out of the E34 models which is the best

Last of E34 m5 without a doubt. Or if to much 525i sport.

Bill- wrote: LPG Yuk Goodnight

 

Did I really say that  sorry mate I must have been 'off Colour'

is that macau blue with extended champagne 4 seat leather  ?

I dont suppose you have any interior spares do you as I need to sort a few bits on mine ?

Before I boought the car I was considering putting throwing stars or turbines on it but these have really grown on me.

Paul

Chas C wrote: paulfinucane wrote: However for shear power & knowing that you have the ability to destroy (speedwise) 8 out of 10 cars on the road you cant beat the m5 for the shear fun element. Looks like we have twins Paul, but I'm a purist when it comes to wheels...

e30sid wrote: Every ones saying how good they are on MPG but no figures, im thinking of changing to a e34 so how about some MPG figures for all the models.

Well, prior to my E30 325i, I had a E34 530i SE manual M30 model and the fuel consumption of the E34 was better than I can get out of the E30...
On long motorway runs the E34 could manage close to 30mpg with about 23-24 in a mix of shorter A/B road journeys only dropping to 21mpg in towns..
Can't better 26-27mpg in the E30 even on long, gentle Motorway cruises and the average is only about 21-22mpg...at least 3-4mpg worse than the bigger engined, heavier and bigger car...
Can't fathom that out, myself!

Dolph540 : Thought I was the only one on here with a 6 speed 540 on Lpg ,I'm on a Romano Type N system ........Brilliant

Bill I can see you never had a 540 with the latest system .....I could drive off on Petrol cover the change over light &  bet  you to tell what fuel it was running on , there's no difference with these new kits Bill ,at todays petrol prices every gallon I put in I'm saving over £2.50 per Gallon Lpg @ .38.9pl  & U\L @ 94.9 Pl or put it this way .

town driving petrol 17mpg Lpg Eq =44mpg M\way Petrol 29mpg Lpg Eq = 67Mpg & my car has been chipped to 320bhp.......what a lovely old tug she is

I'd be a useless car salesman especially if selling BMW's, as I'm a perfectionist and would bankrupt my business making the cars perfect before sale, so I'll stick to my current job and concentrate on buying them for myself instead

Right, here's the lowdown on which E34's have 4 or 5 speed autos.

Firstly, all 518i's have the 4-speed auto

All early 12v small sixes (520i & 525i), and all M30 engined big sixes (530i & 535i) have the 4-speed auto.

Around 1991 the 24v small six was introduced for the 520i & 525i, and was fitted with the new 5-speed auto built, believe it or not, by GM. Early 24v sixes were non-Vanos, those came later around 1994-1996 and can be recognised by the pronounced 'hump' at the front top of the cylinder head where the Vanos unit sits and drives the camshaft sprocket. You should also see a small cylinder/valve around the same place with a solid oil feed pipe going into it and an electrical connection. This is the electrical valve which controls oil pressure to the Vanos unit.

All V8's (530i & 540i) had the 5-speed autobox built by ZF of Germany.

You can differentiate between the 4 or 5-speed autoboxes by looking at the numbers on the selector panel by the gear selector lever.

4-speed autos were marked P-R-N-D-3-2-1, which gave manual selection of 1st, 2nd and 3rd gears, with 4th (top) only being available in postiton 'D'

5-speed autos are marked P-R-N-D-4-3-2, which gave manual selection of 2nd, 3rd and 4th gears, with 5th (top) and 1st only being available with the selector in 'D'

In my personal opinion the 5-speed GM autobox fitted to the small sixes (520i & 525i) is smoother and more responsive than the ZF 5-speed auto fitted to the V8's, and I have driven/owned both types.

Late 'L' reg, all 'M' & 'N' plate cars are the ones to look for to get 24v Vanos/5-speed auto combination. Some were left over at dealers and ended up on 'P' plate, so these rarities are worth seeking out. At the very least you want 1991 'J' reg cars or later to guarantee that combination & the 5-speed auto.

On the small six engine front, the 12v sixes had a single belt-driven overhead camshaft. 24v sixes had chain driven twin overhead camshafts with hydraulic tappets.

