Stereorob

buying an old bangle butt 7-series is about as smart as using $100s as toilet paper. yes. they are really neat cars filled with all kinds of cool gizmos... that will break, and break, and break. i made the awful mistake of drinking the bangle butt 745Li kool-aid once. i wanted one so bad i couldnt stand it! ended up buying a really trashed and tired 02 the car tried to kill me. like legit caught on fire and blew up while i was driving it.

2002 745Li, 187,500 miles when I got it, 2012. absolutely had the crap kicked out of it. cracked rear bumper. black faided paint, looked like someone was living in it the interior was so dirty, some of the buttons on the dash were broken or missing, had a terrible exaust leak and sounded like a mac truck, ac didn't work, sunroof leaked and had lots of mildew inside the car.

for a car that was as expensive as new as it was, and the fact that it was only about ten years old. it was in HORRIBLE condition. bought it from a guy that had it sitting in his yard with weeds up to the fenders. $1500.

somehow, everything on the car besides the AC, and the rear passanger side window was still working, sort of. always wanted a bangle butt 7 cause I was curious about them so I bit.

drove it for a few weeks before it started ****ting the bed. but in the 3 weeks I had it that it actually ran, it was surprisingly fun to drive. hugged the road like glue and was surprisingly fast. at the time I lived a few blocks from the beach so it was the car I would drive and cruise A1A in, it was always full of sand, and I alwaus drove it just in a tank top and wet board shorts after swimming. I crammed surfboards and bikes in it. picture "surf city" by Jan & Dean. hey it was fun while it lasted. but it was suck a nice car that was so thrashed out, it got goofy looks everywhere I drove it. not a single body panel didn't have some kind of dent in it, back end sagged real bad, a true hooptie.

then the nightmares started. sometimes it simply wouldn't start, the electronic brake wouldn't always disengage, idrive system started going, heat came on and was stuck blowing hot air in the dead of summer in west palm beach, fl, started burning oil REALLY bad as well as leaking it. about a month into this experience the car was staring death in the face. it had one wheel in the crusher when I got it so.. yeah. got it right at the tail end of its existence. then the engine started lightly knocking and the transmission lost 3rd gear.. seriously all of this happened in a matter of days. then the power sunshade motor caught on fire while I was driving it. -still don't know how that even happened, I really didn't take it out of the neighborhood at that point. then one night I was at the Boynton beach inlet pulling on to A1A and the thing just went up in smoke, something under the dash caught on fire! heard a really loud sizzle and smoke started pouring out of below the passanger foot well. I threw water on it but it didn't help, and everything in the car started to flicker. so I ripped my tag off of it, quickly grabbed my stuff out of it, called 911, and watched it burn guess it just didn't want to live anymore. so if anyone in WPB remembers a really bad car fire at the Boynton inlet a few years back.. yeah, that was me lmao.

DONT DO IT!
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BMW7_LS430

That is one funny story. lol.

When I bought my LS430 back in 2009, I was also considering a beautiful white/brown 2003 BMW 745Li with same mileage of 48K miles.
BMW price was little higher than LS. Aftermarket warranty for BMW was $5500 vs. $2500 for LS. That made my decision clear then.
Fast forward 9 years, 2003 BMWs are selling for less than half the price of LS430. Here is one for $4200 https://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/c...526732651.html

BMW 7 series is a great car by the way.... when it doesn't have problems.

Johnhav430

To be fair, I purchased a BMW new, and in 11 yrs., one major thing broke, the ABS/DSC, which is common across BMWs and BMW motorcycles. Also common to 2004 Nissans, and I saw someone here state he had the issue with the LS430, and that he contacted the place that rebuilt mine, and they do not work on ours. $249 DIY on a BMW, $4,000+ repair on a Japanese car. That's the only thing that has gone wrong on my twin turbo BMW in a decade. Did I buy it for $4500? No, multiply it by 10. I'm the original owner from 3 miles on the odometer, and have taken care of the car, never abused it. Maybe that has something to do with it as well.

I haven't done the math but I still think a car in the $3,000 range is for a teen, can't see getting them a new car. As mentioned, I asked my wife's bff, how does this work, older son gets a Pilot, and daughter gets an Accord, please explain. She smiled and said I don't know.

BMW7_LS430

From the $45K price range, if I have to guess, it sounds like you have a 3 series with inline 6. Those are the most reliable BMWs. If you had bought a 7 series with notorious V8, your experience might have been different. You still had lot less problems than average BMW because most BMWs do suffer from cooling issues as well. BMW tries to get most HP out of the engines and that creates havoc on the plastic and rubber parts. BMWs are most fun to drive though.

ibrahim83

Run run run! Out of all the horrible 7 series of that generation, the 745 is the ONE TO AVOID! And i sell cars for a living.

Johnhav430

I have the twin turbo N54 (as opposed to the single turbo "twin scroll" N55)....I think of it as an overbuilt motor that used hardware (low pressure and two turbos) as opposed to software, to produce the numbers that it does. Again, it was a different era (mfg 10/06 whereas my LS430 was 9/05, same ballpark) where things were built well imho. I mean for a $40,600 base price, it had an external oil cooler, true dual exhaust (now how rare is that), and all the other stuff like 13 spk stereo, adaptive xenon, etc., all standard. The problem with buying one used is people push and tune them, which is why I say maybe since I baby it, nothing broke except the ABS...

At some point imho if the price is low enough, one can just buy a car and besides maintenance, drive it into the ground and don't fix things....that price is not 10k, but maybe it's 3k.....and one doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, both the S class and 7 series are two cars Hoovie's garage bought cheap, as did others on YouTube...

p.s. knock on wood no water pump replaced on mine yet...not sure if I would DIY, doubtful, although cousin did his 530i DIY....