What do you think Alpina people?

rincewind · Post by **rincewind** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:49 pm

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/ ... ?logcode=p

Chas · Post by **Chas** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 3:25 pm

Hmm! I remember having a similar discussion 6 or 7 years ago regarding a very low mileage E34 B10.

It's a lot of cash for an 11-year-old E39 but it looks in fabulous condition and it has electric heated seats, which are rare on the 3.3. Shame it doesn't have the widescreen TV.

Is it a future classic? Not really. Will it hold that value? No! Indeed, if you put average miles on this car for a couple of years, it will be down to Â£3k before you know it. A 13-year-old E39 with 65k miles.... By then you will be able to get a B5 for less than Â£10k!

It's one of those heart v. head arguments and it really depends what the buyer wants to do with it.

rincewind · Post by **rincewind** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 11:47 pm

I was also thinking that these cars need to be used to stay on top really. This one is averaging 280 miles a month - 70 a week. Having had 3 owners, it could also mean that one of them really didn't use it much at all and that does not bode well for a car in the long term. Prefer to see it with 60k on the clock for less money.

PerryGunn · Post by **PerryGunn** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 2:18 pm

Chas wrote:Shame it doesn't have the widescreen TV..

Think I'd disagree with that one because the Nav on the E39 is quite old and clunky now and the analogue TV is redundant (without going to a fair amount of effort to change the tuner to digital), whereas the non-Nav console has an almost timeless quality and just doesn't look as dated as the Nav version

Pricewise, probably a bit high and there's undoubtedly some room for negotiation, but someone may be willing to go near that if the car is really immaculate...

Makes me miss my E39...

E24man · Post by **E24man** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 6:39 pm

B10BRW · Post by **B10BRW** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 7:15 pm

I think the Sat Nav screen compliments the overall look of the interior, I would not buy a E39 or E46 without Sat Nav.
Also agree with Kevin the MKIV DVD system fitted to my Roadster, B10 V8 and E46 B3S cab were great.
Compared to the Audi system they were brilliant

Chas · Post by **Chas** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 7:43 pm

The Nav may be old but it works and looks good. I've never used the TV function anyway. However, my key point was that the look of the interior is transformed with the widescreen.

JPR89 · Post by **JPR89** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 9:33 pm

Personally, does look nice, only reason for that price really is the low mileage, and secondly the condition.

Chas wrote: It's a lot of cash for an 11-year-old E39 but it looks in fabulous condition and it has electric heated seats, which are rare on the 3.3. Shame it doesn't have the widescreen TV.

Is it a future classic? Not really. Will it hold that value? No! Indeed, if you put average miles on this car for a couple of years, it will be down to Â£3k before you know it. A 13-year-old E39 with 65k miles.... By then you will be able to get a B5 for less than Â£10k!

Bit of an exaggeration maybe... but I do get your point though.
I've fairly recently seen a 3.2 B10 that was a T plate with some 130k on the clock and that was up for just under 3k, so I doubt one with a quarter of that mileage on it (albeit a 3.3), in a better colour (that one was silver) would suddenly crash to a third of that price with an extra 20k on the clock. They are still comparatively rare cars

The E39's look far superior to any E60, but that's me and i will probably get slated for saying that

With the F10 however, back to being a lovely piece of kit

PerryGunn · Post by **PerryGunn** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 10:27 pm

E24man wrote:The DVD MarkIV Nav on my E39 isn't 'old and clunky' - it works better than a 1 year old Tom-Tom and was miles better than the ones fitted in the E60 my wife drove for a while.

I thought that the mk IV DVD-based Nav wasn't released until the end of 2002 and only appeared in the last of the E39 models. Unless it had been upgraded later, a car of this age would have been fitted with the mk III CD-based unit which were/are unbearably slow and clunky.

B10BRW wrote:I think the Sat Nav screen compliments the overall look of the interior, I would not buy a E39 or E46 without Sat Nav.
Also agree with Kevin the MKIV DVD system fitted to my Roadster, B10 V8 and E46 B3S cab were great.

I also have the mk IV unit in my RS and while it works well enough, the UI is stone-age and it still misses some things which are essentials in any modern nav unit (7 digit postcodes for a start). I wouldn't try to enter a new destination in any of the older nav units while on the move unless I wanted to end up in hospital, it's just too dangerous.

Personally, I think the hard-disk based nav in our F20 is a vast improvement, full postcodes, faster, better graphics, street names in perspective view, voice control etc. etc.