One thing you must look out for on the 24v sixes is unexplained random overheating. This is caused by the plastic impeller on the water pump shaft breaking up and not pumping coolant around the system.

Symptoms are sudden random unexplained overheating, and heaters only blowing cold air as there's no hot coolant being pumped around the heater matrix. Coolant levels will all be ok and everything will appear ok under the bonnet too with all pulleys turning fine on the outside-it's INSIDE the pump that the failure happens though!

My '95 525i did this, but I caught it in time on an empty road before the temp gauge went into the red.

Sure enough, it was the water pump, which I replaced myself with a metal-impeller pump. Since then it's been fine. It's not an expensive job for a garage or independent specialist to do so it's certainly worth making sure it's been done.

If you don't spot the fault until it's too late then you can boil and wreck the cylinder head, which will cost a fortune to replace as it's a 24v head with twin camshafts and maybe Vanos.

Other than that, the 24v small sixes are generally bomb-proof.

Hope this helps 

One more thing concerning the autos. You can improve the economy of your automatic BMW by using the 'fuel cutoff on the overrun' facility.

Basically, this means that if you take your foot off the accelerator and the engine is doing more than 1500rpm, the ECU switches off the fuel injectors until the engine speed drops to around 1000rpm.

In a manual you'd change down instinctively so you'd make use of this facility automatically.

In the autos, however, if you take your foot off the accelerator, the autobox invariably shifts up through the gears, dropping the engine revs and preventing the ECU shutting off the fuel injectors.

If you manually downshift your auto, then you can take full advantage of this fuel shutoff facility for better economy-I do this all the time and it does make a difference, as well as giving better engine braking.

You can also tell from the dash instruments when the ECU shuts off the fuel injectors.

Look at the swinging economy needle in the lower rev counter quadrant. It indicates the instant fuel economy at that moment. When the ECU shuts off the fuel injectors, the needle will swing all the way over to the far left of the gauge, past the 50mpg bit and into the uncalibrated sector.

This indicates that no fuel whatsoever is being fed into the engine, and you should notice the engine braking a bit. When you slow to a halt, the needle will come off the left-hand end stop and move to the right, indicating that the ECU has now switched the fuel injectors back on to prevent the engine stalling.

By using anticipative driving and this economy feature, you can coax some impressive mpg figures out of any modern BMW with this facility-basically any BMW after around 1981 ish.

Works very well with autos, if you can bring yourself to downshift manually and then not forget to shift back up again manually to allow the autobox to get into the economy top gear again 

Alex

Paul-thanks for the compliments on my E34 review. I tried to give a fair appraisal of the various models.

There isn't really a 'bad' model in the E34 range, although 12v 520i autos have a small, peaky six-pot engine matched to a 4-speed autobox with wide gear spacing, and so have their work cut out to shift the E34's bulk. Neat handling though with not much weight up front so you can keep the speed up round the bends 

E30 sid-same comments apply a bit to the 320i, which uses about the same amount of fuel as the E30 325i, both autos driving through a 4-speed box. Not an ideal match, particularly the 320i, which has official government fuel consumption figures virtually the same as the 325i, without the 325i's better grunt.

E34 525i 24v Vanos has the better engine, and the autos are 5-speed which, take it from me, are much better than the older 4-speed autoboxes. 1st gear is lower than in the 4-speeders, and gives a snappier step-off, whilst 5th gear is correctly set as an economy overdrive, maximum speed being reached in auto 4th gear.

Early 12v 525i's had the 4-speed autobox, so buy as late a model as possible for the full Vanos 24v 5-speed auto combination. Manuals give the maximum performance/economy combination on the smaller sixes, but the 5-speed auto isn't anything like as handicapped as the older 4-speeders were with the small sixes, and 5-speed autos come very close to matching the manual's performance/economy figures.

Don't buy the first you see-no point getting an 'average' E34 when a bit of homework can turn up a really nice example for not much more cash-they weren't 'rare' cars and there are plenty of excellent ones still around, if you can prise them out of the owner's hands though, and don't mind travelling a bit to find a mint one

Compared to your E30 320i auto, an E34 525i 24v 5-speed auto will, at the worst, equal your current economy, and at best will be a bit more economical, mostly on long runs where the overdrive 5th gear helps economy. Here's where the Vanos cars excel as they have better low-end torque so don't feel 'flat' when you toe it in 5th gear on the motorway.

