The 525e was not so much an economy model, but rather an “efficiency” model, pitched to draw customers from Mercedes and alike, who preferred “sedate progress in comfort”. To that end the model had a more comfortable suspension setup, better insulated engine noise and were equipped rather austere much like the Mercedes models of its day. This example is an “owners preference”, spoilers wheels foglights etc. were not standard. The engine was not just bigger in capacity, but raised compression ratio, low friction pistons, tuned for low end performance (intake/exhaust system + camshaft), and even less stiff valve springs to reduce friction torque. The lowered rev limiter is there for a good reason! The final drive ratio is MUCH taller than the normal models. There was a terrific website about the eta models, it’s offline now unfortunately. As you’ve correctly noted, the model didn’t sell well and was discontinued after this. This example is of the 2nd series, the first series had slightly less power and a 4500rpm (opposed to 4750) redline. The was also an “eta” model of the e30, the 325e.
We only got the auto in the uk as the manual gearbox "groaned" at low revs due to the torque. It was considered not BMW enough for the uk. The e is from the greek eta meaning efficiency. Alot of e28 525e's were broken for the the crank (as was mine😮) when they were worthless a few years back for people to build 2.7 ltrs e30's making upto 210bhp with lots of torque. Alpina used the diesel crank.
One of my all time favourite beemers of the 80s it’s a shame they don’t build them like this anymore, they just were better in every way in 80s and 90s. In my personal opinion
Lol I do exactly the same. I much prefer eating in privacy for some reason. Don’t know why but I can’t standing sitting with loads of people from work, eating my dinner!
Matt Y With coronavirus it’s often a matter of going through the drive through, then take food to parking lot....put phone in holder and have your meal with TH-cam in the car....and everyone in the parking area are doing the same thing!
John Garrison yes Joe same here. If I have a McDonald’s or BurgerKing I always use the drive thru. Plus I can eat more like a pig in my car and don’t have to watch my etiquette😂
I owned one of these twice, got it back from a mate years later. Just a wonderful drive, especially around town. Wish BMWs were still this nice and easy to work on.
The owner of this car lives somewhere near me. Always nice to see it. Such great condition and such elegant styling compared to modern vehicles. Unusual colour for a 5-series too.
So glad you got round to reviewing this lovely example of an E28. I had four of them, including a 525e. Very torquey car.. and switching to sport mode was good fun when needing to overtake! Happy times. Regret having to sell! Thank you Mr HubNut!
Personally I much prefer the older BMWs. The modern BMWs are so boring and generic. At least back in the 80s and 90s they built cars that looked what you paid for. Now your average BMW just looks like a boring Vauxhall👎🏻
@@matty6848 Same with some modern Jags. When the XF first appeared around 2008, I thought it was the same shape as the then-new Vectra. Or was it Vauxhall Sigman or something? Sorry. I'm so bored I forgot what it was LOL.
@@360nastybusiness Sorry, but no; BMWs are something people 'aspire' to, like iPhones; petrol heads go for things like Alphas, Lancias (RIP, at least in the UK), and Subarus
Germaine Liew I believe that they started with the massive grills to suit the Chinese market as they like bling. Pretty much ruined the front of most of their range
Fantastic car! (I’m extremely biased though as I own one myself) and a fantastic review as always from Hubnut! At the risk of being pedantic, the blanking plugs you mention for the windows are, in fact, a manual override. E28s with wind up windows had the crank mounted much higher up towards the electric mirror switch but still on the fabric portion of the door card. The plug can be removed if the power window fails and you use the socket in the tool kit to manually close it.
its nice to see a decent looking BMW. The styling on the older cars from the 1960's to early 2000's is so much better than the ugly new cars being made today.
I owned this very car a few years back ..I bid and bought it on eBay and travelled to London to pick it up from Wembley park ..couldn't believe my luck when I seen the condition of it... driving it back I noticed the last fifty miles it started using a lot more fuel and when I got home I discovered the fuel line that runs over the top of the engine had perished and it had been spraying petrol onto the exhaust manifold..miracle it survived .. beautiful reliable car
Hi Lee. I changed all the lines again recently just in case. Modern fuel plays havoc with them. Fitted Gates Barracuda hoses now. Also did the rear ones around the pump and filter. It really is a lovely car. I'm having a someone round today to do some paint correction and apply a protective coating.
