report on my Test Drive yesterday afternoon of '97 BMW 540i auto...
good: Nice power/acceleration, interior was in really Good shape, very tidy inside, although it does need a good detail.
bad: The paint work in the daylight was alot worse for wear than I had previously seen (i saw it once before at night). on the hood was a BAD mismatch of color/paint touch up of a stone chip, some more swirl marks, scratches that I feel would take a WHOLE day to buff out, these are pretty much all over the hood, trunk.
bad:...continued... Driving it at first was kinda strange, for a BMW, the '05 330ci that I drove earlier this year did feel like "the Ultimate Driving Machine", this 1997 540i DID NOT. Under Braking for a stop light, about 1 mile away from the dealer, was this really noticeable shuddering, and the road was smooth/new asphalt. It wasnt BAD, but not good either, that was the first OH!, oh. Second OH!, oh was just about to take the Bimmer back to the dealer after getting off interstate, driving down a service road, doing 40-50 miles an hr, and there was this very, again noticeable vibration coming through the wheel, more so than in any other vehicle I had driven.
Sooo....I tell the dealer that I do like the car, but am conerned with what I had noticed during the test drive, he say's that it was just traded in, I could tell, the previous owner had not cleaned the interior AT ALL. He said if these issues were addressed, would I still be interested, I said YES
. Ofcourse if they were fixed. So in a nutshell I still REALLY want it, but only if it feels like a BMW, not a Ford Pinto.