The moment when a spark plug ignites a fuel-air mixture feels simply magical, and devotees of hallowed fire and brimstone know that more ignitions per revolution requires more cylinders, so naturally, rare V12s and even rarer V10s are bucket-list items for many car enthusiasts. The good news? One of the greatest V10 engines of all time is reasonably attainable, and the E60 BMW M5 you’ll find wrapped around it is still nothing short of mesmerizing.
The E60 BMW M5 wasn’t the only V10-powered sedan on sale in the 2000s. After all, Audi sold a V10-powered S6 and a V10-powered S8 in America for a few brief years. However, that Audi V10 wasn’t anything like BMW’s screamer. The only roadgoing BMW V10 ever was a peaky unit, with a redline 1,250 rpm higher than that of the Audi lump, more in line with Italian exotica than traditional Autobahn missiles. As far as experiences go, the E60 M5 genuinely feels like a four-door supercar, especially as the tachometer needle sweeps closer to eight.
However, you won’t be paying new supercar or even used supercar pricing for a V10-powered BMW M5 of your own. Believe it or not, you can still pick one of these fascinating sedans up for less money than a loaded 2024 Nissan Versa, although like with any used high-strung performance car, it might be best to think of the purchase price as merely the downpayment.
What Is It?
Decades from now, automotive historians will agree that the 2000s marked the start of a seismic shift in performance cars. As cheap sport compact options started to dwindle, high-end performance cars were taking new leaps of lunacy with output, features, and mad engineering the likes of which had never previously been seen. Before the dawn of the modern turbo era, automakers were obsessed with insane cylinder counts and sky-high redlines, and if one car is the poster child for that trend, it’s the E60 BMW M5.
To make the fourth-generation M5, BMW’s M division took everything advanced about the regular 5 Series and threw it in the bin. Active variable-ratio steering, active hydraulic anti-roll bars, run-flat tires, all that stuff was stripped away, leaving Munich’s skunkworks with a clean base to mount the mother of all engines into — the S85 five-liter naturally-aspirated 90-degree odd-firing V10. Breathing through ten individual throttle bodies and featuring a redline of 8,250 rpm, it made one hell of a banshee wail, and kicked out 400 horsepower in its default mode. However, press a little button on the console marked “Power,” and output jumped to 500 horsepower at 7,500 rpm and 384 lb.-ft. of torque at 6,100 rpm. Yep, that ought to be plenty, especially with a seven-speed single-clutch automated manual transmission banging off upshifts in as little as 65 milliseconds, one of the fastest upshift times for any two-pedal car ever.
As you’d probably expect, the results were profound. We’re talking zero-to-60 mph in 4.2 seconds in Car And Driver instrumented testing, and the quarter-mile in 12.5 seconds at 118 mph. Remove the top speed limiter, and you’re looking at V-Max north of 200 mph. More importantly, despite a curb weight north of two U.S. tons, the whole car just shrinks around you the harder you press on. Sure, the brakes will eventually fade, but for a big executive sedan, the E60 M5 feels agile, adjustable, and precise, like it was made by people who love driving. It was the supercar for families, and thanks to the magic of depreciation, it’s pricing is no longer stratospheric.
How Much Are We Talking?
A new Nissan Versa SR stickers for $21,540 including freight, and under that price cap, you have an overwhelming choice in V10 M5s, provided you’re okay with the SMG. The coveted North America-only manual models are properly collectible now, but since that’s the same transmission as in the E90 M3, it’s possible to swap it in or even live with the seven-speed automated manual. You can even find the occasional one-owner car for that money, such as this 2006 model that sold on Bring A Trailer for $20,069 in February. Sure, it wears its 78,000 miles by way of a few rock chips and some scratches on the wheels, but it sports a clean Carfax and seems up-to-date on maintenance. The listing claims rod bearings, the high-pressure VANOS feed line, and a transmission service were all done in 2022, and it’s rocking a set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ tires with late 2020 date codes. As far as reasonably priced examples go, this V10 M5 seems like a good one.