My first BMW was a 1986 E30 320i. My current one is a F31 320d. You have made me want to sell the new car for an old one. I still regret selling my E34 525i. The best car I've ever driven. Still want an E24 635csi Highline though...
I used to have a 525ee which was a New Zealand only model. The extra e standing for executive. It had air conditioning, electric sunroof, electric Windows, premium sound system, sports steering wheel and lovely and I think unique woollen fabric seats and interior panels. Really was a lovely car. Very relaxing to drive but with a surprising turn of speed.
I like this one a lot. Yonks ago we had a 518i as our daily driver. It was a nice car. We christened it "The Dutchess" as it just made stately progress. It had a nice quality feel to it even though it was the bottom line model. It was C reg and on one outing to Cheltenham the kids pointed out it was the oldest car they had seen on the entire journey. Steel wheels and plastic hubcaps. I swapped on a set of alloys I got from the scrapyard for £30.
Renault did a very similar thing with their 1st gen. R5. They offered the frugal 5GTL that had a larger 1.4L engine that used an restrictive small carburetor, a tame torquey camshaft and tall gearing. It worked! Another fuel saving trick from the era of the first oil crisis (1973-ish) was to disable the 2nd stage of a vacume operated 2stage carburetor. In this BMW ETA you can also see this fuel saving influence on the instrument cluster, it has a big vacume guage to indicate if engine was guzzling or if it was running frugally.
Those ETA m20 engines were very popular for tuning. I believe they used the forged crank of the 524td engine. And the 2.7L was very powerfull if you would combine it with the high compression cylinder head of the e30 325i. Together with a properly tuned ECU his would make for an easy and reliable 200+hp engine. Alpina basically did this for their e30 C1-2,7L, other tuners like Hartge did similar setups.
I was very surprised that you felt comfortable in the rear with good headroom. Visibility seemed great too. True, the Ford Granada Ghia may have edged it for refinement but it is a larger vehicle overall. I truly believe that BMW engineers came pretty close to perfection with the 525e. Executive comfort, 6 cylinder smoothness and response, automatic transmission with manual economy. The paint is lovely and the interior is immaculate. A credit to a careful owner.
I drove one of these back in the 80s. It was loaned to me while my own vehicle was in for repairs. It was in pretty poor condition bodywork wise, but excellent mechanically. It had a light at the bottom of the dash to tell you which gear you were in and changed automatically along with the gearbox. Pretty smart thing to have really. This one is a really nice example and is a real credit to it's owner.
After seeing the new M4, the hideous grille I genuinely thought was a meme at first, I love to see a genuinely good looking BMW. The E28 is one of my favourites.
Great car ,looking very sharp in red, had a few of these 20 or so years ago mostly rotten and loose to drive but even then they always looked something, never payed more the 2 or 3 hundred pounds for them, great days ,also the same thing applies to the ford Granada you tested from the same guy, I remember buying a gold 2.8 i Ghia x estate car in really okay condition for £400 to drive to Glastonbury festival in 1994 another great car ,unfortunately that rotted out round the bulkhead because of blocked drainage holes, so very well done to the owner for keeping these two great cars on the road.
In America these were called the 528e, but had the same 2.7 litre engine. I had an 1982, which was the first year the E28 was released and for that year the ETA was the only available version of the 5-series we could get in the US as the 533i did not reach these shores until 1983. Mine was lapis blue with blue interior and a 5 speed manual transmission. While my steering wheel was not quite as sporty, it did have front and rear power windows, air conditioning, a bank of warning lights above the rear view mirror and an early attempt at an on board computer. Sometime in the 1980's, the original owner installed a cell phone, however by the time I bought the car in 1994, the early style of cell phones were largely obsolete. I bought it with 141,000 miles on the odometer and sold it seven years late with a whopping 325,000 miles on it.