I owned 3 E30's in my time, and don't regret going over to the E34's in the slightest-get yours now and join the happy band of contented owners from 518i's to 3.8 litre M5's, and all shades in between

Alex

damn good review mate-I reckon that should be published somewhere

paul

RedOctober wrote: Well, after owning 10 BM's in the past 13 years, of the 3 E34's I've owned (525i, 535i & 540i), the car thieves preferred my 540i and thought that was the best, although they failed to break the steering lock and thankfully ran off without doing any other damage-in fact the steering lock & ignition switch still work ok, if a little stiffer than normal. The best all rounder in the real world is the 525i, preferably late model 24v Vanos. Tourings even better as they're still great fun to drive and you can pile all sorts of stuff in the back, or fold the back seats down and live in the rear of the car if you get evicted from home or can't bear to be away from your BM Best cheap old bruiser is 535i cos they're peanuts to buy and do sooooooooooo much more than a ratty old hatchback you'd get for the same amount. 540i's-brilliant cars with Alusil engines & risky or depression inducing with Nikasil engines-do ya feel lucky, punk? Fuel consumption on any E34 ain't brilliant round town as they're all heavy cars-yes, even the humble 518i tips the scales around a portly 1400kg, with fully loaded 540i Tourings squashing the tarmac with a hefty 1800kg fully laden. My 540i does 18-22mpg round town, and 28-30 mpg on a long motorway run on a warm summers day one up and no heavy luggage. I once brimmed the 540i and drove to Scotland, turned round and came back again until the red low fuel light came on. At around 75-80 mph motorway cruising I got 485 miles and still had over a gallon left in reserve. It's so long-legged you see, 2000rpm at 70mph. 525i Touring does 22-24mpg round town, and around 32-34mpg  on a similar long motorway run lightly laden on a warm day. Expect saloons to do a little more because of slightly better aerodynamics. Very dependent on how you drive them though. Enjoy yourself and you'll pay the price at the pumps. Drive with sensible restraint and you'll get some very good figures on long runs for such big, heavy cars. Weight, however, has minimal effect on sustained flat road cruising economy-aerodynamics plays the bigger part here. Take an E34 round town though, and watch that economy tumble, even with the smaller engines, as you have to work them harder to shift all those kilos. Doesn't really make sense to buy small-engined big car, so aim for the mid-sized engines as the best all rounders-the 525i is the clear winner here, also possessing very balanced handling with less weight up front than big M30 sixes. For those dedicated to arriving before they set off, Alusil engined 540i or M5 is the only way to go. M5 sublime but specialist. 540i gives a grunty 90% of M5's absolute performance and bit softer handling for 50% of M5's price and less painful/restrictive insurance. Higher overall gearing of 540i compared to M5 means bit better cruising economy from 540i, although by no stretch of the imagination can either of these ever be called economy cars. Revvy M5 always ready to tear your heart out when you toe it and gearing set so engine is more 'busy' than 540i on motorways. All E34's top cars though-very strong with few weak points in old age & usually as tough as old boots if you get a good one. Good looking old tub too & traditional 4-exposed headlamps to keep the BMW purists happy Electronics not as complicated as E39 although still requires some knowledge of basic electronics if you're going to tackle faults with 'servant sparks' etc. All in all one of BMW's very best models. The greatest E34 all rounder? Late model 525i SE Vanos Touring with leather & air-con. All the car you'll ever need in the real world! And yes I have got one, and I'd rather put my hand in a bacon slicer than ever sell it I have a 540i too, but that's a selfish indulgence although I couldn't live without that either,as it's huge fun to take apart young twerps in new 'sporty hatches' at the lights in my ancient 13-year old grandad's saloon car with 120k on the clock

I'm voting the 540i with a 6 speed manual box and LPG

Smooth V8 power and sound, comfortable ride and all for cavalier running money  It works out that each mile in mine whilst on LPG is about 10p which is very reasonable and affordable compared to just petrol

The only issue I have with the car is that the rear seats don't fold down and what with it being pretty much the top of the range E34 I would expect electric seats or at least heated seats, whats that all about


Edited by dolph540