I bought a pre owned 2004 545 Se (E60 model) with one owner a GP in London with 25k miles on it with full BMW dealer service history and the remainder of a BMW 5 year service contract and 5 year BMW warranty. I was very glad of both of the latter in the time I owned it. That was the 4th BMW I have owned and never experienced anywhere near the scale of problems until this one.

The engine was a 4.6 quad cam, 32 valve petrol V8 with 330bhp and 450Nm of torque with rear wheel drive.

It was "sleeper", debadged and plain twin outlet exhaust on the left. There was only 2 other models above the 545 at the time. The 550 M-sport V8 and the mighty M5 SMG. I really wanted an SMG car, either the M3 or the M5, but I had to consider the theft aspect from the international criminal fraternity having heard a few horror stories about the manner in which these cars are stolen.

It had black paintwork, standard 17" silver BMW alloys, BMW I-drive, traction and abs, dual climate, black leather interior all electric including thermostat controlled heated seats, dual programmable key fobs, steptronic 6 speed box with sports, normal and economy mode on automatic. (Full auto gearbox but a sequential manual gear change option by pushing the gear lever to the left and then manually selecting up or down shifts by pushing or pulling the lever). It had dual climate zones, PDC front and back, total closure locking, premium CD sound system with controls on the stearing wheel, cruise control. It had something like 64 seperate computers in it according the sales talk.

The only modifications I did to the car were to fit dark tints to the sidewindows and rear window. To fit black AC Schnitzer 20" racing alloy wheels and ultra low profile tyres, 305 rears. Fitted a plain matt black kidney grille to the front to replace the standard grille.

Other BMWs I have owned:
540 auto V8 petrol in bright red.
328 Sport auto coupe, straight 6 engine. in dark purple/blue.
730 Se auto V8 petrol

My over view is the 545 was superb in all but two areas.
1. The suspension was inadequate for the cars considerable performance ability.
2. Over all the electrical problems were a serious issue.

I did about 50k miles in the car of mixed town/open road/motorway and used 3 sets of tyres after removing the ghastly runflats. I think everyone now knows how bad runflats are. I don't think Jaguar have ever gone down that route? and hope they never do.

The most annoying problems were:

1. The car would decide to adopt sport mode of its own volition while sat in traffic or trying to park in a car park space of the mutli storey car park or supermarket car park type. The car had a learning computer on the gearbox and main ecu that learned the drivers driving style. Sounds good on paper.
So when the car decided you need sports mode based on what it had learned about the driver through its learning process it would automatically engage sports mode. Predictive softwear...... hhmmm. Maybe not so good for my upredictable pysche?

It didn't make any sense when you were sat in stop/start traffic for 20 minutes to just adopt sports-mode, or as I say while I was trying to manouver a fair sized car into a standard uk parking space ie: too small for anything above a Model T ford. I found parents and kiddies became quite nervous seeing the black behemoth at 2000rpm lurching into a tight space just using the footbrake to control it in sports mode. No need for throttle.

2. The warning on the dash for puncture/low tyre pressure came on all the time !! Both on the runflat wheel/tyres and the 20" Schnitzers. This was a visual and audible warning. 99% of the time it was completely false, but it had to be checked each time out of pure safety concerns.

3. The car would unlock itself and open all of the windows fully while the car was unattended. Not good when waking up in the morning, looking out of the bedroom window and seeing the car windows are open and its raining. Presumably been open all night or some of it. Something allegedly to do with the car interior, climate safety sensors throwing a wobbler.

4. The car would give a sporadic: "abandon ship, jump out now, do not stop to collect belongings" major engine failure warning message which turned out to be totally spurious.


I'll fill you in some more, but that's enough for now....

 

If it was a jag the fix would have been easy, replace battery and put it on a tender. Not familiar with beamers. Nice car though.

 

Double post

 

The car had 2 dealer services during the time I owned it under the prepaid service contract. The workshop reception guys were rubbish tbh. No matter how many times I booked an automatic loan car it was never on the system when I arrived at reception. They were usually arguementative and unhelpful but tbh this is fairly normal of the sloppy attitudes in the UK

Over many years I've found the best way is to make them do what they are supposed to be doing and paid for doing. That is what my career as a project manager on large construction projects taught me to do. Its far easier and gets things done.

The number of times the car was in the dealers for supposed resolution of these problems and a few others was quite considerable, although trying out their entire loan car fleet was fun for a while. A main dealer in another city was far more sales focused and lent me a new 335 twin turbo diesel coupe with paddle shift. Faster than my 545 V8 and sleek !

I did not like the way the dealer wanted my car all day no matter how small the job, just because it suited them.

But there was never a soluton to many of the electrical and programming problems and I suspect this was down to the cost to BMW of actually putting it right under the 5 year warranty. I believe the car reached the point where they no longer wanted to spend money on it out of their pockets.

 

These 5 Series you owned seems to be not as reliable as current 5 Series . I don't know but may be your tire sensor related problem could be owing to having run flats and an aftermarket wheels .Aftermarket wheels may cause false readings ,at least it's on the cards . I wouldn't blame you for using aftermarket wheels at all
If you can you should be trading it for a newer BMW .

 

To be fair I realise this car could have been a one off with its issues.
However electrics seem to be the biggest number of customer complaints and biggest reason for manufacturer recalls. Toyota being one good example.

For me I found most of the electrical features and gizmo's pretty irrelevent to my driving and my car needs. However the 5 series was nothing in the electrickery stakes compared to the Audi W12 which I looked at. That car came with a owners course to learn how to operate the electrics and a 1/2" thick A4 computer manual.
The TVR Cerbera lightweight V8 sport I had a demo in was more my style of driving with its minimalism, but no good as a daily driver.
I liked the Chrysler 300C SRT hemi V8, but the dealer wouldnt deal.
Then 3 months later he contacted me with some news that the car price had dropped (to what I offered him 3 months ago). Well what can you say?
I'd already bought the 5 series.

Before buying the S type I looked at 5 or 6 year old BMW 7 series V8 petrol which start life as a £100k car. But as soon as they are out of warranty and out of service contract, no one wants to touch them. An auto gearbox problem can be a main dealer only fix with a repair cost into the 4 figure bracket. I was looking at 745s for £2500 to £3500 at 6 years old.
Massive depreciation. But they are a large car and our roads and car parks aren't built for them.

I am very pleased with my S type and working on my other love atm.
A modified Kawasaki ZR1100. 4 cylinders and 8 spark plugs.
Bikes are my real thing.
But anything petrol

 

I had this one repaired after it got dented on a pothole.

 

Sorry to hear of all your problems. The business right next door to us specializes in BMW's and they are always busy with those cars. I think a lot of failures are with their engines because you cannot go 15K miles in between oil changes. NOBODY in a white lab coat can tell me otherwise. 3K miles for conventional and 5K miles for synthetic. I've worked on a few BMW's myself and the experience is nothing less than pleasant. 745 LI makes me want to cringe trying to make one of those oil leak free. I know all manufactures have their niche for a common failure but, BMW ranks second in unreliability next to Chrysler products in my opinion. Ultimately though, owner awareness and level of maintenance plays a major roll.