1998 Alpina B10 4.6 V8 Saloon no. 349

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gad-westy
Posts: 33
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:38 pm
Location: North East

1998 Alpina B10 4.6 V8 Saloon no. 349

Post by gad-westy » Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:14 am

1998 Alpina B10 4.6 V8 number 349 (E39)
Saloon
BMW Individual Madeira Violet (amazing colour)
Black extended Nappa Leather
Approx 135,000 miles but in daily use
MOT until 12th March '17

Spec.
Wood Alpina Trim
Switchtronic gearbox with steering wheel change buttons
Climate Control
Cruise Control
Heated seats
Electric memory seats with additional control of upper back rest and lumbar support. You cannot fail to get comfortable!
Electrically adjustable steering column
Electric Tilt/slide Sunroof
Electric rear blind
Rear blinds on back windows
Parking sensors
Auto Wipers
Auto Dipping Rear view mirror
Heated, electric folding door mirrors.
CD Head unit
Extended MID + Professional Audio (extra amp I believe)
Xenon Headlights
Private registration included in sale
Toolkit complete!

A couple of additional updates:
Autostyle deluxe black mats throughout
Parrot Bluetooth kit fully integrated with standard steering wheel controls and stereo, no sign of it anywhere. Just press the call button and use voice dialling or any other voice phone command (sat nav, email etc)
Intravee Ipod connection with Alpine KCA 420i in place of standard fit disc changer. (Disc changer is included in sale). Basically, you can control an ipod from the stereo. If you want to go back to a six disc changer, all the kit and wiring is still there if needed.

All the good stuff first. The car is an absolute joy to own and drive. It looks fantastic when clean (which it is most of the time!). It’s quiet, comfortable and has effortless pace when needed. The bodywork is very nice generally with the odd blemish which I’ll itemise later in the not so good stuff. The colour is a dark violet shade. It’s quite a rare colour and looks amazing when the car is clean and the sun is shining. I’m quite particular about how I look after cars so when I bought the car two years ago, I had a couple of small paint issues addressed and full machine polish carried out to eliminate some swirl marks. Since then the car has been regularly washed (2 buckets of course!) and received regular waxing and claying to keep it looking shiny. About a year ago, I gave it a light machine polish myself as I wasn’t 100% happy that all blemishes were gone, and I fancied giving it a go! The car really does look fantastic.
Inside, the car is really nice too. Very good condition with just the odd scuff. The leather is free from tears or damage etc though the driver’s seat has the usual slightly cracked look that leather gets after plenty of use. I’ve treated the leather regularly since I’ve owned the car. So whilst I would never claim the car looks new inside, it is in lovely condition and a great place to sit and eat the miles up.
The car has been incredibly reliable since I bought it. I have carried out plenty of routine and pre-emptive maintenance and the car has never let me down. One of my concerns when buying this car was that the head gaskets on earlier cars were prone to failure at vast cost to sort. I’m pleased to report that this car has the tell-tale metal lugs that can be seen with the engine cover removed. This means that the engine is fitted with the later metal gasket type which do not fail. Presumably, some unlucky owner in the past forked out a fortune for that.
The car starts effortlessly and is in daily use. I use it most days to commute and it is also used as our family car for longer journeys. It’s just a pleasure to drive.

The not so good. I’ll get the biggy out of the way first. The car is registered Cat C. It had some front end damage in feb 2008. I have very little information about this other than a link here:
http://thealpinaregister.com/forums/vie ... 092bd0873b
Damage looks to have been related to the front bumper only which is backed up a little by the fact that there is no sign at all of any welding or repairs at the front of the car. I speculate therefore that the cost of the replacement Alpina bumper and radiator etc made the repair uneconomical and therefore an insurance write off. Presumably then repaired with used parts and passed through VIC check. I’ve tried to contact relevant people on the Alpina register and other lines of enquiry to get a bit of history on the matter but have drawn a blank.
That forum page gave me a fair bit of confidence when buying the car (in April 2015) but it was still a bit of a gamble since there was no service history at all with the car. This page gives a summary of some history up to 2005.
http://www.thealpinaregister.com/B10/V8/saloon/349
Clearly the car wasn’t used much between 2005 and when I bought it 10 years later. It only covered about 20,000 miles in ten years and the online MOT history backs this up.
I understand that the Cat C status will put some people off but of course but I have priced the car to reflect this and anyone buying the car now can do so with far some surety than when I purchased it two years ago. It at least now has 2 years of history and an honest assessment from an enthusiast owner.
Other things to mention. The jacking points have some rust coming through and will need some attention at some point. A common issue unfortunately with E39’s but at least there are well proven cost effective fixes in place and this one isn't too bad yet. There is also a little (I do mean a little!) rust bubbling on the rear wing behind the wheel arch. Another common E39 rust area. The other common rust areas on the E39 are fine, i.e the boot lid and the fuel filler area. I’m very careful to make sure the car never has grime or salt building up on it (the underside of the car regularly gets a jet wash). Unusually this Alpina has no rust on the front suspension strut under the bonnet where Alpina stamp the chassis number. Most do, but I had this tidied up when I bought the car because I’m picky!
The bodywork is really very nice indeed but there are some minor blemishes. The odd scuff here and there, the odd irritating parking ding and some paint chipping on the front bumper. If I’d have been keeping the car longer, I think all this would have probably been sorted this year but a house renovation is taking all of my spare time at present.
The wheels are very good with no curbing or scuffs. The OSR has a little oxidisation but is a long way from needing any attention.

