Twistee

Having been through this on a car I was storing on behalf my solution was a liberal post clean of a rubber safe exterior trim cleaner / protector. This was not a complete fix, but it slowed things down significantly and made removal with a soft wash very easy. Pretty sure it was just an over the counter item from Supercheap.

Shipping is pretty fast, mine arrived at 8am this morning.

Cheers, and done - Also adding a comfort connector in a section of replaceable plastic trim in the boot.

Thanks for the offer, once lockdown changes I may take you up on that. In the mean time could you flick me the ECS part# please? Cheers.

I'm looking to remove the 15mm wheel spacers and need a set of factory length wheel lugs to replace the long set that are in use at present. I've searched and there are a bunch of references to the length of the standard part, I'm hoping someone can provide a part number or a suggestion on replacement items. Thanks.

New rear tires to match the new fronts from last week. Once the airbags / compressor is fixed (hopefully next week) then I'll get the alignment sorted.

Can anyone explain why BMW spec'd the rear tires as 275/35 r19 on the wagon and 285/35 r19 on the sedan M5? I just had the rears changed to the factory size and there is a large amount of room for the 285 - so rubbing can't be the issue or smaller wheel wells. I've searched the web and couldn't find anything conclusive.

The original matt black aftermarket (came with the wagon) kidney grills were pretty busted up, missing tabs and just looking average in comparison to everything else. So I ordered a replacement set of aftermarket grills that I think work with the colour of the body - obviously these can be replaced with factory items if I was ever so inclined to fall in line with the anorak brigade. In doing so I found that someone had double sided tapped the remote radar detector to the radiator slam panel behind the bumper pointing towards the ground, - cause that how it works.......... So after much faffing about I used some 3m chewing gum tape and mounted it correctly along with the laser jammers in to the grill. (All of this gear came with the car - it just was incorrectly installed / reinstalled at some point in its life. ) While I was poking around I checked the coolers for any o-ring leaks, all good but the usual birds nest of rubbish between the oil cooler and the radiator. Gave that valley a good vac and cleaned up the excess wiring loom for the radar etc. This was meant to be a 20 minute job, but between starting at midnight on saturday, trawling through install manuals for the radar to find the mounting position recommendations and being distracted by Top Gear Youtube I finally finished and cleaned up at 2:45am. Pretty happy with the look. Off to get the new rear tires in the morning.

Look at the immediate up front costs that are going to add to the purchase price, it looks to have a pretty comprehensive history. Bumper aside, it just needs a good professional detail to make it puuurdy. Mechanically at 150.000km it's possibly rolling around to clutch and brake rotor replacement time. Check the boot , open the amp area on the left and battery compartment and hope that the sunroof drains are taken care of and there is no water damage. When was the battery replaced? There are a hundred items to look for and they are well listed. Regardless of the scarcity of these wagons if you want to buy one then find everything that is wrong with it up front and get the right price, people are not lining up to buy these when fuel is at an all time high so take the time to get it completely checked over. Have a PPI done by someone that is a specialist and comes with a recommendation, BM workshop? If you've gotten this far in your buyers hunt then none of this should be news to you. Your alternative is to look overseas, but that has its own pros and cons. My 2c. (Probably worth less)

Calf Club.

I may have issues with authority figures trying to push their agenda on me when they have no idea. Let me put it another way, our illustrious leader says utes are bad news, farmers, tradies, jaffa's and the like are abusing the intention of the "ute" - how dare they have freedom of choice ? (or buy something that can cope with the amazingly well maintained roads, go light rail yay it will save us all) My solution - buy a V10, use it like a ute................... I won't claim to be the first person to point a finger at the govt, but I'm probably the first person in my neck of the woods to rock up to Farm Source and pound 60kg of sheep feed in the boot of a superwagon. I like my ute, it's got a bang'n stereo 😎

I actually wrote a full on rant about that very fact, I mean FFS - Then I deleted it. But yes, I totally agree with that statement. I mean have some respect for what it is, what it can do, how many were built, and don't be a dreamer who over extends to the hilt just to buy it and then can't afford to keep it - so it just becomes another under maintained M5 which adds to the its unreliable BS. Although I was told this came from some eccentric collector, I think it was bought, driven for a couple of months until the reality hit home and it was parked. The tires are just annoying, but not because of the cost - but because the car went through what can only be described as the most useless PPI I have ever seen done on a car by a "specialist" in CHCH, report literally was written on the invoice....... and they missed a glorious slice clean through the sidewall to the banding (and countless other things), right where the rim had been repaired, probably because someone assed it into a curb. I only came across this beauty after two tire shops couldn't balance these wonders and I was cleaning a ridiculous amount of weight adhesive off the rims. And if you ever want to know what you need to throw at a Hifly to try and balance it - start with this: Then put about the same on the inside further around, quality............ The Michelins have no weight on one and 5 grams on the other.