Finally someone has done a video on the BMW e28 525e and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Had one of these for many years and it was so relaxing to drive with it's low revving, long stroke, big capacity, high torque, low friction engine and armchair like seats. It would return 25 mpg around town and upper 30's on a long run all with whisper quietness and silky smooth six cylinders. This chappie seems to review all the cars I've admired throughout my years with his honest, frank and sensible observations, I find myself agreeing with most of what he has to say. Really like the way the video is wrapped up at the end too with the zoom in to the grille and the 'copter view as the car drives off and you can hear the engine first ticking over and then the exhaust doing its stuff as he drives off. Great job, keep 'em coming I say. P.S. any chance you could review an E21?
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These and E21 3 series are my favourite bimmers of all time! Amongst some very interesting cars up and down my road (and a helicopter casually parked in someone's drive, as you do) there's a lovely E24 6 Series parked up in a drive and collecting moss and bird bombs, it hasn't moved for years! I'd love to have the spare cash and and a smile winning enough to part it from its owner. Great review Ian, I absolutely love these cars and their oddly just off centre echausts! EDIT: What ever is C3PO up to though?! 😂
What a great car, you certainly did this one justice Ian. Incidentally I had a 1997 528i with a 5 speed box back in 2000 whilst living in the forest of dean and that was a wonderful car.
You have brought back some delicious memories. I had one of these back in the day. Mine had the "525E" badge on the back and the E stood for Etta. Thank you. Ken
Hi. Interesting to hear you once owned this. I know two of the previous owners who had this since about 2012 I think. I bought it in 2017. Whereabouts are you in the country and how long did you have it etc? Thanks
@@MrRickp78 Hi, I purchased this from the original owner in 2010 and owned it for around 18months. I took on a 2 secondment abroad so sold my cars. It only had 88k on the clock when I had it. I love the E28, particularly the 525e’s.
@@nishilpatel1824 thanks for your reply. Yes I bought it from near Cramlington and drove it nearly 200 miles home. Took a chance and booked a one way train ticket after work and got back about 2am! It had an annoying occasional starting issue that ended up being the gearbox speed sensors but simple fix. It really is a lovely car. Interesting to hear the original owner had it some 23 years! Thanks
Not a fan of modern BMWs or the kind of people who often drive them, but this is a lovely looking, beautifully preserved vehicle. I think it's the combination of the red paint, chrome and that shark nose that does it for me. And I miss velour interiors. I guess the far eastern markets (which seem to dictate car design now) don't like them, but I wish they'd bring them back! 75 looks great too, sitting over to the side :)
Thanks for another great review of another car from a golden era when different manufacturers actually offered different characteristics in their model line up. I was going to buy one of these as my second ever car but bought an 87 730iSE instead. What an expensive mistake that was!!
Takes me back to my 325i E30. I revelled in wet roundabouts what with the LSD. Made going sideways such fun. Loved the glorious straight six soundtrack.
Honeslty mate, I don't know what it is but I find your videos both very interesting and extremely calming at the same time. They've actually been a great help to me over the last few months with all the stress of COVID. Keep it up. (PS if you're ever tempted to make it to Brisbane back in Aus one day I've got a poverty-spec Mk1 Golf 'Clipper' Cabriolet and a fully-optioned '88 Accord (yes I know you've already done the Aerodeck!) with your name on them.)
I had an e34 535i. (manual), On the open road I could get 31 mpg while cruising between 75 & 85 mph. Admittedly it was at altitude of around 1600m which helps. The secret for me was to never touch the brake pedal and never slow down for corners.
Yay old BMW content! 😃 The spare wheel is indeed under the boot floor, but it is on the left hand side. You'd think having the interior lights in the middle of the roof would be good, but in reality they're useless. The inspection lights are almost always non-functional on these, they do whatever they please! The steering wheel is reach adjustment only and there isn't much travel. There is no height adjustment. The drivers seat should have height adjustment (sometimes jammed) which might go some way to explaining your issue with seeing the gauges, and the feeling of being too high up!
