Hi everyone!
I'm posting this as a starting point for an ongoing build log for the next couple of years likely. I snagged a 2010 535i M-Sport in Platinum Grey Metallic with 122k (now 124k miles). My first post in the forum, my intro, has a little story about how I came to purchase this car if you care to read it. I'll break this post down into the details of the car, condition, plans, etc., then put updates in follow up replies to the post. This post exists as much for me to organize my thoughts and log the process as it does for it to be shared.
As an aside, the E60 535i M-Sport models are a lot less common than the 550i's. Some of them are X-Drive too. In the past 7 months, I saw maybe 4 E60 LCI 535i M-Sports that were in a color I wanted (Space or Platinum Grey Metallic, Carbon Black Metallic, Titanium Silver Metallic), that were also RWD and not TRASHED. One sold in Nashville from a showroom only dealer a few days after it was listed. The others were too far/too pricey to grab. So I really lucked out with this car at its price and condition, plus the timing and location (made a mini vacation of it).
The car was leased for 3 years, and then owned by one other person who did dealer/specialist maintenance with a more thorough record than I've ever seen on a 10yr old BMW. Of all of the BMW Carfaxes I've seen, none have ever mentioned so many specific non-interval maintenance/repair items. It's also had 0 wrecks, and Florida driven since it was brand new, so no worries of rust.
Adaptive headlight warning (possibly battery voltage but more likely adaptive headlight wiring is not in good shape within the headlight
Unless I find a great deal on LCI headlights in amazing condition, I won't replace the headlights. Repairing the internal wiring is too much. I'll just code out the feature when I get Bimmercode in a few days.
Car appears to have been lowered. Rear wheels look a bit cambered from it and the car scrapes a bit too often for my liking.
I'll probably go back to stock ride height, but may do some really nice new suspension components at that time
Steering is a little vague compared to some E60's I've driven.
I expect there's an issue with front control arms or some other suspension/steering components
There's some creaking, especially when the car is cold, when steering.
Doesn't seem to be in the column, I suspect it's a suspension or rack issue
Wear/cracks in the lower windshield cowl
Front bumper + hood misalignment
Hood flaps at high speeds
Fixed this with some 3-in-1 and an adjustment of the latch bolt that is on the hood.
Some various small dents, scratches and chips in the paint.
Rusty brake calipers/clips
Feels like engine mounts are bad
Weaker than expected torque north of 3500RPM
Cracking on the steering wheel leather
Soft touch plastic is peeling
Headliner is hanging a bit and wrinkled on the A-pillars
Thigh support adjustments on both front seats do not adjust when their adjustment switches are used
Passenger door panel rattles at 1600-1900RPM when engine is not yet warm
Tires are Lionhart LH-503. Exact right size (245/40r18), correct class of tire (Ultra high performance all season).
They aren't awful (after about 500 miles of break-in where they would skate all over the road above 85mph), honestly very good for super budget tires. Glad the used dealer swapped for these (old tires were too worn to keep on) and not some budget passenger tire like a lot of used dealers I've seen. Also they aren't run flats which is great.
I will swap these for Pilot Sport AS 4 tires in a few months. Fitment will stay the same.
Car came with 4 seat + trunk Weathertech mats, but the dealer absolutely lathered them with some interior shine product. I had to take the mat on the driver side out immediately or risk my foot slipping when I needed to brake. This was the worst part of the experience with the dealer.
Car is VERY rattly when cold. I get that the harder M suspension and the way the car is set up is going to mean a bit of roughness when cold, but this is abnormal. It's not a rough idle, just extra vibration. I expect this to be fixed with mostly engine mounts but also when I take care of carbon + spark plug stuff.
The car got a check engine light/O2 sensor light that came back shortly after being cleared. After a couple hundred miles, it went away, but I smell unburnt fuel so I imagine it's still not working great.
Gas cap gets kinda stuck if you twist it too much closing it, and the tether is missing
Headlights need alignment
Paddles are the stupid kind that you pull either to upshift and push either to downshift
It seems they can be rewired where the left will always downshift and the right will always upshift.
ZF6 transmission does not appear to have been serviced for all 124k miles, since BMW claims lifetime on the fluid, so I'll want to do that
I'm sure it could use a brake fluid flush too
Inspiration/Reference Images:
These are screenshots of an M5 I kitted to be similar to what I want my 535i to look like. The Style 135's I have on my car very much resemble the 166m's on this M5. Same color, black lip spoiler and mirror caps like I want, and gold brake calipers. Subtle but exactly what I want to do.
