Faults:

A lot, basically engine related. But I drove this really hard. It had the original engine when I bought it that was pretty worn with low oil pressure. This engine lasted less than 2 months before it developed a rod knock. I replaced it with a newer 1.8 from a 3 series. This lasted less than a year until the top blew and cracked. The block was also pretty bad so nothing to repair. I got a worn 2.0 from unknown source, the inline 4, not the newer 6. Put new piston and rings into it, new bore, new seals, new bearings. Oil pump was fine. Ported the head. Race cam. Rejetted the carburettor. Race exhaust. Original engine probably barely had 90 hp, rebuilt 2.0 probably had closer to 150 hp. Really drove this engine hard, no problems.

General Comments:

Really nice to drive. Not a race car, but rather a good cruiser, especially with the uprated 2.0 that I built. Would outrun most cars back then.

Finally it rusted out. I originally replaced both sills and floor. Had to replace rear suspension mounts. Fuel tank rusted out. The 5 series before the 1976 facelift had virtually no rust proofing underneath. Sound deadening directly put on bare metal. This started to crack and created water pockets that rusted. Sold because it had bad structural rust around the A pillar that was virtually impossible to fix on a DIY basis. Sad to see it go. But the engine was used in another car.

Faults:

"General electronics" failure popped up frequently.

Always throwing up some sort of a fault code. In the end it was quite depressing to turn the key - you never knew which fault was going to pop up.

- Seat sensor passenger side, $1400 fix to get the airbag working at 120,000KM.

- Some sort of bushings in the rear, making a really annoying sound at 100,000KM.

- Light module went out, throwing fault codes that had to be replaced. Bushings and wishbones in front, suspension leaking at 122,000KM. All this cost me $4000 for parts and labour.

- "Transmission failure" fault code popping up sometimes, however I never noticed any fault in the transmission, it worked fine.

- Frequent need of wheel alignment.

- Kept blowing an ABS fuse.

- Front headlamp leaking, mist inside. Looks fugly and is an expensive fix.

General Comments:

Such a disappointment and expensive experience. This car has been a pain, I got rid of it after 1 year of ownership and sold it to a local. I talked to him some time ago and he's already spent $5000 on electrical gremlins and other fixes underneath the car. The car always started and drove, but there were so many absurd things that went wrong.

Economy was also very poor, power to economy rating, 1.2L/10km average mixed driving.

This car had been so much looked after, the service book was brimming with services from when the car was new to when I bought it and sold it, but still so many things went wrong in a short period. I guess some of the reasons things went wrong was that the 2004 model is the first one. I think that in the newer models, many electrical glitches have been sorted out.

All in all, this was not worth it at all, the car was not really THAT good to drive, but the comfort was good. Still, it doesn't justify the running costs at all. Got quickly bored of the car; I guess it's because of all the problems and expenses.

Faults:

To be honest nothing, I just had to replace some spare-parts (brakes, suspension etc).

General Comments:

Very good and reliable car, with a lot of space and comfort. This car fits me very well, being a student having a desire of a great car to a very low price.

Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

The car is really nice to drive. It's fast and runs on less than 8 liter pr 100 km.