Just picked up a BMW 745i on the Cheap! Am I cray cray?

You're a brave man taking on an E65 in need of work. Those things are rather complex and finicky, especially compared to the predecessor E38. Electronically they are a nightmare, and as you found out, not worth a whole lot on the open market.

Another good parts source that I use/recommend: https://www.oembimmerparts.com/BMW-E65-7-Series-Parts-s/1832.htm

Enginewise, that's essentially the engine that's in my E38, and as such, be ready to tackle timing chain guides, valley pan gasket, VANOS and the cooling system (which is why I usually suggest to folks looking at these cars, E38s, and the X5s that use these engines, to buy one with records of that work being already done. Costs a bit more on the front end, but saves a bunch of headache on the back end.

High mileage BMWs = The best BMWs

 

Chris_V said:

You're a brave man taking on an E65 in need of work. Those things are rather complex and finicky, especially compared to the predecessor E38. Electronically they are a nightmare, and as you found out, not worth a whole lot on the open market.

Another good parts source that I use/recommend: https://www.oembimmerparts.com/BMW-E65-7-Series-Parts-s/1832.htm

Enginewise, that's essentially the engine that's in my E38, and as such, be ready to tackle timing chain guides, valley pan gasket, VANOS and the cooling system (which is why I usually suggest to folks looking at these cars, E38s, and the X5s that use these engines, to buy one with records of that work being already done. Costs a bit more on the front end, but saves a bunch of headache on the back end.

Chris_V  Thank you for that info! I JUST found that site last nite! 

With regards to those records, I've gotten as far as the corporation (Pittsburgh, PA area) that had this 7-Series as part of it Fleet vehicles. If i can find the BMW dealership that serviced these vehicles, I may have a pretty important piece to its upcoming maintenance schedule. 

I'll take Bell Biv Devoe and poison for 100 pts.

cdowd said:

I'll take Bell Biv Devoe and poison for 100 pts.

HAHA! Nicely done, Sir!

I ment to post it right after you asked the question, but I was on my phone and not logged in.

Any BMW dealer should be able to give you a service history that includes any work done at any BMW dealer in the country with the last seven of the VIN. I had mine pulled at the local dealer when I bought my E82 this summer; it included work at at least three other dealerships.

02Pilot said:

Any BMW dealer should be able to give you a service history that includes any work done at any BMW dealer in the country with the last seven of the VIN. I had mine pulled at the local dealer when I bought my E82 this summer; it included work at at least three other dealerships.

I did not know this! I thought it would be a situation where one would have to go to the original service department to get the info-for security purposes. Thought wrong! 

So, I was able to get that service history. I just need to show proof of ownership when I pick up the paperwork (no email due to confidentiality).

Replaced my pulleys as there was a bit of squeaking going on and I couldn't drive around a highly squeaking luxury car-just didn't feel right.

That white stuff is me trying to reduce the squeaking with some Lithium grease. HA-made the squeak louder!

I was also able to start fixing the scratches on the side of the car with a Dr Colorchip Kit I'd ordered a while back. To be honest, that stuff freaked me out! 

 I followed the instructions where they wanted the user to smear the color on, into the scratch and let it sit. Well, of course you're going to over-smear. I did this the first time around, and this stuff dries quick, so you can imagine the look of fear welling up in my eyes, thinking the worst. It looked BAD, so I wiped it off pretty damned quick.

I realized that the blending step after the smearing step removed the god-awful smudging, so I'll be back at it tomorrow with a bit more faith and patience (and pics).  

Very nice!!! Well done sir!

Challenge supreme court may over rule, but as far as I'm concerned, AC and trans fluid fix are "maintenance" as driving around here without AC in the summer is like going deep diving with only half a tank of air. By the time you get half way to your depth it's time to turn around and go home. Hell I've needed a change of shirts after just getting into the car and firing it up to get the AC running.

Mr. Lee said:

Very nice!!! Well done sir!

Challenge supreme court may over rule, but as far as I'm concerned, AC and trans fluid fix are "maintenance" as driving around here without AC in the summer is like going deep diving with only half a tank of air. By the time you get half way to your depth it's time to turn around and go home. Hell I've needed a change of shirts after just getting into the car and firing it up to get the AC running.

EXACTLY! IF that were the case, I would've incorporated the suspension kit ($185) and stayed nicely under budget! 

I guess I could've trailered it to the event, but that would've meant  towing it behind an X5 for it to look proper!

Today, I tried to tackle a few fixes: a front-end overhaul with the parts earlier stated, and installing new O2 sensors for what I thought were failing originals.