Here's a color palette to represent the colors that will be present in the car. Gloss and matte black for trim, dark grey paint, light grey/silver for the Damascus trim and silver wheels, and a bright golden yellow for some accents (ignition button possibly, brake calipers, some other subtle accents.)
And here are some examples of the STEK Damascus clear wrap I want to put over silver interior trim to replace the wood. May also do the surrounds of my kidney grills in Damascus over silver.
The M-Sport bumper on your car looks really nice, and I like the color too. Are you going to do the vinyl wrap yourself? I am in the minority as I actually like interior wood trim, but I have nevertheless been curious about wrapping interior pieces for a few years now although I have never tried.
I too have noticed that 535s tend to come with X-drive. Almost every one in my area for sale has X-drive. Good for you for holding out for a RWD model!
The M-Sport bumper on your car looks really nice, and I like the color too. Are you going to do the vinyl wrap yourself? I am in the minority as I actually like interior wood trim, but I have nevertheless been curious about wrapping interior pieces for a few years now although I have never tried.
I too have noticed that 535s tend to come with X-drive. Almost every one in my area for sale has X-drive. Good for you for holding out for a RWD model!
Thanks! The M-Sport package really makes the car IMO. Takes it from a very bland sedan to mean and sporty looking. I am going to do the wrap myself. The silver damascus film is actually clear PPF, so I'll need a silver or chrome base for the wrap. Probably silver. I'm probably going to grab some used silver E60 trim since they aren't crazy expensive and I can take my time wrapping those pieces without taking my car apart. I've done a few small wrap jobs in other scenarios and watched some guides so I don't think it will be too hard.
Yeah the 550i's are way more common in the m-sport spec, but 19's are too big and I really wanted the N54 vs the N62. And x drive models take a big chunk of the 535i m-sport market. I test drove an xdrive and took it to a PPI and the transfer case needed to be done. That car was trashed in general.
I've gotten a few interesting bits of information I'm not seeing discussion/confirmation of anywhere else on any forums and such so I thought I'd share. It has to do with colored seat belt replacements.
So I was looking to do colored seat belts from colorseatbelts.com, but I was unable to find any reviews that weren't the perfect 5/5 star reviews on their own site. I know it's really common for companies to do that so I don't necessarily write a company off for having reviews like that if I can find good reviews elsewhere. So what I did is started to fill out the form to see what info I could find, and it defaulted to Massachusetts. So I went to Massachusetts on Google maps and searched "color seat belts" and found this:
So it looks like the Color Seat Belts office is located at the same exact address as Safety Restore. Their ratings are good. 4.6/5 stars with over 1000 reviews on Google. So I went to their website to see what info I could find, and sure enough, they have a colored seat belt webbing replacement. Same colors, same process, same prices. So I think it's pretty safe to say that Color Seat Belts is the same people as Safety Restore. So I now have some more images of the color of Gold of the seat belt, not just this color edit of the belt in a car from the color seat belts site.
So I have the sample pic from the site, and I got some comparison pictures from the Safety Restore people (who texted back when I texted them through the link on the website very quickly and they were very helpful).
In picture 2, it's the color on the right. In picture 3, it's the top left. They also have the less orange-hue gold without the texture stripes in top right of pic 3 which looks pretty nice IMO. Not sure which I want to go with, but in the next few months, I'll be replacing the 2 front seat belts with gold ones.
In other news, I'm going to detail the interior, go to my first meet this weekend, and I've ordered some extra stuff for the car already (as well as cleaning products). I received a gas cap replacement and ordered cabin air filters and some LED sequential turn signals, Ziza brand clear (not black) from ECS Tuning:
TLDR: colorseatbelts.com is most likely the same company as SafetyRestore in Massachusetts (could email/call and ask to confirm but I haven't felt like it). You can buy/do the process on the safety restore website. And they have more options available than the ones on the site. Plus great ratings on google (1000+ 4.6/5 stars).
I am so impressed by your research! Good for you for going the extra mile to find out a little more about a company that does seatbelt replacements. It's critical to ensure that such a vital safety feature is not compromised.
My E60 is also a dark color and my wing turn signals were badly faded, so I tried these cheap smoked ones from Amazon. They're surprisingly good quality and I think they look great on dark paint as they stand out less then clear ones. They're also very bright. If you're ever bored and want to experiment with something different, I can recommend them.
I'm super excited to see what the seat belts look like! Are you doing just the fronts or all five?
For now I'm just doing the fronts, might do the rear belts later on. And yeah I didn't feel comfy sending my belts away to some unknown entity in hopes that they'd return them fine with good safety and quality, or at all even lol.
