We all love the BMW E60 M5 and its screaming S85 engine. Some would venture as far off as to say that’s the best engine the M division ever made but then again, those statements would only be true if we were talking about a brand new unit. Other than that, if you’re just a regular owner who actually likes to drive his M5 you might have an issue with the 5-liter V10, which is not necessarily known for its reliability.
Hoovie bought one a while back and, in his typical fashion, he went for the cheapest he could find, sold by a Honda dealer for just $6,500. To me, that price tag was just a simple sign that fixing that thing would probably cost at least as much as the purchase price. Nevertheless, even with such a predicament looming, Hoovie would still be spending around $13,000 which would be what you’d expect to spend on a car with similar numbers on the odometer and in a similar state.
The first thing to fix was the transmission, which is known to be faulty of M cars of that age. The SMG gearbox was a bit troublesome back in the day and, luckily for him, he found a complete unit for just $2,700, thus replacing everything in the process. While that should’ve taken care of most issues, it looks like now, the car’s dashboard lights up like a Christmas Tree every time he goes over 4,500 RPM.
That’s indeed a big issue because you just can’t drive an E60 M5 below 4,500 RPM all the time. It defeats the purpose. It’s basically torture when you know the S85 engine can rev up to an astounding 8,250 RPM. According to his buddy, there might be an issue with the crankshaft sensor and I believe it. As a BMW owner myself, I had to replace that damn thing a couple of times already, as it just seems to fail after a while. When it’s completely gone, your car will simply not start so I guess his M5 is not there yet. One thing’s for sure, I can’t wait to see how this car shapes up and how much it will end up costing him.
