2002 BMW M5 Base Sedan 4-Door 5.0L 6 Speed

2002 BMW E39 M5 6 Speed. 197. 00 Highway Miles. Car has been maintained very well. No accidents but it does show some repaint on the hood an trunk. Interior is in above average condition. Has a small crack in the windshield. I was going to do all the repairs but decided to keep the price affordable and let the new owner repair/upgrade/modify to their preference. Please feel free to email with any questions. The car is being advertised locally and won't last long at this price. The Following review was taken from AutoBlog. comThe benchmark for sports sedans. IntroductionAfter a wait that must have been agonizing to lovers of the racy six-cylinder M3. BMW has finally engineered a high-performance V8 into the M5. And it has been racking up raves like no high-performance sedan in history. With a six-speed gearbox and 394 horsepower. the M5 on the 5 Series platform is a totally civilized sedan with racing car capabilities. WalkaroundAlmost all of the good stuff is in the M5. not on it. so you can't see it. With 18-inch wheels. it doesn't appear to squat low to the ground and the fenders aren't visibly flared. There's a businesslike air dam with black mesh screening covering its generous openings. which draw great gulps of air for the brakes and 302-cubic-inch engine. The super wide (8-inch front. 9. 5-inch rear) polished alloy wheels catch your eye for their good looks. not their size. and offer a peek at the brake rotors through the 10 spokes. which collect dirt and brake dust and thus must be cleaned often. Four chrome exhaust pipes stick out the rear and. along with the wide tires. tell vehicles in your wake that this is no ordinary BMW sedan. Under the aluminum hood. there's nothing to ooh or ahh over. as plastic pretty much covers everything. Thick intake tubes flow from the big airbox on top of the engine. down and forward of the wheelwells. A special induction system with dual air cleaners and airflow meters and eight throttles feeds big wind to this heavy breather. The handsome ribbed valve covers are visible. at least. as is a badge on top that announces BMW MPower. But you'll never impress anyone who asks to see what's under the hood. 'Hmh. is the likely reaction. Tell them how many liters of air per second the engine swallows. that'll impress 'em. The six-CD changer. connected to a digital sound system with 14 speakers. lives in the small trunk. in a compartment which also stores two quarts of oil-a racy touch that one hopes is more for effect than need. Self-leveling Xenon headlights offer state-of-the-art night visibility. and are accompanied by halogen foglights neatly tucked into the corners of small air dam openings under the headlights. Other important safety features include a reinforced passenger cage. and airbags galore: two-stage front airbags. side airbags for each door. and tube-like bags that drop from the headliner and prevent impact against the front windows. And here's a comforting honor bestowed upon the BMW 5 Series in 1999: The Safe Car of the Millennium Award from the International Brain Injury Association. The list of civilized features is long: self-dimming mirrors inside and out (the oval shape of the rearview mirror is curiously and neatly retro). headlight washers. sunroof. power sunshades at the rear and side windows. and an onboard navigation system that constantly computes latitude and longitude. InteriorHeated power seats with lumbar support usually look fatter and plusher than the M5's spare-looking but handsome buckets . but like everything else related to the driving of this car. they were perfect: Perfectly comfortable. perfectly suited to the task of real driving. There's a cool dead pedal to plant your left foot against during hard cornering (a necessary touch as we will see). The leather-wrapped steering wheel had the right feel. no surprise. while its hub contained stereo controls under the left thumb and cruise controls under the right-and there's no better or safer place for cruise control. because you can quickly exit with a simple twitch of your thumb. With a car like this. you tend to forget about the back seat-it is. after all. a seriously self-indulgent vehicle-but because it's a 540 Sedan before it's an M5. the back seat offers good room and comfort. Driving ImpressionLet's start with the big. throbbing. heart of the car: its engine. At 302 cubic inches. the engine is not huge; but 21st century technology draws a heavy punch from a small package. so think of this 5. 0-liter V8 as really big. The speed specs on the fastest production sedan on the planet? Acceleration from 0 to 60 in 4. 8 seconds; quarter mile in 13. 3 seconds at 108 mph; top speed electronically limited to 155 mph. which in sixth gear would be a casual 5200 rpm or so. The powerband is eminently comfortable and cruisable. thanks largely to BMW's VANOS system of variable valve timing. which brings the massive torque down into the 3000 and even 2000 rpm range. The free-flowing exhaust system. which exits in four thick tailpipes. is considerably muted for the law. alas. so you have to open the windows to hear the engine sing. With such acceleration and quick. sure handling. the M5 passes on a two-lane like a motorcycle. It's a fun and personally powerful feeling: twitch out and hammer it. twitch in and back off the gas. done in seconds. On the freeway you can use your foot to move in and out of holes: keep it in fourth gear and squirt. shift to fifth to get legs. and settle in sixth when there's no traffic. You can hit the 6800-rpm rev limiter in a heartbeat in the lower gears. and it's easy to do so inadvertently because the engine never screams or sounds stressed in any way. You drive by the tach a lot because of this. but you soon get the rhythm of upshifting at 6200 rpm when you're working it. The engine likes to work aggressively in the twisties at nearly 6000 rpm. It feels so strong that you get the feeling the rev limiter is set slightly and conservatively low. and the specs would support this. as the engine makes its maximum 394 horsepower at 6600 rpm. An upshift at 6200 rpm is actually a short shift. and feels like it. Six thousand rpm in third gear is about 88 mph. and it's a measure of the control of this car that this is not an uncommon place to be. when you're driving for satisfaction on a desolate winding two-lane road. in a region of a western state with almost no population. You live in Jersey. you want an M5. you move out West to exercise it. The six-speed gearbox. a fortified version of that found in the 540i. shifts with tight precision. having a relatively short throw. And sixth gear is not too tall. so you still have torque to accelerate without downshifting at 60 mph. The throttle blip during heel-and-toe downshifts was responsive. but we didn't find the pedals perfectly matching our feet and legs. The brakes are magic. flawless. breaking a barrier for power. consistency and easy control during hard usage. We were so dazzled that we forgot to test the ABS-like. the brakes are so good that the notion of a 'panic' stop never occurred to us. The front rotors are 13. 6 inches and the rear 12. 9. which says most of it. We did have one small problem. having reached unprecedented ground: when braking from high speed. stunningly deep for a second-gear turn. there was so much forward momentum on our body that if the road was bumpy our right foot was forced hard against the brake pedal. making things less smooth than desired. We needed racing seatbelts to pin our shoulders back. Point and shoot is an expression that usually refers to a car that doesn't corner. but it rings true for the M5 because you can point it through a corner. It has such solid grip that the car confidently shoots around corners. not merely away from them; you don't have to wait for the apex to floor it. There is a Sport mode. which tightens the recirculating ball steering (and quickens the throttle responsive). making the car feel somewhat heavy at slow speeds. but the 'M Servotronic' speed-sensitive power steering is seamless; you don't realize it's there. but the faster you go the lighter the M5 feels. Performance. performance. performance is what you hear about the M5.