Everything works as it should on the car except for the air conditioning. The compressor kicks in fine but it does not hold pressure so I assume it needs a pipe or two somewhere but I’ve never got around to getting a specialist to look at it. Always been on the to-do list but never seemed high enough priority to me up here in the cold North East.
Some minor things worth mentioning.

The wheel centres don’t have keyhole covers. I actually prefer it this way but they can be bought cheaply if needed and just poke through holes so 5 mins to fit. The car is missing a couple of undertrays I think. I believe there would normally be one either side of the transmission tunnel on this model but one side is missing. There is an Alpina spare wheel included with the sale but it has a badly curbed rim so the car has a regular BMW 16” spare in the boot.

I've just yesterday had the front thrust arm bushes replaced to cure an irritating wheel wobble. I'd initially though this was a binding brake caliper so I rebuilt all of them last year with new seals.

Some recent maintenance history
Receipts for all of this. I bought the car in March 2015 with around 123,500 miles on the clock. At that time I did all of the following:
Full service with Castrol fully synthetic 0W30 oil. Replaced oil, air and cabin filters at the same time and had all of the earth point cleaned to cure a starter motor issue.
I also had the gearbox oil replaced as pre-emptive maintenance. I cannot say whether it improved things as the box was fine to start with but I had no idea if and when it had been done before, so despite costing a fortune I had it done.
The car also had a whole mixed bag of tyres on so I got a full set of 4x New Michelin Pilot Sport 2 Tyres fitted at 124,000 miles. Just before Christmas 2016, I had to replace the OSF due to a nasty puncture so that one is pretty much new.
I did some other bits at the same time, new door mirror glass, new boot straps and boot lid dampers and I had both the instrument cluster and MID unit sent off to get all missing pixels repaired. So, no missing pixels anywhere.
At some point, I also fitted all new washer jet pumps and tanks.
In March 2016, at around 130,000 miles, I went to town on the brakes. It had all new discs, pads, all flexi brake hoses and brake fluid. I also took the front callipers apart and fully rebuilt them with new seals and guides and gave them a lick of black paint.
At about the same time, I did a little work on the cooling system too (a BMW weak point seemingly across the board). I’d noticed a slight leak and it seemed it was coming from the radiator. The diagnostics was also showing a fault on the thermostat so I decided to replace that as a precaution at the same time. So it had a new rad and thermostat.
I also had one the rear lambda sensors replaced as it was kicking up a code.
Car was MOT’d about then too with the only issue noted being an oil leak which was coming from the power steering reservoir hose which I repaired shortly afterwards.
This weekend I've got my hands dirty again and done an oil change (£90 worth of Castol Edge, ouch!), filters and a pad sensor cable that had a broken cable.

I’ll chuck in an INPA diagnostics cable and wheel centre tool with the car. Both will be handy.
I know I have written plenty on this. I hope my enthusiasm for this car comes through. Should you have any questions, do please give me a shout and I’ll do my best to answer.
Viewings are most welcome. If you want to drive the car, please bring proof of comprehensive insurance. I’ll happily take you out otherwise.

I'm looking for £5495

Car is in Tyne and Wear

Any questions, please ask.

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gad-westy
Posts: 33
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:38 pm
Location: North East

Post by gad-westy » Tue Feb 07, 2017 7:37 pm

Updated text as bushes are now replaced and annoying wheel wobble long gone :) Very happy with that even if the wallet is not.

Anybody want to come and take a look? I'd rather listen to cheeky offers on here than expose myself to the murky world of ebay!

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