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Next video from Collecting Cars on the E61 M5 Chris Harris M5 Touring Project Part 2 | 15+ Years Of Life Uncovered (youtube.com)

Totally agree, head for the hills. Don't make financial decisions with your heart, I don't know how to put it better than treone. Maybe put up a post asking for help in finding what you're after, the hive mind should be able to sort you out.

They look great, I genuinely thought that offset was going to push them well outside the wheel arch. I looked at dropping the wagon until the roads went to absolute shite, H&R seem to be the way that a lot of owners have gone for E60 https://www.turnermotorsport.com/p-1159-hr-sport-spring-set-e60-m5/

Only 28km from one careful owner, full set of keys, service history.... I'm sure it'll buff out. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/m3/listing/4644783657?bof=ohGWq5CR

Wallet is lighter, car is home and after a few hard pulls the temp behaved as it did in the past. Next item of business is the repaint, expecting a call this week from the panel shop. If I can just get the car back to the condition it was in before that f'ing taxi driver backed into it and ran off into the sunset without any more drama I'd be over the moon.

Car is ready to collect, faulty oil level sensor / oil temp sensor. So it will get a solid ragging tomorrow and I hope that the displayed temp behaves as expected.

https://www.diecastxchange.com/threads/bmw-m5-touring-custom.205113/

Thanks for the offer Jun, what ever the issue it should be covered by the mechanical warranty and they will want new parts. So far BMWorkshop agree that there is an issue, but have yet to find the source of the issue - hope for some good news today.

Cars back at BMWorkshop as there is either a thermostat, temp sensor or some other electrical gremlin having a go at the radiator fan control. It's running significantly more than it should and overcooling, which is no good for fuel consumption, my cats etc. So while waiting for the fix I was glossing through the M5 technical training manual HERE and found out the real reason why you cant just manual your 7 speed Getrag - because this would be your shift pattern .

Cars back from BMWorkshop, which was a hilarious exercise after I asked for the low tone horn to be replaced. Who knew that an M5 had a bespoke horn set, FFS BMW. BMW NZ had nothing in stock, eventually a second hand one was found and couriered to BMWorkshop - just the wrong branch. Eventually hours later it arrived, but was stone dead! So another one was found and after many hours of waiting it was still "on the way"...... an executive decision was made to grab a loan car and come back in the morning. Eventually at 5:30 the urgent courier arrived after the horn fiasco had started around 10:30am. Had the insurance assessor come out to my place the following day, all I can say is fantastic service by Classic Cover insurance and the assessors they use. I was expecting an uphill battle to even get the repairs checked over, couldn't have been further from the truth and within 24 hours of me calling them they were looking the car over. Assessor was totally unimpressed with the repair and as shocked as I have been, so now we move onto the fun of having the car go back to the panel shop for rework. I still (stupidly) have faith that this will be fixed properly by the same shop that has done a few jobs for me with great results. On another note, while I was a BMWorkshop an E60 M5 was dropped off on a flatbed. As I haven't been on the forum for while others may already know this car, but it has been manual swapped. By the sounds of it this was manual swapped by the owner, with a US 6 speed box and all the associated bits as an alternative to doing the SMG clutch replacement. The car was in to have the final coding done and some wiring cleanup, the cat back system was off the car and it was a tad loud - cold start was epic.

I'm in no hurry to sell, if I was looking to make overs on a car when I bought the E61 I would have gone with the 911 Turbo I was looking at. Every time someone influential in the car scene picks up on a particular vehicle and has a rave about them the market picks up. On the Collecting Cars podcast Chris let on that the M5 was in the shop, and the reality of owning one was you really needed a two car garage...... and rather than having something practical as the second car he was on the hunt for a second E61 M5. At least one would be working at any given time

Well, it took months for new parts to "overnight from Japan" ....... The wagon is back in one piece and has done a few thousand km's this year doing what it does best and touring around the country. On a recent trip to Hamilton a friend noticed that she was pissing oil onto his unblemished concrete driveway - FFS. Grabbing a torch we traced the leak pretty easily back to the oil cooler. Unable to work out if it was the o-rings or the hard pipe connection on the cooler I opted to do what I could to get home and change out the o-rings, a quick cleanup of the oil on the cooler and a test drive it looked like there was a reasonable chance that this was fixed. I drove home, bottle of oil in hand constantly checking the oil level which didn't move (although I'm not always confident that those electronic oil level sensors are super accurate). Unfortunately when I checked the cooler the next day it was obvious that the o-rings were not the issue, luckily it was a very slow leak and the underside is now lightly rust protected Long story short she is now sitting at BMWorkshop sans oil cooler. BMW NZ pricing : well north of $2,000, for a part that is under $800 landed from the usual suspects lol. As I don't want to deal with another cooler crapping out on a known issue the plan is to grab the upgraded aftermarket Mishimoto (sp) version and get that slapped in. That's the minor issue I have had since September..... The major issue is the paint job, panel fitment and general zero f*cks given by the panel shop which is currently a tad heart breaking to look at. I'm really hoping that this will be resolved amicably, and until this is sorted one way or another I won't go into any other details other than someone was having a bad day when the new panels were painted and fitted and now the excusasaurus is in full swing. It's still an epic car, that never fails to make my day better.

Yes, I've been away for a while. But I thought I would return with a decent vid :D Chris Harris E61 M5 Let's be honest, this is probably going to pump up prices.

Free sunroof with an expensive custom crate, nice.

Apparently new E60/61 bumper skins are rare as hens teeth, BMW in Malaysia have one which is making its way over in 6 weeks. So provisionally booked in for mid November to get sorted. Probably a big enough lead time to get the bearings and clutch done before hand.