If you’re looking for something slightly worn in, you can pick up a V10 M5 for a lot less than that. For instance, this Interlagos Blue 2006 car sold on Cars & Bids last month for just $11,400. Sure, it has a hit on its Carfax and there’s no mention of rod bearings being done, but the listing claims it’s had a recent SMG service and with 94,500 miles on the clock, it’s right in the window to do the rod bearings and enjoy one seriously rapid car for less than $20,000 all-in.
Oh, and if you’re looking for a facelifted example with more modern lighting and an updated interior, you might be in luck if you’re willing to put in some elbow grease. While the Great Recession of 2008 didn’t exactly help sales of ultra-expensive super sedans, a handful of 2008 to 2010 cars are still in the cheap zone, like this 2008 Alpine White-on-black car that sold on Bring A Trailer last month for $15,250. Sure, it has two hits on its Carfax, 122,000 miles on the clock, and a bad case of headlight oxidation, but it’s had a major SMG service in the past two years, and with a bit of TLC, could make for one epically fun summer daily driver.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong With An E60 BMW M5?
Hey kids, would you like to buy some rod bearings? While the E60 BMW M5 suffers from a litany of common problems, the one most frequently discussed is premature rod bearing wear. For years, the forums have hypothesized that the factory rod bearing clearances are too tight, resulting in a bearing job usually being necessary as preventative maintenance. Thankfully, several aftermarket companies have stepped up to the plate, including BE and VAC Motorsports, but getting all the rod bearings done will still run you in the vicinity of $3,500 at a specialist. Another common failure point is the throttle actuators. They pack up over time, and if one goes bad, your V10 will essentially turn into an inline-five. If you want to go with brand new actuators, you’re looking at a parts bill of $1,362.10 from FCP Euro, but most of the time, it’s the plastic gears inside the actuators that strip, and you can buy new gears for as little as $114 if you’re handy with a tool set.
While we’re on the subject of potential engine issues, the high-pressure supply line for the VANOS variable valve timing system is known to fail over time, and a replacement from Dr. VANOS retails for $149. A rough idle when warm may be caused by bad VANOS solenoids, and if you need to do all four, they aren’t so cheap. On FCP Euro, each new solenoid retails for $258.99, meaning you could be looking at over a grand in solenoids in an extreme case. The most expensive possible VANOS-related failure is the high-pressure pump inside the oil pan, partly because replacement is labor-intensive, and partly because even a rebuilt pump is $1,700 from Dr. VANOS, plus a $400 core charge. Hey, getting that done is still cheaper than buying a replacement engine.
Oh, and since the cheaper E60 M5 examples for sale pretty much all have SMG single-clutch automated manual transmissions, that opens up another can of worms. The hydraulic pump inside the transmission is a known failure point, but the aftermarket has stepped up with a solution. MLR Engineering sells a replacement SMG pump motor for $445, and that kit is usually enough to properly revive a failing SMG pump. Another potential SMG issue is the clutch release bearing, which only costs $144.99 from FCP Euro, but replacing it requires pulling the transmission.
Model-specific issues aside, it’s also worth noting that these are older cars now, and as such, they can suffer from a variety of fairly common older car problems. Bushings, ball joints, and tie rods wear out, oil coolers and differentials may leak, you know the drill. Don’t expect any used car to be flawless, because whether you’re dealing with a Ferrari or a Corolla, wear and tear happens.
Should You Buy An E60 BMW M5?
There is no conceivable circumstance in which an E60 BMW M5 is a viable alternative to a brand-new Nissan Versa if reliably getting to your daily destinations is a requirement and maintenance needs are best infrequent and frugally dispatched. A V10 BMW and Versa budgetmobile both have four doors and five seats, but they couldn’t be more different if one was made entirely of cheese and the other was propelled by nuclear fission. We’re talking about a heavily depreciated four-door supercar, the M5’s Icarus moment. It’s as rapid as it is potentially ruinous, especially on the cheaper end of the market.
