A more regular M-F, 9-5 schedule for the summer has allowed me to take some great road trips this summer in my E28. With the ever-looming valve job and some other maintenance done, it is always a joy to let the S38 breathe and attack some curves. I’m very pleased with my rebuilt, higher mileage example, but if you have the money the way to go is find a well-maintained, low-mileage example. I wrote up today’s M5 in Salt Lake City about 6 months ago when it was listed on Hemmings, but apparently it hasn’t sold yet. It has just 106k miles, which makes it very “normal;” not a sub-100k creampuff nor 200k-mile rebuild, these E28s circa 100k-miles command a bit of a premium as they provide a very palatable maintenance future.
The description is standard dealer fair, i.e. not very descriptive and including the oxymoronic “M5 Base Trim” in the title. The standard trim for US E28 M5s was virtually every option box ticked, so why include that? The most important factor in judging if this lower-mileage M5 is worth the price premium really comes down to how well the maintenance has been tended to. The listing cites it as a local consignment, so if the dealer doesn’t have the maintenance records, it’s worth hunting down the previous owner to make sure it has been loved and cared for in a way that will make the 106k-miles really mean something. The seller has apparently brought his expectations closer to reality, with a Buy-it-Now of $16,500 down from the $20k he was looking for in December. If the history is solid and it looks as good in person as it does online, $15-16k seems like a very fair price.
-NR
I’ve always liked these cars although I like them with the Euro bumper conversion a lot more. I’m assuming the service history is lacking or they’d have put it in the ad but you never know.
I like this, but i don’t have 16k+ to spend in an 80s car.
[…] exercise. E28 M5 prices, like many vintage M cars, are steadily on the rise these days. The last E28 M5 we featured sold for $16,500. That particular car had just over 100,000 miles. We even saw a 1988 […]