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Originally Posted by jorian
A little more info would be helpful I think. In addition to the daily commute, I often (at least once per month) take 2 hour+ trips to Vancouver Island, Whistler, Seattle, Portland etc. with the family, so the 911 is out. In the winter I like to ski the local mountains. I have the 911, an F150 and a tired Volvo wagon. The Volvo doesn't inspire confidence on longer trips and is starting to look a little too ratty for clients. I don't care too much about fuel economy but do worry about costly repairs that might be over my head.
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I love the M5 for taking long trips.. even with the track-ready suspension setup I have on the car. It is smooth, quiet and fast. You'll look down and realize you are doing 110 instead of 70. It is effortless for it to cruise at high speeds for extended amounts of time.
My rule of thumb is that if the car has to go into the shop expect a $1k repair bill. When I first got my car, it had a lot more issues than the PPI picked up - in fact it was things that a PPI wouldn't even pick up (carbon build-up, a rear shock installed wrong at one point in time that weakened the rear shock mount, random electric motors going out).
All the E39s have window regulator issues. They'll fail randomly - the regulator is ~$300 and you could probably do it yourself. If it is at a shop expect it to run $500 or so. You could do this yourself - just don't set off the side airbags!
The Camshaft Position Sensors like to die. The sensor is cheap (relatively speaking) but the labor is a lot. This is something you could do yourself.
The thermostat is another thing that bites the dust often. Again, you can install this yourself too.
Inside the car I wouldn't expect much to go wrong. The ICE has been rock solid and other than window regulators and a door lock go bad (all of these seem to be due to the plastic gear inside the motors that contacts a metal gear loosing its plastic teeth).
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The car I'm looking at has had the O2 sensors replaced and a new vanos kit.
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If you can, get a full list of the repair work on the car (BMW can look up work done at the dealerships by VIN). It is always helpful to know what to expect and what has been done to the car already. Vanos occasionally goes out but it only seems to happen once (at least I haven't heard of many people having to get multiple vanos units).
I know I'm sounding really negative about the car but, I've seen a lot of people buy them because they are cheap and then complain that everything is expensive and they can't fix it themselves. It helps to know exactly what you're getting into. If someone had told me all this I still would have bought the car but I would have probably looked longer and harder for the right one.
I love driving the car, it is an amazing vehicle and you really have to drive one to see just how great it really is.