BMW 530i (E60) | Shed of the Week

This week, Shed was very tempted by a V8 Range Rover L322 with a suspension fault and a weird-looking exhaust. Luckily he had an attack of common sense and went instead for what you see in front of you now: a low-miles, historied, manual-gearbox’d, petrol-powered E60 BMW 530i. 

As we all know, the E60 was the fifth-generation Five series. Going on sale in 2003 after six years of development it had a hard act to follow in the much-loved E39. Anxious to make an impact, BMW’s maverick designer Chris Bangle gave the new Five a challenging look, most notably from the important front, rear and side perspectives. Although Bangle designs usually gain a greater measure of public acceptance over time the E60 still isn’t a car you instantly warm to.   

Still, the E60 was lighter, faster and more spacious than the E39, and with the M54 3.0 straight-six that we’ve got here, fast and characterful enough for most. A couple of years after our shed was built BMW phased out the M54 in the 530i and replaced it with the port-injected N52 Valvetronic six or, in less sulphur-tolerant markets like Europe, the direct-injection N53. That was BMW’s last non-turbo straight-six.

Back with our M54, it produced 228hp at a revvy 5,900rpm and 221lb ft at 3,500rpm, enough in the 1,570kg 530i for a 0-62mph time of 7.7 seconds and a top speed of 155mph. These numbers relate to the six-speed manual model, which – most unusually – is the one we’ve got here. They’re pretty rare. While we’re into all the numbers, let’s get these out of the way: the official combined fuel consumption figure is 29.7mpg and the CO2 output is 231g/km, which as far as Shed can make out is 6g/km too many for it to qualify for the £415pa annual vehicle tax bill in the UK. Instead it is saddled with the £710 a year rate, which is why good cars in this country can also be cheap ones to buy.

Independent ‘dynamic drive’ suspension that firmed up under hard cornering and of course rear-wheel drive meant that buyers didn’t have to go for the Sport model in order to get sharp handling in their E60s. The nearside seat bolster on our 128,000 mile shed is understandably a little tired after all the buttockings it’s received in its life. Other than that the cabin has stood up well. 

Our September ’03 car is a very early E60, which is about a year too early to have Bluetooth, but it does have iDrive with the standard 6.5-inch screen, cruise and climate control, rear parking sensors and, for what it was worth in those days, voice control. Unless you actually enjoy shouting at someone who has no idea or interest in what you’re on about you’ll probably try that once and never again. As you might guess Shed likes this system because it gives him the luxury of prolonged, loud and comeback-free venting until his own voice gives out.  

The M54 has a nice reputation for longevity but things could go wrong on it, sometimes due to an inappropriate choice of materials, eg plastic for the water pump and other items that you might have preferred to have been made out of metal. M54 thermostats could stick open or closed, high pressure fuel pumps, throttle bodies and injectors could fail, and leaky oil filter housing gaskets were a problem on many BMW engines of this era, fours as well as sixes. Bad PCVs (crankcase ventilation valves) would throw up 530i warning lights and have a bad effect on their idling, misfiring, exhaust smoke colour and performance. DISA valves were supposed to moderate induction flow but if they weren’t working properly, which they often weren’t, the engine could lose up to 30 per cent of its fuel efficiency. 

On the positive side DISA repair kits are available for around £60-£70 and you’d like to think that a car advertised as a good-driving example with stacks of service history won’t be burdened by most, or hopefully any, of these issues. The vendor does say that they will do a service for the next owner. They’ve already lived up to their promise of putting a new MOT on it. When we go back through previous tests we see corroded springs in 2022 and 2023 that were apparently sorted for 2024, and welding repairs to both of the offside wheels between the 2018 and 2019 tests. It makes you wonder what sort of pothole the car must have been swallowed by but testers haven’t seen fit to mention it since 2021. 

The latest MOT, done just last week, has revealed nothing more sinister than a bit of front suspension wear. Shed will tell you that this shouldn’t be a major worry. He knows exactly how long a car’s suspension has got left, simply from the sound it’s making. Shed hadn’t seen the postmistress’s car for a while, but he was hearing some light knocking as she went past so he called her in for an inspection. Before he gave her a full service there was some play in her front bush but it turned out to be nothing he couldn’t handle and everyone went away happy.