I headed to a really cool shop here in central Florida called DITY Auto Repair in Kissimmee, Fl;

 http://dityautorepair.com/

A couple of Army vets wanted to create an, "on post" environment for the rest of us commoners. They have multiple lifts, air tools, tire changers, pretty much everything one would need to do some serious work on their car.

Serious work ensued as I ended up taking the whole suspension apart, taking a total of 2.5 hours. Here's the evidence....

So much for having the proper tool for the job...

I was hoping to get a front-end alignment at the shop next door, unfortunately, they were booked, and I was late for a date with the wifey. I ended up eye-balling my alignment and it's not that far off at all!

I'm still going to get a proper alignment. Normally, I'd just do my own string alignment at home, but the garage is housing another project that cannot quite move at the moment. 

Even with the raw setup, I couldn't believe it-this thing just drove amazingly nice! I mean, I didn't realize what I'd been missing all these years! I had a poop-eating grin on my face the whole ride home!

Oh, and that O2 sensor didn't solve the problem. The Cat Converter is the true culprit. I really don't want to pay an arm for one. Any thoughts? 

In reply to 2GRX7 :

Pay a Muffler shop to weld in a universal replacement.

As for the shop... I had googled diy auto shops, and they came up. I didn't realize they were a hour away from me. That's NICE! The one thing I REALLY miss about being a military brat. Access to the base auto hobby shop. That 2 post lift bay is calling my name. I would love a lift to remove the bed of my truck so I can fix the fuel level sending unit (sadly have to replace the whole pump assembly) body mounts and install the rear brake lines from my brake line kit.  

On the cat, measure the overall size and inlet outlet size and find the same sized aftermarket cat on here:

http://www.walkerexhaust.com/catalog/epa-converters/universal-converter-dimension-search

Mr. Lee said:

In reply to 2GRX7 :

Pay a Muffler shop to weld in a universal replacement.

As for the shop... I had googled diy auto shops, and they came up. I didn't realize they were a hour away from me. That's NICE! The one thing I REALLY miss about being a military brat. Access to the base auto hobby shop. That 2 post lift bay is calling my name. I would love a lift to remove the bed of my truck so I can fix the fuel level sending unit (sadly have to replace the whole pump assembly) body mounts and install the rear brake lines from my brake line kit.  

I did mine with an engine hoist and a 2x4 frame. Worked pretty well all by my lonesome. 

chandler said:

Mr. Lee said:

In reply to 2GRX7 :

Pay a Muffler shop to weld in a universal replacement.

As for the shop... I had googled diy auto shops, and they came up. I didn't realize they were a hour away from me. That's NICE! The one thing I REALLY miss about being a military brat. Access to the base auto hobby shop. That 2 post lift bay is calling my name. I would love a lift to remove the bed of my truck so I can fix the fuel level sending unit (sadly have to replace the whole pump assembly) body mounts and install the rear brake lines from my brake line kit.  

I did mine with an engine hoist and a 2x4 frame. Worked pretty well all by my lonesome. 

On a e65? If that's the case, I applaud you sir!

Image hosting, use imgur.com, it's very straightforward overall and free. Here is their page on how to use the site. You can use a web browser or an ios or android app.

https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/210076663

Regarding the 745i I applaud your sense of adventure. At the time they came out they were pretty poorly regarded for all the problems they had, but now that time has passed and everyone knows how to fix the problems it's probably not that bad. Every 7 series BMW or S class Mercedes or equivalent from the mid to late 2000s and up is basically descending in value at a breakneck pace once they get out of warranty. The complexities are just too much for the average person to deal with and paying a few grand a visit to the mechanic several times a year to fix various gizmos and other issues is not really what most people want to do.

For the exhaust catalyst, get whatever you can that isn't from the dealer, because if you get it from the dealer the cat is part of the exhaust manifold and will break the bank. Realoem shows them around $1270 per side.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=GL63-USA-06-2003-E65-BMW-745i&diagId=18_0482

2GRX7 said:

chandler said:

Mr. Lee said:

In reply to 2GRX7 :

Pay a Muffler shop to weld in a universal replacement.

As for the shop... I had googled diy auto shops, and they came up. I didn't realize they were a hour away from me. That's NICE! The one thing I REALLY miss about being a military brat. Access to the base auto hobby shop. That 2 post lift bay is calling my name. I would love a lift to remove the bed of my truck so I can fix the fuel level sending unit (sadly have to replace the whole pump assembly) body mounts and install the rear brake lines from my brake line kit.  

I did mine with an engine hoist and a 2x4 frame. Worked pretty well all by my lonesome. 

On a e65? If that's the case, I applaud you sir!

Haha, no! I was referring to his wanting to remove his truck bed.