My father has been driving BMW 5 series since 1978 till today. As a solid family car for 10 years of usuage per model, it was never disappointing. Although the older BMW 6 cylinders engines 40 years ago had not been reliable at all and needed to be changed frequently...
What a pristine example. Wow. I drove one of these back around 2005 with an odometer stuck at 177k miles. It didn't look or sound nearly as lovely as this one.
Hubnut is currently doing the greatest hits of my youth. Last week's Granada (identical to one I had) and I also had the 2 litre straight six of this very model, and also one of my favourite cars that I ever owned. If I won the lottery, I wouldn't buy a supercar, I'd buy mint versions of what's currently appearing on 'Nut!
Love the e28 5 series and 520i was my favourite for its silky smooth inline six - these cars saw the BMW brand take off in Australia and the 325e and 525e only came to Australia in ‘86 as we transitioned to unleaded fuel and this saw them as the only models until cats were fitted to other models - eta was designed for low down torque which Australia’s like
We had E34 535i with the same velour seats. As a boy I sat in the back and both interior and ride were very comfortable. Lovely car but MPG was 19. Lovely engine sound
Dear Mr Hubnut: thank you for being so relaxing and chilled out. Plus, you put in the title the few times you do have an anger. I enjoy watching your videos at all times of day, but I must say you're wonderfully soporific when I'm so inclined. Your voice is well balanced against the engine noise, which I also find incredibly relaxing by itself. Wonderful to have an evening snooze to in an armchair to :) and then wake up a bit, have more tea, and enjoy hearing more car facts. I'll often put on your older videos on automatic play. So thank you! :D
What a lovely specimen! A business administrator's car, would love one! Never sold in Sweden as far as I know, 518, 520, 523, 528 and 535! Didn't know they sold as automatic, seems to go against economy, even with lock up! Love the Bavarian strict interior, stereo should be Blaupunkt. Suddenly I am craving for Bratwurst and need to search AutoScout24 for a BMW525!
I adore this shape of 5-series, this and the E34 are by far the prettiest and classiest BMWs ever, love it in red too. Used to have friends who had an E-reg 525e and always loved its almost centre exhaust. Great test of a fab car - it’s got the classic 6 cylinder/automatic whine noise too. Sold.
The only BMW I have ever owned was a 2004 318i. It certainly was firmly planted on the road and just rode well. Here in Australia though parts are extremely expensive and dealers or anyone in fact prepared to service or do any work on them are few and far between.
I have one which was made in 85. It came with the 4hp zf as many were made. I just changed the rear diff for a 3.73 instead of the 2.93. The torque converter would lockup at 70km/h rather than 90km/h. I used it as my daily with no highway speed over 100km/h anyway in my area so it was a good upgrade. The low end torque combined with the 4 spd auto (and 3.73 gears) made it very very nice everyday in traffic. It now has a Getrag 240 from a 320i (with the nice ratios), I converted the 3.73 to lsd, fitted a rear sway bar (eibach stamped bmw part). It's a bit different and got away with the original spirit, but it's way way better. The engine has a 731 casting head with the K camshaft (pretty much the same as a 325i cat only 6° advance if I remember), b25 intake, thottle body, afm and motronic 1.3 conversion. Give that 6 injectors from an E36 M3 (S50B30) injectors, drives 100% E85 too. Plan to keep it with my e30. Best bimmers ever
I had a 1973 BMW 2002. It was a very surprising little car. I seem to recall it being a four cylinder and did quite well fuel economy wise while being fairly quick. It also rode surprisingly well for a small car. A fun little car. I have a fondness for BMWs though I have heard reliability is a bit of an issue with some of them.
I have always loved the look of these, any 5 series BMW. I lusted after them and started searching for one. Research showed the service costs, and the cost of fixing one that had not been serviced when it should have been. Scary enough for me to chicken out out buy a 3.5 litre Mitsubishi Magna instead. No BMW for sure, but it went well and handled great.......and I could afford to service it LOL.
Back in the days a friend of mine had a 325i E30 convertible with all options converted to a 325e, IMHO the perfect combination. Still sad that I sold my 318i E30 Touring years ago, best looking car ever...
