525i and 528i. What's the difference?

[Harv]

Any thought's? I'm not all that sure that it's just a displacement difference. Or is it?

John

[HarryPR]

If you're talking E39's, they were not sold at the same time. The 525i was introduced in '01 when the 528i was upgraded to 530i.

You could get most options available on the 528i/530i on the 525i also. However, I've read that one of the negatives on the 525i is that the exhaust manifold comes as one piece with the cat converter and it is mucho $$$$ to replace it.

[supark]

528s came in single and dual vanos flavors - the single vanos engines are a bit less troubleprone as they're not victim to the characteristic vanos seal leakage and resultant cold engine idle dips. They also have a bit more NA performance potential because you can easily throw on an M50 intake mani on there to help it breath significantly better. Funny thing is that Dinan sells pretty much the same part for a huge markup.

The dual vanos 528s are good cars too though. The 525i and 528i both use variants of the M52 engine which I'm sure you have heard is a pretty bulletproof engine. Honestly, 530is are getting under $10k - if you're looking for an I6 E39, I'd recommend one of those (with a 5-speed of course). If you are on a lower budget, honestly I'd recommend the 97-98 single vanos 528i. I love the torque of the 540i (I've owned 3 of them in fact), but I don't trust the long term reliability of bmw's v8s after having timing chain issues with 2 540is with only slightly more than 100k miles on them..