8' bed... Not sure how well that idea would work.  Need to go ahead and do the cab mounts as well, but I'm terrified to touch them right now due to the rust on them, and I'm actually using the hell out of the truck lately remodeling the house. 

Last ot post here but my truck is a full size dodge longbed. It was easy.

Now that I got my thread back,  I figured I'd give an update! 

 My biggest concern for this car came down to leaks. Engine, transmission, coolant all showed signs of leaking. For the most part, they were easily solvable. Transmission just needed a new pan and oil ($230.00).  The upper radiator hose needed replacing  ($46.00) but the oil? THAT E36M3 OIL! 

 Every morning, I'd come out to see several oil spots directly underneath the  crankshaft balancer, or so I thought the leaking was coming from there.  I stiill have the engine undertray on , which really masked the true location of the leaking.

Fast-forward two frustrating weeks, and  the full might of my Google-Fu, I finally  tracked down the source of my leak-i think. It's this little, $3 piece;

THIS son of a itch has shot out at least a half quart of oil all over my  snobby, sub-division driveway (YES, I'm a bit pissed at getting a fix-it letter from the HOA man!) The following day, I noticed a WAY smaller spot of oil, which I surmise to be the remnants of the oil batter melting off of a hot engine . Man, this really made my month. Next step is to get that engine cover off and degrease the whole underside of that engine! After the engine's cleaned, I'm on to cosmetics, FINALLY! 

I always tell my kids that the inside is always more important than the outside, which is why I concentrated so heavily on the engine/trans. If I didn't, my ridiculously preceptive, 8 y.o.  daughter would have totally called me on it (imagine your sister, wife, and mother, all rolled into one, 4'9" package with hands firmly planted on hips). Sorry, have to shake that last one off! 

List of cosmetic stuff;

- Flock the headliner/sunroof- New BMW headliner material goes for $260/2.5 yds, which is ridiculous.  I can flock my headliner, sunroof cover, and A,B,C pillar for  right around 50bux.

- continue dent pulling process- Pulled the larger dents that had paint missing, so I want to finish the rest

- cover slightly faded roof with Vvivid carbon fiber wrap- I may actually make a C.F. skin in the near future, but for now, wrap will not only look good, it'll be cheap.

-purchase new set of wheels/tires- Here's one of my dilemmas. A set of 20" wheels and tires could easily cost $1800-2500-the car was $1800! I'm finding it hard to justify. OTOH, i'll need to replace my front tires, and I cannot imagine  paying more for 18" tires than 20" just to place them on wheels that I'm not crazy about.

-Possible aftermarket stereo- The Logic 7 and ASK Unit, manage various aspects of my stereo system. They are  slowly taking a dump. The repair kit cost @ $185/shipped from eastern Europe and i'll still need to break open those units and perform the repair, OR pull out my older amps, locate the speaker wires and splice in an Android radio (need to purchase that!)

Down the road, i'll make bespoke c.f. spoilers, as this will be a gauge to see if my style/design skills will be appreciated by others. 

Man I'm kind of jelly. I still want to buy an E60 m5 with problems but I don't think my salary can keep up. Like this one.

In reply to yupididit :

If I could afford that, I'd get that thing checked out, like ASAP! Have a couple of eyes check it out,making sure there's no nefarious wrong-doings, and price out the damage as well as the typical damage that occurs with buying that particular BMW (RockAuto, NewParts.com). I did that with this car and my total outlay  would have been $1200, or $3K all in. Of course, all work was DIY, except for the initial transmission check by a certified BMW mech.

There's a few nice  e65 7-Series in your area where you could duplicate my efforts.

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/cto/d/2003-bmw-745/6480070478.html

BUT, as you can see, the biggest  hurdle you'll have to keeping costs down will be that ZF 6-speed! If it's gone, that'll be $2.5K right off the bat! This owner could just not know that his fluid's too low and that the on-board diagnostics won't necessarily catch that everytime.

If it's the electronics you're worried about, 9x out of ten, it could just be that the solder points have lost contact with the boards due to the high vibrations it's subjected to during it's life cycle. It's seems as if all German manufacturers had similar issues from the late 90s, to mid 2000s.  I've "fixed"  several ECU's, cruise control modules, and ride control  modules.  I'd just go through the process of re-heating the circuit board, like i outlined here;

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/tech-tips/late-90s-to-early-00s-german-car-electronics-not-working-put-a-torch-it/125707/page1/

OH, and one of the biggest issues turned out to be brand new serpentine/A/C belts from DAYCO! Listen, Dayco absolutely SUUUUUCKS! They squeal SOO bad, they had me thinking my water pump, A/C condenser, and alternator were on the fritz! Avoid their belts like the plague/Flu (same thing nowadays?)!