Faults:

Power locks worked sometimes.

Needed 02 sensors.

Rear shocks squeaked.

Major oil leak.

Extremely bad on gas (due to 02 sensors).

Rough idle at times.

Almost stalled twice with A/C on.

Check engine light on.

Cup holders broken.

Needed brakes.

Cheap plastic console squeaked like crazy.

Starting to rust out bad on the fenders, hood, and doors.

Other various plastic interior pieces breaking.

Left me stranded on the highway after the hose for the radiator came off, due to the plastic piece breaking. Almost overheated the car.

Right side windshield wiper randomly stopped working.

Plastic piece on the hood flew off on the highway.

Lots of wind noise from the sunroof. Probably just needed a new seal.

Needed an alignment.

Leather seats worn out.

Stereo was horrible sounding. CD player didn't work, although the cassette did.

Dashboard pixels not working.

General Comments:

Wow. Don't even know where to start. Even though the car had all these problems, I still loved it. Almost every option you could think of, from front and rear heated seats, to a heated steering wheel. Lots of new cars don't even have this!

The 4.4 was reliable. Started up every time, and the transmission was very smooth shifting. I took a huge chance on this car, buying a 740i with 300,000km on it and no past service history. The car was very good to drive. Other than the console, there were no squeaks or rattles on the inside, and the car handled very well.

The bottom of the doors started to rust pretty bad.

An oil leak turned out to be a plug, which was replaced for $4.

All in all, decided to sell before I really had to put money into it. I'd buy another one, although with lower km's.

Faults:

The only thing that I have to blame on the car is the little knob at the end of the wire that connects the gas pedal to the engine (if pulled, the car accelerates) which came loose, but a bit of epoxy took care of that.

Pilot brand headlight bulbs are useless in this car, they can't handle something the car does and burn out within two weeks - Phillips seem to work perfectly fine.

General Comments:

The BMW 740iA is a full-size luxury sedan with sports car performance. If switched into sports mode, I can outrun a lot of cars that I wouldn't think I could take on.

The interior is in BMW-typical high quality, fine leather and wood trim. In the case of my car, black inside, black outside. The paint is, unlike the Cadillac's I had owned before, very tough and doesn't chip easily at all. Also, there seem to be no spots where the 740iA is notorious to rust at (not the typical bottom of the door or such).

I feel bad mentioning this because people in the position to acquire a BMW shouldn't have to be concerned about fuel expenses. However, whoever chooses the BMW 740iA is in for a surprise - I easily get 30 miles to the gallon highway and about 18-20 city.

Overall, if you're looking for luxury, style, performance and reliability merged together into one car, this one would be it.

I'd recommend dealer maintenance only since it isn't significantly more expensive than independent shops, but the mechanics are specially trained to work on BMWs.