before we get started... THIS CAR DOES NOT PASS CA SMOG!!! IT MUST BE NON CA BUYERS ONLY!!!
IF YOU ARE IN CALIFORNIA YOU CANNOT BUY THIS CAR!! IT IS SOLD AS-IS

I'm posting this vehicle for sale in its current condition because i would love to see this car continue to live on with a new owner that can care for it and enjoy it. I want to give everyone an opportunity to do that before I'm forced to scrap it instead. Turn it into a track car or lemons car, or fix it and keep on driving it, just enjoy this amazing machine. I plan on leaving this listing up for a week or two before i will need to send it off.

The price is pretty firm as CA will pay $1k for the vehicle through CAP accelerated retirement program and I can easily sell the wheels and audio components alone for an additional $1k.

I'm the second owner of this vehicle and have owned it for ~13 years. The two of us have been through a lot together and I have worked hard to give the car the care and attention it deserves to keep it performing its best. Now at 265k Mi i'm finally moving on to a newer car and don't have the time or space to keep it around any more. If you can invest some time in taking care of this car, it will be sure to reward you. Truly an excellent example of the early 90s BMW character that the E30 had as well. This is an incredibly fun and responsive car to drive, truly one of BMWs best and the reliability of the M50 engine is second to none. Its absolutely one of the most beautiful E34 that I have seen in the bay area, and still turns plenty of heads. I expect that if you put in the effort to get this vehicle to pass smog it will run well past 300k Mi with only routine maintenance after that. The car passed smog here in CA ~20 months ago after replacing both cats, the O2 sensor and a thorough intake cleaning, however this time around it's failing again and I don't have the time to go through another smog adventure with it.

This car also has an insane sound system installed in it, it sounds amazing and when capable of 1400 Watts RMS continuous has an incredible amount of dynamic headroom for any type of listening. It was professionally installed in the trunk with custom carpeted trim pieces in matching color. This install alone is worth more than i'm asking for the whole car...The sound system can accept a second battery in the spare tire well that is separated from the main battery by a contactor when the vehicles ignition is off. This prevents draining the starting battery when using the stereo while the car is off. The second battery is currently not installed

Interior is in fair condition, the leather is punctured in one place in the rear seat and discolored and cracked in others. The headliner is slightly loose in the rear but not noticeably.
I have attempted to provide an extremely detailed and honest description of the vehicles flaws below (please read it all thoroughly!) and provided as many pictures as possible.

The car:
-MY:1995
-E34 525i
-VIN: WBAHD5323SGB37753
-Mileage: ~265650mi
-5 speed manual
-Clean title
-Heated seats
-Have three keys
-On-board computer, will display available metrics through instrument cluster
-Power mirrors
-Power driver and passenger seat adjustment
-Has genuine BMW / BBS Style 42 two piece wheels
-EU spec trim w/o DOT markers
-OE angel eye EU headlights
-HID projector low beams
-HID projector fog lights
-Clear EU marker lights with amber bulbs
-Clear Parking lights with amber bulbs
-SSR OE Z4 short shift kit
-I have the original owners manual as well as a Bentley publishers service manual for it
-Oil has been changed with Mobil 1 every 3k miles for the past 13 years. (currently run 15W50)
-Transmission fluid changed with Royal Purple syncromax.
-H&R lowering spring
-Koni adjustable dampers (~1 year old)
-Has had VANOS solenoid assembly replaced ~1year ago with a rebuilt system fitted with the besian systems replacement seals and bushings, i also have the original VANOS assembly and a second set of the seals and bushings.
-The clutch has been replaced twice, the most recent replacement was ~60k ago.
-M3 "fix a flat" kit sans spare wheel space.
-The car was fully repainted ~8 years ago in beautiful Calypso Red still looks excellent over the majority of the body however there are spots that need touching up.
-Both cats were replaced with a Magnaflow 36008 (~20 months ago)
-O2 Sensor was replaced (~20 months ago)
-Optima Red Top sealed 12V battery
-Transmission was replaced ~100kMi with a transmission from an older 535i with an M20 engine, bell housing mates but the transmission mount and shift linkage are custom.

The 1400 Watt RMS stereo:
-Two 1.5 Farad 12V stabilization capacitors
-Two Polk C300.2 Carbon Series amplifiers (thats 150 Watts RMS continuous power per channel @ 0.1%THD for each corner of the vehicle)
-Four Polk MM6 6.5" component speaker sets (FR FL RR RL)
-Alpine MRP-M850 (driving 800 Watts RMS continuous power @ <1% THD into the sub woofer)
-Alpine 15" Type R sub woofer in custom ported 0.75" MDF construction enclosure (port exits directly into the cabin through the ski bag pass through behind the rear center arm rest)
-Incredible custom and extremely clean installation that still allows use of the trunk for storage
-There are a few slight nicks in the amps and sub from normal use of the trunk. These are mostly purely aesthetic. the nick in the sub does protrude through the surround slightly as seen in the pictures below however has not had a noticeable effect in performance.
-The rear passenger low range spear has a failed magnet assembly and will need to be replaced (I have it disconnected for now)

