I have a strong attraction to BMW wagons. I’ve had several as daily drivers, with varying degrees of success. The first was a ’99 E39 528iT 5-speed sport package car that seemed like a must-buy but was one of those cars that, when you bought it, it signed you up for the repair-of-the-week plan without telling you, and there was no way to get off it without selling the car. In addition to the expected repairs to the self-leveling rear suspension, the car broke a front spring which punctured a tire, and did the wintertime crankcase ventilation valve (CVV) freeze-up thing which nearly hydro-locked the engine.
Sounded great on paper, looked great in person, a bit of an ownership experience nightmare.
The next one was a 2001 E46 325XiT, also a 5-speed sport package car. Frequency-of-repair-wise, it was better than the E39, but I never accepted the way the all-wheel drive killed the usually snappy feel of the E46’s steering. Plus, when the car needed the front CV joints replaced, changing the front axles was such a giant pain the ass that I resolved never to buy another all-wheel drive BMW again—the added performance in snow simply wasn’t worth the specter of the repair.
The E46 wagon when I sold it to my friend Alex.
Incredibly, it was nine and a half years ago that I happened into my 2003 E39 530i sport package sedan, the car that I routinely describe as the best daily-driver BMW I’ve ever owned, as if this phrase is my mantra to enlightenment. Exactly why this E39 has been so good when the ’99 528iT was such a nonstop content generator is a bit of a mystery. It may be as simple as the sedan doesn’t have the troublesome wagon bits like the self-leveling rear suspension and the rear hatch. Or it could be that by 2003—the last year of the E39’s run—many of the bugs had been worked out. Whatever the reason, the car hasn’t had any of the bolt-from-the-blue things that felled the 528iT wagon. In return, I’ve been better this past year about addressing some of the car’s needs (as I wrote about recently, it got a new front windshield, sway bar links, a front wheel bearing, and a power steering pump).
The E39 530i that keeps doing what I need it to do.
In addition to the fact that I love it and it costs me very little, one of the things that’s kept the car in the fold instead of sacrificing to the lure of another wagon is its fold-down back seat that allows the trunk to easily swallow items I previously needed a wagon to transport. Another is that, two winters ago I bought a 2008 Nissan Armada ostensibly to use as a tow vehicle, but it also relieves the E39 of the responsibility of stuff hauler.
But I do still keep my eyes open for another wagon. And even though I steadfastly say that the water’s edge for me is E39s / E46s because I don’t want to deal with the electric water pumps, electrically-assisted steering, and corrosion on N52 engine fasteners that are part and parcel of newer-generation BMWs, I do feel the pull toward E91 wagons. Of course, nearly all these cars, particularly the ones sold in this part of the country, are all-wheel drive, and most of them are automatics.
About nine months ago, one of my readers contacted me saying that he had a 2007 328iT penta-unicorn (rear-wheel drive, six-speed, sport package, no nav or iDrive, and aluminum trim), knew I wanted one, and offered to sell it to me before putting it on the market, saying that there was no rush because the car’s replacement was on order and wouldn’t arrive for several months. I’ve long said that any time you have a line on a car that’s not publicly advertised, that’s like gold, as the deal can unfold at a sane and relaxed pace instead of you racing to buy something before someone else snatches it up. This summer, his new car arrived, and he offered me the wagon for the reasonable sum of eight grand. It seemed like a slam-dunk. I’d even just sold my Bavaria, so I had the money. Unfortunately, he and the car were in Salt Lake City, and I just couldn’t get over the hump of either having to buy the car sight-unseen and ship it, or take the time and expense to fly out there to check it out and drive it back. Plus, having the cash notwithstanding, eight grand is real money to me, it only made sense buying it if the car was a daily-driver replacement for my E39, and both intellectually and emotionally, I wasn’t quite ready to do that, a decision I now regret.
Looks pretty nice, right? I was an idiot not to buy it.
One of the reasons that I equated buying a wagon to letting the 530i go is that I insure the daily drivers on a standard insurance policy that costs me about $600 per car per year for minimal coverage, whereas the enthusiast cars are all on my Hagerty policy that costs me about $1200 for all nine, and the low-value cars that are insured there for about five grand each cost me less than $100 a year for each one. I recently discovered that I can, in fact, insure an E91 wagon on my Hagerty policy and have a number of choices for coverage that are quite a bit less than the annual $600 daily-driver cost. But one of my Hack Mechanic Tips for Sane Living is that a car needs to be for something. While that routinely gets violated with the vintage cars on the Hagerty policy (I mean, what is 2002 #3 for that 2002s #1 and #2 aren’t for?), it appears to be a stubborn road block to me having both the 530i and an E91 wagon, or, say, both the 530i and a E46 330ci. They’re just too similar in practical purpose.
Although I’m still not ready to jettison the 530i, I find myself poring over Facebook Marketplace again for E91 wagons. Perhaps it’s pre-winter positioning, but there seems to be no shortage of them in the $2500 to $3500 range. Of course, they’re all AWD, and sticks are rare.
This 2011 with 179k and front air dam damage is $2900 in Milford CT.
This pretty blue 2007 with 204k on Craigslist is $2950 in Manchester NH.
For a bit more, there’s this 2006 6-speed 325Xi in Auburn NY with the sport package and no nav, but 260,000 miles.
Nice looking black-on-black wagon for five grand.
Not a fan of the wood trim, but love the six-speed and the sport package.
And, further south in Bensalem PA, and for a shade under six grand, is this pretty little red wagon with sport package, aluminum trim, and nav delete.
Yum.
The automatic notwithstanding, that’s an interior I could spend road time in.
As long as I’m keeping the E39, buying a wagon still makes no sense (except that I kinda want one), but I think that, at some point, the combination of dropping price and geographic proximity will make me look at one of these, drive it, like it, pull the trigger on it, and figure the rest out later.
—Rob Siegel
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Rob’s latest book, The Best of The Hack Mechanic, is available here on Amazon, as are his seven other books, including Just Needs a Recharge: The Hack Mechanic Guide to Vintage Air Conditioning. Signed copies can be ordered directly from Rob here.
Tags: daily driver Touring Wagon