As an owner of an E28 518is that I´ve had since 2004, I really enjoyed the video. It´s a beautiful car from an era when BMW design was at its best. Quality inside out is surprisingly good and everything just works with basic maintenance. Of course, simple mechanics and electrics helps . My e28 unfortunately only has 4 cylinders, so it lacks a certain effortless prestigious noise reserved for the 6 cylinder models. On the other hand the timing chain of the M10-engine makes owning this classic a bit easier. I´m a bit disappointed Hubnut didn´t make a point of the absolutely fantastic sound of shutting the doors- Think of a zippolighter and a vault that had a baby.
E28 is my favourite BMW, they're so handsome & incredibly well built. The concept of bigger engines to make cars drink less fuel was surprisingly common. Some models of Talbot Horizon came with the 1592cc lump for that reason, the engine doesn't have to try as hard & as a result, drinks less fuel
Even back in the 1980's, BMW's method of monitoring the speed was the use of road side speed cameras and/or the blue lights of a police car. Hence why they only give you a view of speed up to 20mph, and inexcess of 120mph.
@@robertwatts1664 At least in my 84 528e (US version of the 525e) you were able to. I don't remember if the Euro version got the same power seats from factory
I've had two E30 3-series from the same era, and they didn't have much luxury extras, and you could adjust seat height in them ,so I would be very surprised if you can't do it in all 5-series.
I drove an E28 a few years back, a gypsy was selling it in the West of Ireland. Felt like I was driving into the bronx to find this machine to test drive it. But test drive it I did. When I opened the manual sunroof a ton of rust fell on my head. That was the sign I needed to negate the notion of reliving the gentleman of his BMW. Incidentally, comparing the E28 to a Granada is rather like comparing a BMW 3 series to a Ford Sierra. BMW E28 is a 5 series, that's the Sierra equipvalent. The Ford Granada aspired to the refinement of a 7 series BMW, one would be drawn to presume.
we got the E28 turbodiesels here in the states. my grandmother had one when i was a kid and she loved it. oddly enough, the motor was borrowed by Ford for the Lincoln Continental Mark VII of all cars!
That’s a stunning car !. Looks all original, not restored. A great find and a great motor, a credit to all of its owners. The original autobahn stormer !.
As you can tell from my avatar i'm a massive BMW fanboy, especially from this era. My forthcoming (please god) lottery win will be spent on A LOT of old BMW's. This ones a beauty, kudos to the owner! As for 6 cylinder BMW's not being very economical, my 330d has just done a 1300 mile road trip to scotland and back and managed 50 mpg! Amazing.
I love older BMWs from the 80s & 90s but I think modern BMWs are so boring and mundane. Although they are brilliantly engineered car. Can’t believe you got 50mpg in a 330d, that’s well impressive👍
My parents had an e28 1.8 lux throughout my child and teenage years, it was so slow but beautiful. Had it parked on my drive for years with the intention of doing it up and keeping it, but had it scrapped! everytime I think of it I feel sick I'm such a clown but at the time you could pick one up with MOT for £800
I had an E28 524d for a while. It was fun and pretty economical. I think that 3 spoke steering wheel might be an optional extra. The standard one might have been a bit bigger.
Ah, from an era when BMWs were an exercise in perfect proportions and understated design. How times have changed.
Oh well!
F90 M5. Understated, great looking proportions and extremely high performance.
@@unrealeck But dog Shit . Ive been driving BMW's for years . Sadly the new models are just rubbish .
Dilemma... want to upvote but it's at 69 ... noice
yeah now u dont even get a dip stick what progress
The 525e was not so much an economy model, but rather an “efficiency” model, pitched to draw customers from Mercedes and alike, who preferred “sedate progress in comfort”. To that end the model had a more comfortable suspension setup, better insulated engine noise and were equipped rather austere much like the Mercedes models of its day. This example is an “owners preference”, spoilers wheels foglights etc. were not standard. The engine was not just bigger in capacity, but raised compression ratio, low friction pistons, tuned for low end performance (intake/exhaust system + camshaft), and even less stiff valve springs to reduce friction torque. The lowered rev limiter is there for a good reason! The final drive ratio is MUCH taller than the normal models. There was a terrific website about the eta models, it’s offline now unfortunately. As you’ve correctly noted, the model didn’t sell well and was discontinued after this. This example is of the 2nd series, the first series had slightly less power and a 4500rpm (opposed to 4750) redline. The was also an “eta” model of the e30, the 325e.