Got rid of the amazing "Hifly" front tires and replaced them with some Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S. What a shock the wheel vibration that couldn't be balanced out with the quality Hifly's is 99% gone. Yes they look like balloons from this angle, but they are the standard 255/40r19.

I managed to change it at no cost via the LTSA website. I don't either and this is not the first time I have been pulled over - but this is the first time I have had someone give me grief about my postal and physical address.

Apparently so.... Because there's no such thing as a successful person in Pukekohe so I must have stolen the car. If I had stolen an M5 I don't think I would be going shopping.

And not for speeding! I took my daughter to the shops to get a birthday present for a friend tonight, as we plan so well and the kids party is tomorrow morning... After grabbing some overpriced lego we were crawling out of the empty carpark and I see the Police cruiser behind me, next minute on come the red and blues. Officer comes over looking all confused because my drivers license which was issued in Pukekohe somehow has my inlaws address attached to it from the other side of town from more than a decade ago - yet the LTSA mailed me the license to my current address of the past 12 years?!?!? Basically he was checking out why a car from the other side of town according to my license was in Pukekohe on a Saturday night. And when asked how do I fix this ----- he had no idea other than maybe try LTSA, so I guess I'll try LTSA. Sorry not an exciting tale, but it made me laugh

One thing I forgot to mention was my almost lost the bonnet moment outside of Christchurch. Everytime a truck went by the bonnet looked like it was flexing, initially I thought it was just a really polished bonnet.... I started to get real paranoid and in the end pulled over and had a look, the bonnet appeared latched but it was spongy and initially I thought it was some bmw thing with lots of rubber seals around the front. Another 10 minutes and a few trucks and I decided this was not normal, pulled over and did a Google of my symptoms - plenty of badness to be had with poorly adjusted bonnet stops on the E60/61, so I wound then down and life was a whole lot less " is this bonnet about to take off. " I'm guessing someone played with them while they detailed the car and tried to get the shut lines correct. Having been in one car as a passenger that had a bonnet fold over the roof I was not looking for a repeat.

OK works done and I can get back to the trip story. After getting settled at the overnight accommodation I emptied out the wagon and spent the next few hours cleaning the interior making sure that my daughter had not left any surprises behind. Knowing that we would be spending a couple of hours from 5am sitting in the line waiting for the ferry I made sure that the DVD's we had hunted down would play in the CIC unit - you would not believe how hard it was to find a place on the way that sold DVD's. As a BMW newb I found it both frustrating and ultimately rewarding in a "I beat your crazy German logic" once I managed to get the DVD's playing - I had forgotten just how long it took for most DVD units from that era to load / boot. But the relief of not having to deal with the "how much longer?" line from our daughter was almost worth the cost of the M5 (man math is great). Finally we got onboard and parked behind a sheep truck, something that totally bit me when I forgot that the moonroof was cracked and let the delightful smell invade the interior. Other than the brutal smell (and we have sheep so it's not some city boy complaining) we had bigger problems as the ride leveling system threw a code when we arrived in Wellington. So first major mechanical failure, compressor looks to be on the way out - or at least sounds it. After getting off the ferry and hunting through the online resources I concluded that we could proceed without issue as I could get air into the bags and the error was very intermittent. After spending a few hours in lovely Johnsonville at the mall carpark so I could take a meeting we spent what seemed like forever just getting out of Wellington. By now I was worried about getting home at a reasonable hour, which was great when I missed the turn towards Taupo and ended up miles off course, so well after sunset and on a road that I knew quite well between Whanganui and National Park I really started to push it. A few things immediately became apparent, the turn in for something of this size is fantastic, 6 - 8,000 rpm is like having a turbo come on boost and the sound of the rotors whistling makes it sound like a blower in action. The pad knockoff is pretty intense once things are up to temp, the Dunlops on the rear of the wagon are a 275/40/19 which makes for a tall sidewall which probably helped iron out a few of the bumps. I have never run Dunlops on anything, but these are pretty sticky in the wet which was great given the horrid conditions we were progressing through. At first glance it would appear that the S85 becomes more efficient when you are on it, the engine was certainly much happier and smoother after having been flexed on the way to National Park. On the final stretch out of the gorge I got stuck behind a couple of delightful individuals who I had earlier seen at a gas station, they looked like stand up (fall down) pot smokers who were slowly driving off with a trail of smoke and bumpers barely hanging on. After answering the age old question of why does anyone need 500hp to pass a Honda Civic, we stopped off at National Park and had in my opinion a well deserved steak. Then it was off for a final push to Auckland, as my wife had flown down we had to go all the way to airport to pick up her SUV and then back south again. That turned out to be great as the motorway was closed in both directions so we were diverted for what seemed like forever. I think I turned her off around 2am at home. So final thoughts, on this purchase: - Initially it felt very much like this was someone elses car that I was babysitting, but after some hard miles on it and building the confidence to use it I feel much more like it's mine. - I didn't buy this on impulse, I had been hunting for a few years for an E60 and had spent just as long researching how this was going to financially cripple me, that said I have built a career that allows me to have some toys in my life and I have chosen this path. I could have gone for a 911 Turbo, but that is a very selfish car when you have a family. - I am a firm believer in the "buy once cry once" mentality - and I have the T shirt to prove it many times over. So I paid a premium over an E60 - but then this is an E61 with all the boxes ticked. - There are lots of things that I could have bought instead, but as others have put it "they are not an E61 M5". - The car has been well maintained by its previous owners from the limited documentation that I have, although I do have the service records - but a stamp and signature in a book doesn't always tell the whole story. - I think that cars like this are a rare breed, and people who can afford to buy and maintain them should. These cars are dinosaurs, they are the last of an era of big displacement high rpm powerplants with unique drivelines. While many will argue that the E60 / E61 is not a classic or future classic I would like to have that conversation in 10 years when there are even less of them and we are all daily driving hydrogen bombs. I'm not anti the future of fuel efficient ecomentalist cars but I guarantee that I plant more trees on my property in an average summer than all of the current policy makers combined, so if I want to put some CO2 back in the form of V10 noise and a happy smile then I will. - I love the SMG, I think it makes for a unique drive where I have to think about what I'm doing with the throttle. Anyone that drives these and thinks that the SMG is the worst thing ever is totally entitled to that opinion. I was worried for all of 10 minutes that the SMG was going to be a pig, as dumb as it sounds I learned very quickly to drive it based on experiences with a horrid Ford gearbox that they put into the later gen Fiesta Zetec. While they are worlds apart in power, they can both be very stupid boxes until you work the throttle timing, and I know this is nothing new for most but this is my experience. - Last thing is that it works as an amazing family therapy tool, wife complains - press M, daughter moans - press M, need to get away from inlaws house fast - press M. As a family cruiser that you can do a holiday in the E61 has already proven itself, I didn't expect to make it home with a car that has been in hibernation for some time without some issues and they will get sorted out in the coming weeks. Cheers.