The bad:
-Brakes are worn and need replacement
-Tires are worn and need replacement
-(recent)Speedometer is no longer working (odometer is still accurate within 40 miles as this has happened just this past week and i haven't been driving the vehicle recently)
-(recent)Gas gauge is no longer working (following a trend where it would get stuck at 1/4 tank)
-Interior lighting circuit has a soft short in it somewhere that needs to be resolved before it can work. I have disconnected the interior dimmer to prevent it from blowing a fuse.
-The rear bumper is missing the tow hook cover and is cracked in two places as seen below
-This car consumes about 1qt of oil every month or so. I believe roughly half of that is leaking though the rear main seal and the other half is burning off.
-There is an audible rattle when driving under heavy load usually up hill that i have not been about to find the root cause of. Not engine knock, but sounds very mechanical and like something is simply loose and chattering...
-There is what i expect to be a leak in the fuel evaporative recovery system, that results in the smell of gas vapors periodically.
-AC is not charged
-Over the last two months or so the number of rock chips in the hood appear to have caused the clear coat to fail and will need some work to bring it back to its original shine.
-A few small trim pieces are missing from the interior (the covers for the read seat seat belt tensioners, and ash tray from the center console)
-Pneumatic cylinders for holding the hood open are tired
-Fog light mounting brackets and mounting points to the front bumper cover are broken and have been tied in place
-Front tow hook covers are tied in place

I have a few spare parts around:
-K&N intake filter and cleaner
-Black kidney inserts (i prefer the look with no inserts)
-new rear sub frame bushings
-Rear strut mount bushing
-Drive shaft guibo centering bushing.
-shift linkage retainer clips
-exhaust manifold output gaskets
-door stop
-touch up paint
-EAT Ultrachip (is currently running the stock tuning / chip)
-Oil filter

Auto Services in California

Z Auto Sales & Leasing ★★★★★

New Car Dealers

Address: 225 E Broadway # 102D, South-Pasadena

Phone: (818) 730-4181

X-treme Auto Care ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Tire Dealers, Tire Recap, Retread & Repair

Address: 901 Grand Ave, Fair-Oaks

Phone: (916) 929-9813

Wrona`s Quality Auto Repair ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Automobile Inspection Stations & Services, Automobile Consultants

Address: 109 South St, Shell-Beach

Phone: (805) 543-3180

Woody`s Truck & Auto Body ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Automobile Body Repairing & Painting, Truck Body Repair & Painting

Address: 13124 Lakewood Blvd, Signal-Hill

Phone: (562) 529-6555

Winter Chevrolet - Honda ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, New Car Dealers, Used Car Dealers

Address: 3750 Century Ct, El-Sobrante

Phone: (510) 883-3895

Western Towing ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Towing

Address: 465 Peaceful Valley Ln, Atascadero

Phone: (805) 835-5943

Auto blog

Popular Science magazine's Best Of What's New 2012 all ate up with cars

Tue, 20 Nov 2012

Popular Science has named the winners in its Best of What's New awards, the victors coming in the categories of aerospace, automotive, engineering, entertainment, gadgets, green, hardware, health, home, recreation, security and software. The automotive category did not go wanting for lauded advancements:
Tesla Model S: the Grand Award winner for being "the standard by which all future electric vehicles will be measured."
BMW 328i: it's 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder gets called out for being more powerful and frugal than the six-cylinder it replaces.

Submit your questions for Autoblog Podcast #334 LIVE!

Mon, 20 May 2013

We're set to record Autoblog Podcast #334 tonight, and you can drop us your questions and comments via our Q&A module below. Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes if you haven't already done so, and if you want to take it all in live, tune in to our UStream (audio only) channel at 10:00 PM Eastern tonight.
Discussion Topics for Autoblog Podcast Episode #334
2014 Mercedes Benz S Class

MW's new Driftmob video shows the M235i like you've never seen it before

Wed, 30 Jul 2014

Last month, we went behind the scenes of the filming of BMW's new Driftmob, web video, bringing you one post from the practice sessions, and another from the shoot itself, which took place in an enormous traffic circle in Cape Town, South Africa. Today, BMW has launched the final version of Driftmob, and it's pretty damn cool.
The plot is pretty simple: just like a flashmob, in which people invade a location and perform choreographed dances to music, much to the delight of surprised onlookers, the "driftmob" features a quintet of red M235i coupes that take over a traffic circle and perform choreographed dances - sideways - to the delight of onlookers. The only differences are that, in this case, the onlookers are mostly paid extras (though there were many unwitting passersby that joined the crowd at times) and the only music is a constant squealing of tires-a sweet song if we ever heard one. Then, after about two minutes of tire-smoking shenanigans, the coupes vanish.
As promised, we will have a more detailed, behind the scenes story about the filming of the video, including insights from Rhys Millen, Samuel Hübinette, Dai Yoshihara, Rich Rutherford, and Conrad Grunewald, the five guys who executed these remarkable stunts. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the short flick.

1995 Bmw 525i E34, Calypso Red, Bbs Style 42 Wheels, 1400w Rms Stereo on 2040-cars

BMW 5-Series for Sale