Wow CreRay, you really know your 525e's sir!
There often seems to be quite a few 525e s for sale on E-Bay though of all the E28s.
There are 4 there right now !
Wow
All I remember is it had a taller final gear (and Iam not sure that was true)
We only got the auto in the uk as the manual gearbox "groaned" at low revs due to the torque. It was considered not BMW enough for the uk. The e is from the greek eta meaning efficiency. Alot of e28 525e's were broken for the the crank (as was mine😮) when they were worthless a few years back for people to build 2.7 ltrs e30's making upto 210bhp with lots of torque. Alpina used the diesel crank.
Wow thanks for the extra info. Is there any particular reason why this model/engine never took off?!?
Can't beat the classic 'Hubnut pulling away from standstill and pushing his glasses up immediately' move. Should be your trademark 😁😂
Hubatio kaine
One of my all time favourite beemers of the 80s it’s a shame they don’t build them like this anymore, they just were better in every way in 80s and 90s. In my personal opinion
As someone who eats their dinner in the car at work. I really appreciate these 12pm uploads, thanks
Lol I do exactly the same. I much prefer eating in privacy for some reason. Don’t know why but I can’t standing sitting with loads of people from work, eating my dinner!
Matt Y With coronavirus it’s often a matter of going through the drive through, then take food to parking lot....put phone in holder and have your meal with TH-cam in the car....and everyone in the parking area are doing the same thing!
John Garrison yes Joe same here. If I have a McDonald’s or BurgerKing I always use the drive thru. Plus I can eat more like a pig in my car and don’t have to watch my etiquette😂
"I've always wanted to drive this car, just for the wipers"
Yeah, that's an immediate subscribe. Found you from Aging Wheels on Twitter.
I owned one of these twice, got it back from a mate years later. Just a wonderful drive, especially around town. Wish BMWs were still this nice and easy to work on.
The owner of this car lives somewhere near me. Always nice to see it. Such great condition and such elegant styling compared to modern vehicles. Unusual colour for a 5-series too.
So glad you got round to reviewing this lovely example of an E28. I had four of them, including a 525e. Very torquey car.. and switching to sport mode was good fun when needing to overtake! Happy times. Regret having to sell! Thank you Mr HubNut!
I am not into BMW's but this is a lovely classy machine. Enormous thumbs up to Hubnut for test driving this machine.
Personally I much prefer the older BMWs. The modern BMWs are so boring and generic. At least back in the 80s and 90s they built cars that looked what you paid for. Now your average BMW just looks like a boring Vauxhall👎🏻
Not into Bmw ? Not a true petrol head mate..
@@matty6848 Same with some modern Jags. When the XF first appeared around 2008, I thought it was the same shape as the then-new Vectra. Or was it Vauxhall Sigman or something? Sorry. I'm so bored I forgot what it was LOL.
@@360nastybusiness Sorry, but no; BMWs are something people 'aspire' to, like iPhones; petrol heads go for things like Alphas, Lancias (RIP, at least in the UK), and Subarus
Beautiful car, love the look of those shark-nose BMW's, much better looking than those new ones with overgrown kidneys.
Most BMW's up until the mid or late 2000's look moderately decent imo.
Afterwards, the cars became fatter and the grilles become unreasonably large.
Germaine Liew I believe that they started with the massive grills to suit the Chinese market as they like bling. Pretty much ruined the front of most of their range
I think recent BMW models all look alike; shrunk or stretched, they all look the same.
BMWs is so bloated now.
@@boundish1 That and the fact that you cannot tell one model from another.
Who would have thought that the 'e' would be back 30 years later to represent a plug in hybrid!!