As for the turn signals, I plan on keeping the headlights and tail lights stock, so clear (or golden yellow maybe?) reflectors and clear signals seemed to be the best match.
These dual cones are great. Nice little pew sound when I build revs quickly and then let off the gas. Gonna get a red oil cleaning kit from BMS and buy yellow filter oil and mix them to get a more golden yellow (very high ratio of yellow to red oil) when I re-do them to match the theme. Power increases are disputed from just dual cones, but I'll be running a tune after I do plugs + coils + walnut blasting and the intake makes a big difference. Also, the stock air box inlet tube was disconnected from the bumper so I'm sure that extra turbulence was restrictive. So I definitely felt an increase in power.
Great E60. I have same year/model in carbon black. Like it when I get asked, "is that an M5?", usually someone in a drive-thru line or in the parking lot at my office.
Great E60. I have same year/model in carbon black. Like it when I get asked, "is that an M5?", usually someone in a drive-thru line or in the parking lot at my office.
I'm getting a check engine light and code 30FF. This is turbo/boost related. It's making very loud boost pressure release noises when I build boost and let off. I think it's probably boost solenoids considering it meets all the criteria at this link except the extra code, though I haven't dug into the codes much so that might show up too.
How to diagnose and repair an N54 30FF engine code. 300F engine codes signify blown turbochargers or bad boost solenoids.
bmwtuning.co
In the mean-time, if I don't rev hard and build boost, the light doesn't come on (the CEL and codes clear themselves when I shut off the engine). I've ordered parts and am babying the car until probably Friday when I can install them. Just REALLY hoping it's not turbos.
Here are some pics I've snagged since the last post. I really love walking outside and seeing the car. It looks great from any angle. Also peep the new plates.
If the turbos are the problem, you could consider going for a more reliable/more powerful single-turbo setup. I know a lot of N54 owners do that on the E90/91 platform and I think it solves a lot of the reliability problems associated with the twin-turbo setup on N54s. However, I feel for you, as that is the kind of project for which you want to carefully plan, not one you want to do at a moment's notice because of a failure.
I bet the problem is the boost solenoids though. When I was doing initial research on the E60 platform, I fell down an N54 rabbit hole (which convinced me to stay away from those engines 🤣). It seemed to me that turbo failures were rarer than the internet would have one believe, and mainly affected very high mileage engines or ones tuned too aggressively.
If the turbos are the problem, you could consider going for a more reliable/more powerful single-turbo setup. I know a lot of N54 owners do that on the E90/91 platform and I think it solves a lot of the reliability problems associated with the twin-turbo setup on N54s. However, I feel for you, as that is the kind of project for which you want to carefully plan, not one you want to do at a moment's notice because of a failure.
I bet the problem is the boost solenoids though. When I was doing initial research on the E60 platform, I fell down an N54 rabbit hole (which convinced me to stay away from those engines 🤣). It seemed to me that turbo failures were rarer than the internet would have one believe, and mainly affected very high mileage engines or ones tuned too aggressively.
If I ever replace the turbos, I'll definitely do a single turbo setup. This is a 2010 car (last E60 model year, near the end of the N54's primary life cycle) so they'd already made a ton of the reliability changes to the turbos that they were going to make, so I'm guessing it won't be the turbos, not yet.
The stock turbos on my untuned 2010 died at 51K, thankfully replaced under CPO. The stock replacements went out at 110K after a period of repeated Cobb stage 2 beatings. At that point, I went with Rob Beck (RB Ones) and haven't looked back.
I could be wrong, but I am not aware of any design improvements specific to the stock Mitsubishi turbos.
The stock turbos on my untuned 2010 died at 51K, thankfully replaced under CPO. The stock replacements went out at 110K after a period of repeated Cobb stage 2 beatings. At that point, I went with Rob Beck (RB Ones) and haven't looked back.
I could be wrong, but I am not aware of any design improvements specific to the stock Mitsubishi turbos.
So the solenoids didn't fix anything, but I did get it fixed.
Some moron who worked on the car previously had taken the turbo bypass tube for bank 1 apart, there's a grey ring on the tube that comes from the post-filter inlet tube which locks it to the next piece in the bypass. This was unlocked so the other tube came loose. I didn't notice until I started literally poking around at stuff and it felt loose. Just re-inserted it and the engine works great again.
I'll take this as a lesson to look thoroughly at everything before buying replacement parts. The nipples for the vacuum tube connection on the old solenoids broke due to plastic degradation, so between that and the age (almost definitely original parts), I'm glad to have them replaced. I'll be doing the vacuum tubes eventually too.
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