However, if you’re reasonably handy with a wrench, a $20,000 V10 M5 is a great $30,000 car. We will never see another sedan with such a screaming, rev-happy V10 engine, and despite the known faults, it feels like a blessing knowing this exotic super sedan lies within reach of mere mortals with a little bit of ingenuity and grit. To those daring few, the legendary V10 M5 asks but one question: How brave are you feeling?
(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer, Cars & Bids)
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If these were reliable enough to drive… idk, anywhere, I’d buy one in a heartbeat. With an Eisenmann exhaust, it’s one of the best sounding cars in the world…
But alas, it’s like driving a ticking timebomb that I can’t afford.
I could buy a hand grenade too- certainly more exciting than a Versa, but not a smart purchase.
I owned an e60 with the horrible n62 V8. Make no mistake, that engine was a miserable piece of shit that leaked oil from everywhere it could and even places you never thought possible. It also ate cooling system parts at a shocking rate. So everything under the hood was for the most part, dogshit.
However, the rest of the car was ALSO terrible! I wasn’t yet at 100k and one of the rear springs in the suspension just sheared in half. I never ran it through potholes or rough roads, it wasn’t rusty either. Just BANG and it shattered. The steering wheel heater freaked out and melted itself inside of the wheel because reasons. The radio (CCC) overheated and cooked itself because a tiny cooling fan on the back quietly died. No repair possible, had to buy a new old-stock replacement for like $800. The battery safety terminal which is a small pyrotechnic charge on the positive battery terminal (supposed to pop the connection in case of an accident) decided that it hated life. So of course, it started throwing airbag errors? Took a while to figure that out; the repair to was to replace the entire thing. The BST was connected to a cable that ran from the trunk where the battery is to up under the hood and snaked through the interior. I would have had to remove most of the interior and a lot of stuff behind the dash. It got a resistor shoved into it to make the error go away. The rear sun shade frequently got stuck no matter what I did, gave up using it. The active steering (anti roll bar is hydraulic and driven by power steering pump) regularly freaked out and would disable itself while you were driving. Not fun to drive without it, but shutting the car off and restarting would clear the error. Never figured it out. It would randomly state that you had no oil and tell you to stop immediately. Pulling the dipstick revealed plenty of oil. Of course, it had no oil pressure gauge so you never knew the truth until you stopped to check. It also had no temp gauge which is awesome on a car with frequent cooling system problems. The dual mass flywheel had something broken in it which made smooth shifts nearly impossible at any speed and it would rattle like a bastard when you shut off the engine, very classy. The angel eye headlights failed around 80k and replacements were eye watering (required entire housing for a dead bulb). I did a homemade repair with some epoxy and a new bulb, but making a standard incandescent bulb inaccessible/irreplaceable seems very stupid. I know there was more, but I just can’t remember all of it (HVAC thermistor died for no reason, it only would blast heat because it read the cabin temp as 0 degrees).
So beyond the terrible engine, the rest of the car was just a horrible piece of junk and rates as the worst car I’ve ever owned. I bought it with 60k miles, sold it at 90k. While I would love a v10 M5, there is NO WAY IN HELL I would ever consider buying one of these things. The stupid crap that breaks is just endless. Apologists will talk about how they need maintenance, but there is no amount of maintenance that will keep one of these shitheaps from failing in new and strange ways. They are just terrible cars.
Do not buy one of these unless you have a LOT of time and money to blow on it. Just get a Corvette or something.
Sreten from M539 Restorations did an extensive rebuild of one of these and it was awesome, but good lord that must’ve been $30k worth of labor/parts for anyone else. Beautiful and awesome car, but not with your own money
And Sreten still admits that the E39 M5 is the best M5.
He has literally stated multiple times that he enjoys driving the E60 more than the E39.
He has also literally stated multiple times that the E39 M5 is the best M5 BMW ever made. Owning a car is not just about driving.
100% agree. I love everything Sreten does on M539! The car is a masterpiece in tip-top shape, but they should stay in the hands of deep pocketed enthusiasts who are OK knowing the joy of ownership comes with a lot of expensive preventative maintenance. Lets just hope that small group of enthusiasts are OK with putting their E60 M5s on Turo from time to time.
