my already fair asking price, with one guy adamant his 2K offer was doing me a favour. Could have taken the near new intake manifold off (which looking at the receipts was 4.7K for the part), and there would be more than 2K just in that part alone. Listed the car on trademe and it sold for my asking price within 24 hours. Trademe still came with its own special set of time-wasters but way less severe than Facebook Marketplace. Only other place that might be worth a shot is a BMW Facebook group like "Strictly BMW New Zealand".

I know your pain!

Haha thats the quintessential Prius move. Where I live the Prius Ubers patrol the streets prowling at a solid 30km/h in a 50km/h zone, making spastic stops and turns with no indicators. But if you hold up a Prius for more than 0.01 seconds at the lights they will beep at you. Priuses do my head in.

*Toyota Prius enters the chat*

Yeah I completely understand that, I’m an admin of a couple BMW pages and occasionally a call is made that is not well received by both parties involved. Seeing as Bimmersport is almost as old as I am, I grew up going on forums like Bimmersport waiting for the day when I could a) drive and b) have a car enthusiast enough to post on a forum. By the time I got my 540 I was grateful Bimmersport still existed, being one of the few forums left with an active enthusiast presence. Personally I really enjoy posting on Bimmersport as it’s one of the few places left where proper car enthusiasts reside, with places like Facebook groups now being largely saturated by people who wouldn’t even be able to tell you the difference between e90 and e91. I wasn’t trying to bag Bimmersport and it’s leadership as I am rather fond of this platform, I just thought it best to rip the band aid off and explain why Mike isn’t here (which was basically done in Mike’s words from what he told me, apart from the third person tense lol) anymore as it seems quite a few people were curious as to his sudden departure and it would close off any speculation confusion etc.

@SRacin @KwS @Twistee Seeing as Mike and I both have E34 540s, we would often talk so I know the reason for Mike's departure from Bimmersport, and he does not plan to return, so it is most likely the end of this thread for good. Thought I would outline what happened just to clear any theories, confusion, speculation etc as to his departure from the forum. This is how Mike explained what happened to me: Mike found his once thought of friend Martin aka "breakmywindow" for ~10 years was stealth deleting Mike's personal opinion posts he didn't like on the forum, after this realisation Mike decided it was time to finally stop posting on bimmersport after being tired of the "soft" direction he felt it was going. He called Martin out on his pretty abuse of admin privileges to which Martin responded with personal insults and then proceeded to tell Mike to "go f**k himself". Martin then blocked Mike on Facebook before he could even reply. So that's Mike's reasoning for leaving Bimmersport.

Oakwood leather hydrating creme has worked well for me in the past. Used it in my E34 as well as on some old cracking leather couches and it worked well. You can get it from the supermarket. Had tried a bunch of different leather products but the Oakwood creme worked the best for hydrating the leather.

Spotted this E46 M3 going for a little swim in a news report of all the Auckland flooding

I agree, would make for a phenomenal long distance tourer. Excellent machine for Auckland to Mt. Ruapehu ski trip. Super comfy and smooth, and probably wouldn't be horrific on fuel over a longer trip with all the torque.

Pretty cool business model! Wouldn't mind bombing around in a V12 E32 on company fuel! Bet some of his clients thought he had an illicit side hustle thanks to his fleet of E32s 🤣

Yeah when you consider inflation they certainly haven't appreciated at all if you sold yours for 3.5K 14 years ago. Bit of a shame in my opinion, I think their time will come soon though. As E28s, E30s, E24s, etc continue to sky rocket, naturally, the prices of once less desired models like e32s/e34s will begin to rise up. Surely a classy V12 7 Series with the classic twin headlights is a 10K car in the next few years... Seems criminal if that doesn't happen.

After almost 3 months, 2 windscreens, a windscreen moulding, a flooded workshop, another failed WOF, and a pair of new shocks, my 540i finally has a fresh WOF. My streak of never passing a WOF first try with this car continues 🤣 Took her out for a little drive to celebrate.