So the backstory is me deciding my old BMW E36 328 isn't worth keeping on the road as it is not a suitable family car, popping wheelies all the way to Cornwall with a Thule backbox bolted to the towbar and no cruise control has done it for me this year.
And so the hunt for a good BMW E61 535d began.
I have seen a few, comfort seats and the electric memory seats & mirrors is on the list, undoctored engine as I deem nearly 300 horses and a huge dollop of torque with the twin turbo's plenty. HUD is a gimick I would happily have and I found one with night vision as well but the guy thinks a car with a book of 6k is worth 9k when in reality even with all the toys a car with 150k isn't worth the 7.5 I threw on the table.
So yesterday a guy on the BMW 5 forums posts on my thread saying he thinks he has my car, turns out to be a 535d saloon, m-sport with full memory seats, mirrors etc, the nav system/audio has been swapped to the F10 models CIC hard drive system, a full pro job even the correct panels used and swapped climate panel for full functions, on top of that a Quaife ATB limited-slip diff had been fitted, I was in love!
I am told it's had a new small turbo, full BMW service history including MOT's vac pipes, EGR delete. The guy offered it me for the part x price he got given today as he knew I wanted it and would rather see it at a good home instead of being traded to the unknown.
Great history as he got it from a business acquaintance who owns 2 Ferraris and an Alpha C8 so money obviously wasn't an issue (hence BMW doing nearly all the work)
We get to the stage of asking questions to tick off the list and I get to the DPF, he says he doesn't know and will call the previous owner as he read something had happened with it last year. 5 minutes later I get told it went in for a clean but the light came on again so he had it gutted and remapped.
I Called it a day after hearing that as the car isn't road legal so you have all the invalid insurance, 1k fine if you are lucky and being sued by the 3rd party.
The owner wasn't happy either and had told his wife the news who put her foot down and said he had to declare it to the dealers he was going to part x at as some poor sod could find out the hard way that the insurance won't pay out. He even offered to knock off the £1200 I said it would cost to replace the DPF/Cat combi and get a new standard map with the DPF coded back in.
I was tempted but he has no idea what the power output is but said it is silly fast and would keep up with his Z3 m so it must have at least a stage 1 straining the gearbox with 140k through it.
Oh well a day of utter excitement down the drain