Typically , I’m in the – avoid these cheap awesome but maintenance heavy- articles, but having driven a 6MT example.. It was like my jeans and t-shirt CTSV wearing a tuxedo with a huge bump of blow! Was truly smooth, fast, tight and potent.
For the right person, budget 30k, expect some consumables like any performance car, and have a bad ass ride that will be cool for a long time.
Not for free, but reading through this long litany of major problems sadly not unexpected for something hailing from Germany, I wonder why the problematic plastic throttle gear doesn’t have an available metal substitute from one of the many aftermarket makers who have stepped in to engineer fixes for some of the other problems related to BMW’s incompetence. Seems like it would be a simple thing to do—maybe even a trip through McMaster-Carr, IDK.
Look… don’t. Just don’t.
NOTHING generates catastrophic engine problems and crippling limp mode at the trot – nay; run – nay; jet powered gallop! of an E60 M5.
Maybe some of the mechanicals are within a shout of reason to purchase parts only. But you will need dealer software and 50 SST’s for any one problem.
A $20,000.00 M5 is a $30,000.00 car for a few years and then a 5,000.00 lawn ornament. Save yourself the pain.
After owning a 2015 nissan versa sv for five years with 75k miles without a transmission issue somehow (probably because I actually had the fluid flushed/changed on interval with a little bit of luck sprinkled in) I would probably do it again despite it’s aversion to power than have to worry about the fragility of the m5. But g o d would I love to experience the v10 with a full exhaust/headers system to hear it scream as Bavaria intended.
Have we come up with a name for this kind of article yet? They mostly seem to be bad(but amusing) ideas that only a fool or a fanatic would take seriously.
Price and insanity news?
Well, it is Gavel Gazing, but I often think of yhe writer sitting in a devil costime on the reader’s left shoulder, saying “c’moooon. You know you want to. It’s only money. And how bad can it be?” before laughing evilly.
You know, like when David sees a rusty Jeep….
Gah! I totally missed that…thanks.
“Wishfully absurd” sounds about right.
I like it better than Gavel Gazing…
How are S6 prices? It’s just such a more desirable daily driver
Way less exciting of an engine and possibly even worse to work on, given that it’s an Audi.
Is it though? This generation of S6 had a V10 that was shared with the Gallardo that’s similarly high revving. If nothing else you can tell everyone your executive sedan has a Lamborghini engine, and you wouldn’t even be lying.
Edit: just looked it up and it only revs to 7,000. Meh.
It also doesn’t have the flat-plane crankshaft and I think the firing order is different. So it’s about as close to a Lamborghini motor as a BMW 850i motor is to a McLaren F1 motor.
They are a lot cheaper. I’ve seen ragged ones for $5-6000 and decent ones for $12-15k.
Usually, they have a cam belt service required. The owner decides to sell when they realize how expensive it will be.
But like… you buy the car for $15k. Put another $7k into fixing it and you have the Lambo wagon VAG is too afraid to make themselves. How fucking sick is that? Yeah, the M5 revs higher and handles a little nicer. We’re talking about your DD, though!
Yeah, and you don’t have to deal with the SMG, which is absolutely horrible unless you are caning the crap out of the car.
Totally. I’ve driven the SMG M5 and it… feels inert unless you’re doing illegal things. The S6 would always be growling and wonderful
I had the opportunity to drive one of those for 2 weeks. I will say, they were great cruiser (the high revving V8 is very intoxicating) as long as you can afford to maintain it. But they were absolutely HORRENDOUS on gas I must say. I was DDing a JK Wrangler at the time and even a JK Wrangler get better fuel economy than the E60 M5. Yes should totally expecting that for a 5.0L V10 but I am still amazed at the figure even when I attempted to drive it conservatively LOL. (For a guy that has never driven any bigger than a 4.0L V6, at least)
Would I own one, NOPE (As a current E90 335i owner). But I am glad I got the chance to experience it!