As to the look of the console area, that's a matter of personal preference, I prefer the look without nav console, you prefer with nav... it would be boring if everyone liked the same

[EDIT replaced typo of F30 with F20 which is what we've actually got

]

E24man · Post by **E24man** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 10:51 pm

JPR89 · Post by **JPR89** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 11:08 pm

E24man wrote:E39 Mk IV DVD nav has seven digit postcode entry - the standard E60 unit didn't. I only responded as I get a little tired of people slating the E39 assuming it is past it purely due to its age when it actually has up to date maps, 7 digit postcodes and never crashes, unlike many, many aftermarket items.

Another urban myth floated down over the years is that the DSP sounds dreadful - it actually doesn't, it just needs setting up properly to a neutral sound and then set to a personal level from there. I have pointed quite a few people to some properly analysed neutral settings and they have all confirmed what I thought - it sounds pretty damned good. It does need help with the bass 'hole' especially the Touring cars, but apart from that it is a very good system.
HTH

I think it gets slated because people get caught up in this mindset that as soon as a car is 3 yrs old its past it and out of date and dispose of it like an iPod. A lot of people who know their stuff much prefer the build and quality of the E39 over the E60 and would say its the better of the two cars, even though it's older.

Newer doesn't always mean better.

I too was quite surprised by the DSP setup, having heard the slating it gets. It is actually pretty damn good but just needs setting up properly as you said which probably only about 4% of people actually know how to do or have ever bothered to do. Having dealt in the past with proper Hifi quality gear in home cinemas/stereos (Bowers & Wilkins/Monitor Audio/Denon/Arcam etc etc..) I can tell you it is not a patch on proper quality, but for a half decent system in a car it really isn't bad (and you are buying a car at the end of the day!).

Although the DSP bit is fiddly and all computer driven, the actual set up is like proper reference gear, with different speakers for different frequencies driven by a proper amp, hence why it can deliver when set proper and with decent quality recordings going through it

PerryGunn · Post by **PerryGunn** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 11:35 pm

E24man wrote:E39 Mk IV DVD nav has seven digit postcode entry - the standard E60 unit didn't. I only responded as I get a little tired of people slating the E39 assuming it is past it purely due to its age when it actually has up to date maps, 7 digit postcodes and never crashes, unlike many, many aftermarket items.

Apologies Kevin, I thought all of the mk IV nav systems were like the one in my RS, which is on the latest firmware and has a 2012 map DVD but hasn't got 7-digit postcode entry - it goes to 5 digits then asks you to pick the road name. I thought that 7-digit entry was only available with hacked map discs and then via a convoluted POI search - A little inconsistent of BMW that the same system takes 7-digit postcodes in the E39 but not in the RS!

I'm sure that the majority of nav systems in E39 were mk III units though and, as I understand it, unless you got a DVD unit from another E39 any nav unit upgrade had to be coded by the dealer - is that correct?

Just for the record, I don't think the E39 is past it by any means, they're wonderful cars - far better than the E60. I only sold mine last August, and I quite miss it - if I had the space that you have for your fleet, I'd have kept it!

B10BRW · Post by **B10BRW** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:10 am

PerryGunn wrote:
E24man wrote:I'm sure that the majority of nav systems in E39 were mk III units though and, as I understand it, unless you got a DVD unit from another E39 any nav unit upgrade had to be coded by the dealer - is that correct?

quote]

The original unit in my B10 was a MKII, now that was very poor, I uprated the unit to a MKIV and was very pleased with the result.
The build quality of the E39 was streets ahead of the E60, and all subsequent BMWs.

Chas · Post by **Chas** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:33 am

B10BRW wrote:The original unit in my B10 was a MKII, now that was very poor, I uprated the unit to a MKIV and was very pleased with the result.

Same here

B10BRW wrote:The build quality of the E39 was streets ahead of the E60, and all subsequent BMWs.

Hear, hear

PerryGunn · Post by **PerryGunn** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:32 am

I've found the data for the E39 Nav units - roughly

Cars built 1996-1997 would have mk I with 4x3 display
Cars built 1997-2000 would have mk II with 4x3 display
Cars built 2000-2002 would have mk III with widescreen display
Cars built 2003 onward would have mk IV with widescreen display

Obviously there would have been some overlap at the transition points but it gives an idea and explains why I don't think I ever saw a mk IV nav in use in an E39

And I agree about the build quality - they gave you the feeling that they'd been moulded out of a single piece of metal. My car was just under 10 years old when I sold it (to a family member) and it still felt just as solid with no squeaks or rattles and the only sign of age was that the driver's seatbelt mechanism was getting a bit 'lazy' and retracted slowly when you removed the belt.