It sat just below 100 and at 100 when pushed hard.

We live in the countryside so getting anywhere is a bit of a drive, my wife and I agree that if we are going to be travelling in a car for hours at a time we want to enjoy what ever it is.

I work from home and have done for the past 14 years, so the M5 is doing the school run on the odd day shared with the wife's SUV. The STI RA is a 4 door, it is currently missing the interior while I do a wiring upgrade and arguably uses more fuel than the M5 when you're on it - I built it a very long time ago and the old school HKS turbo and big cams love loads acceleration enrichment, but it does leave nice flames as a result. From Wellington to Auckland it averaged 17.1 L / 100 km. Given that I went the most indirect route possible and ended up going through the gorge between Whanganui and National Park in P500S I thought that was a really good effort - I certainly was not trying to hypermile a v10.

So the first night of having the car I noticed a vibration that I initially put down to needing the wheels balanced or possibly the tires being out of round as the car had stood for quite some time. First thing Saturday I got this checked over by Mag and Turbo, the tires while not in amazing condition from standing for months balanced up but did take a fair amount of weight. This unfortunately did not solve the vibration which was always present at motorway speeds, I pretty much had RSI in my wrist after the drive up just from that non stop vibration. The wagon will be heading in to BM Workshop to find out what is at the root of that issue. Other than the vibration the trip between Christchurch and Picton was uneventful ..... yeah right. About 20 minutes south of Kaikoura our 5 year old said she needed to go to the bathroom, so I asked her if she could wait just a little longer - silence..... followed by tears and breakfast now sitting in her lap. Luckily this all evacuated onto a blanket and not the interior. There was no where to stop that was not a blind corner, so I found a spot that was slightly less than a blind corner and did a road side cleanup effort. And for the shortest of times it wasn't hammering down with rain, but still got plenty wet and well frozen by the end of that little moment. Had lunch in Kaikoura and then headed to Picton, I had 5:30 meeting that I had to be on and everything was looking good until about 10 minutes out from Picton in very heavy rain junior played back lunch this time into a plastic container that I had picked up after the Kaikoura incident "just in case". So this time in the middle of a massive down pour my wife bailed out and sorted out our daughter while I let people know that I may be late due to some "issues". Anyway some more pic below: First night in Christchurch. Out at some country eatery in Christchurch. And before anyone says the car sickness came from the way I was driving, it came from my daughter gluing her eyeballs to nav map and reading everything back to us non stop - never looking out the window. Once that was gone from view she was back to normal, it just took a couple of events to work out what was happening.

My daughters birthday is this weekend, so it's a hard "maybe"... I would really like to attend, I'll know closer to the time if I'm going be make it though.

More details and images to come in above thread.

I'll fill in my thoughts after travelling 1,000kms in two days in this machine tomorrow as I'm still catching up on sleep and work. Cheers.