<ahem> V10
Any discussion of tackling the nightmare fuel of the e60 must include M539 Restoration’s renovation of a complete basket case example “Project Raleigh” -> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBcFoVFuPCfiwvcou0h8_Lj8TIyxcwxrc
Bad channel to link if you’re trying to argue against these cars, Sreten makes the E60 M5 maintenance look easy and straightforward because of how smoothly it went for him. And it’s been fairly reliable for him too. They all need rod bearings, Vanos pumps (on the 06-07 motors), Vanos oil line, etc, that’s hardly “nightmare fuel” unless you’re expecting Toyota levels of maintenance from a high-strung German V10.
Well, given it took him ~ 3 years to complete, a significant sum of money, and a very well-equipped garage, not *that* easy and straightforward. Granted, 3x faster than the Muppets from Shropshire have taken on Project Binky…
As someone who worked as a BMW tech when the E60 was launched and currently has a title in hand versa in the household I’ll just stick with what I have thank you.
If you’re a competent BMW tech from that era, all the more reason to own one of these, since the majority of the headaches come from the labor to do all the necessary repairs (rod bearings, oil line, Vanos pump & solenoids, throttle actuators, etc).
I’ll just plead incompetent rather than actually respond to this.
If I had the money for a new M5, I’d spend the down-payment on a manual E60 and make monthly payments on all the maintenance instead. No reason to buy an automatic, AWD M-car when there’s a V10 out there. Throw in a modern infotainment for under a grand and there’s zero downsides.
You forget that the new M5 would have a warranty, something that the old M5 wouldn’t have. That means that the cost of running the old M5 will be much higher….
You pays your money, you takes your choice – Mark Twain
That’s exactly why they’d cost about the same, maintenance vs payments. If I also had to do maintenance on the new one, then it would REALLY be an unfair matchup. I reckon the time it would take for maintenance to bridge the gap to the new car’s 110k MSRP plus options would be about the duration of the warranty (10k a year would take about 6-7 years to make up the 60-70k difference). At that point, an S68 is just as much of a time bomb so it kind of remains an equal deal, especially if you assume the E60’s been upgraded over time with sturdier versions of the failure points.
If you plan on driving the car for more than 4 years then I can’t imagine an out of warranty 2024 bimmer would be any less $/km.
owned a ’10 6MT, loved every minute of it, sold it at 50K miles.
I can only imagine, that soundtrack’s intoxicating even on low-quality cellphone footage.
I can also check myself into a mental institution for the same price as checking myself into a luxury spa hotel. And if I bought this BMW, I should.
This was peak BMW. Literally everything could go wrong at anytime, just absolute Murphey’s Law in sedan format. But when it works, it makes Asam look like a finger-painter. Pure risk/reward, could turn the morning commute into a game theory problem.
Nah bro, I’ll take that shitty Versa instead… OR, wait for it, get a Jetta for the same price.
Yes! With manual!
Of course )
..waiting for owners to chime in!
A lot of these “buy something horrifically unreliable for cheap” articles are nonsense because the payoff isn’t worth the pain. I’m generally going to say that for anything with single digit cylinders.
Here, I’d say it’s worth taking a chance. But buy the manual one.
It’s like you can take a Supermodel to dinner for the same price as a normal person !
Probably less, how much can a stick of celery set you back?
I’m thinking about a couple kilos of blow, but I’m afraid to Google it’s market value.
Use somebody elses computer at work
I think I’d rather these articles start with the “what could go wrong?” portion.
It is what people really need to know before contemplating buying one.
A nice list to take to a service person to inspect and then negotiate the price.
I would actually take a Nissan Versa and its Jatco CVT over willingly subjecting myself to an E60 M5
Well you’re no fun at all
I’m an absolute hoot! I just have no where near the mechanical prowess necessary to keep something like this running and no desire to pay someone else to for me.
Just buy the best M5 instead. The E39.
Realistically I’d probably find a 3.8L E34 though…