YACT: Anyone no someone who owns a BMW 850?

[Busie23]

This is my car of choice and I would like to hear and users opinions on its maintence, major problems, etc., or anything that would be helpful in my decision to buy or not to buy.

I see them on ebay with 75-100k going for 16-25k and am considering buying one to have for a year or so. Then resell and buy a regular car.

 

[Night201]

One of my favorite BMW's of all time. Gotta love that front. I heard it was a lot to keep maintained and not many people bought them because of that. Great looking car.

 

[amnesiac]

Surprisingly reliable for a V12 but if something goes wrong OMGPARTSEXPENSIVE.

Expect to pay $1000-2000 for a problem that costs <$300 to fix on a normal car, if only due to scarcity of parts.

 

[WhiteKnight]

A very sweet car. There's at least one guy at German Car Fans (see the sig) who has one, but I can't remember his name. Try starting a topic over there, I'm sure you'll get some responses.

Edit: And yes, I'm sure you know already, but prepare to be shafted on tuneup costs for those 12 cylinders.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: amnesiac
Surprisingly reliable for a V12 but if something goes wrong OMGPARTSEXPENSIVE.

Expect to pay $1000-2000 for a problem that costs <$300 to fix on a normal car, if only due to scarcity of parts.

Yup. An 840 would be a better bet if only for the more common engine bits.

 

[Spac3d]

A girl in my HS got the 850 csi for her 17th birthday. It was a sweet ride.

 

[Encryptic]

Somebody in my neighborhood drives one. I saw it at the grocery store one day. I asked about it here on ATOT because I had never seen one before, but the general consensus seems to be that the 850=unreliable?

 

[Viper GTS]

BEAUTIFUL cars, but I would avoid the 850 like the plague.

Get the 840.

Viper GTS

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Yeah, an 840 would be a far safer choice. A friend of mine's father had a 750i, and the V-12 was such a glutton for maintenance and repair that he sold it at a huge loss to avoid further financial exposure. In one case it died as he drove it off the lot from another, unrelated repair.

 

[GasX]

840

 

[alkemyst]

I don't own one, but I have been the passenger....they are cool, a lot of electronics and fuzzy-logic stuff (windows that go up at a certain high speed, wipers that speed up/slow down based on speed, radio gets louder when the windows open, etc).

The easiest way to determine costs is to call the dealership and see what maintenance schedules are and the costs of each, then see if the price changes at a third party shop.

If the engine goes in that car, that is where the major expense is going to be. 75-100k gets close to that number and hense why the value is lower. You can buy a lot of used exotics for under $50k, it's also why you see alot of Chevy 350/Ford 302 conversion kits for them

 

[Demon-Xanth]

High end car have high maintenance costs.

Edit:
As an example, my uncle had an '83 Jaguar XJ-6 that be bought for $3k, but it cost $2k to smog. (burnt valves), two years later, it cost $3k to smog (again, burnt valves), he sold it for $2k. Looked great, but was too expensive to bother with.

 

[KokomoGST]

Originally posted by: amnesiac
Surprisingly reliable for a V12 but if something goes wrong OMGPARTSEXPENSIVE.

My GAWD... so true... and on top of the cost, you need to worry about the quality of any workmanship done on the car due to it's complexity and rarity.

Considering the confidence level I have in the majority of dealership mechanics (no offense) but I HIGHLY doubt they can deal with a car like an 850 and do it right. If my friend has to have Honda USA supervise and watch over a Honda dealership on his H22A Prelude engine rebuild, I couldn't imagine the PITA it would be to get it done right at a BMW dealership. You'd have to prolly find a VERY good BMW mechanic before even thinking about purchasing the car.

840 would be better... normal parts = tuner support!

 

[uLHg182]

My dad has had an 850ci since 1993. He drives it pretty regularly to and from work which is about 10 miles away. It has been pretty reliable but I whenever he has to get something fixed on it, the BMW dealership has to send out for the piece because they don't carry most parts due to the fact that they stopped making the 8 series.

 

[PowerMac4Ever]

What a beautiful car! I was in Germany last summer and I got to see a good number of them on the autobah. Wow. I prefer Mercedes over BMW, but the 8 series is one classy looking car.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
BEAUTIFUL cars, but I would avoid the 850 like the plague.

Get the 840.

Viper GTS

Agreed, the 840 will still give you the look and feal of the 850, but at a much cheaper price.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
High end car have high maintenance costs.

Edit:
As an example, my uncle had an '83 Jaguar XJ-6 that be bought for $3k, but it cost $2k to smog. (burnt valves), two years later, it cost $3k to smog (again, burnt valves), he sold it for $2k. Looked great, but was too expensive to bother with.

a 911 Turbo isn't too bad to maintain. Tons of parts out there.

 

[Busie23]

Great responses...So how silly would it be to get one of these for a year or so? My current situation is a 92 accord that has 180k and is days away from needing some major repairs.

The logical part of my brain is saying buy another honda in the $10-15k range, hopefully a prelude or accord with 30-60k miles on it, and have it pretty much worry free for the next several years.

On the other hand I'm thinking I'm young now and most likely wouldn't have an opportunity to by a car like the BMW ever again in my life. So buy it, drive it like I stole it, and fix up the accord and drive that on poopy days. Thus splitting the mileage between both cars and hopefully keeping the mileage down on the 850, so in a years time I could easily resell it for a very minimal loss. Of course that is if nothing major goes wrong with it.

Another option is to just buy a new car, accord is currently winning, and keep that thing for a long time. This route looks appealing because of the low interest rates now and I have never had a new car before only my current accord which I got with 57k miles on it. The problem here is that insurance will be much higher than both of the other options and that is basing it on the 4 door and not the coupe.

I would say I'm 60% for finding a used honda, 20% for new honda, and 20% for the 850.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
High end car have high maintenance costs.

Edit:
As an example, my uncle had an '83 Jaguar XJ-6 that be bought for $3k, but it cost $2k to smog. (burnt valves), two years later, it cost $3k to smog (again, burnt valves), he sold it for $2k. Looked great, but was too expensive to bother with.

a 911 Turbo isn't too bad to maintain. Tons of parts out there.

A non-turbo would be an even better bet. AFAIK the 80's 911s are quite reliable. Anecdotally, a buddy of mine had an '84 sc for several years and never had a single problem with it. A pretty damn quick car too.

 

[CClyph]

Excellent engine. The same V-12 was used in the million dollar McLaren F1, best production car money could buy.

 

[Chadder007]

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