Fantastic car! (I’m extremely biased though as I own one myself) and a fantastic review as always from Hubnut! At the risk of being pedantic, the blanking plugs you mention for the windows are, in fact, a manual override. E28s with wind up windows had the crank mounted much higher up towards the electric mirror switch but still on the fabric portion of the door card. The plug can be removed if the power window fails and you use the socket in the tool kit to manually close it.
Now that is a bit of smart engineering.
its nice to see a decent looking BMW. The styling on the older cars from the 1960's to early 2000's is so much better than the ugly new cars being made today.
I owned this very car a few years back ..I bid and bought it on eBay and travelled to London to pick it up from Wembley park ..couldn't believe my luck when I seen the condition of it... driving it back I noticed the last fifty miles it started using a lot more fuel and when I got home I discovered the fuel line that runs over the top of the engine had perished and it had been spraying petrol onto the exhaust manifold..miracle it survived .. beautiful reliable car
Hi Lee. I changed all the lines again recently just in case. Modern fuel plays havoc with them. Fitted Gates Barracuda hoses now. Also did the rear ones around the pump and filter. It really is a lovely car. I'm having a someone round today to do some paint correction and apply a protective coating.
"Passenger arc has a lovely swing on it". A phrase you would never hear anywhere else! Lovely car. Not a huge fam of BMWs but that's one I'd own 👍
My first BMW was a 1986 E30 320i. My current one is a F31 320d. You have made me want to sell the new car for an old one. I still regret selling my E34 525i. The best car I've ever driven. Still want an E24 635csi Highline though...
I used to have a 525ee which was a New Zealand only model. The extra e standing for executive. It had air conditioning, electric sunroof, electric Windows, premium sound system, sports steering wheel and lovely and I think unique woollen fabric seats and interior panels. Really was a lovely car. Very relaxing to drive but with a surprising turn of speed.
I like this one a lot. Yonks ago we had a 518i as our daily driver. It was a nice car. We christened it "The Dutchess" as it just made stately progress. It had a nice quality feel to it even though it was the bottom line model. It was C reg and on one outing to Cheltenham the kids pointed out it was the oldest car they had seen on the entire journey. Steel wheels and plastic hubcaps. I swapped on a set of alloys I got from the scrapyard for £30.
True about economy and big engines. I did a trip 2 up around France in my 2012 Jag XK 5.0 V8 and it did 32 mpg over 1500 miles.
@@glennpowell3444 A Belmont was always a poor choice.
Renault did a very similar thing with their 1st gen. R5. They offered the frugal 5GTL that had a larger 1.4L engine that used an restrictive small carburetor, a tame torquey camshaft and tall gearing.
It worked!
Another fuel saving trick from the era of the first oil crisis (1973-ish) was to disable the 2nd stage of a vacume operated 2stage carburetor.
In this BMW ETA you can also see this fuel saving influence on the instrument cluster, it has a big vacume guage to indicate if engine was guzzling or if it was running frugally.
Glenn Powell yes so you end up flooring it every gear obviously killing the economy that they were built for!
That e28 is gorgeous. Best car you’ve tested IMHO. I’d love to own that
One of my favorite generations of BMW by far. Just love the styling.
Those ETA m20 engines were very popular for tuning. I believe they used the forged crank of the 524td engine. And the 2.7L was very powerfull if you would combine it with the high compression cylinder head of the e30 325i.
Together with a properly tuned ECU his would make for an easy and reliable 200+hp engine.
Alpina basically did this for their e30 C1-2,7L, other tuners like Hartge did similar setups.
They didn't have the forged crank of the diesel but they did have the same stroke
Lovely Jubbly, enjoyed that. No airbag, doesn't it look better.
It does, but that one time you get to look really really closely at the steering wheel, you are glad the airbag is there.. (if you know what I mean)
I was very surprised that you felt comfortable in the rear with good headroom. Visibility seemed great too. True, the Ford Granada Ghia may have edged it for refinement but it is a larger vehicle overall. I truly believe that BMW engineers came pretty close to perfection with the 525e. Executive comfort, 6 cylinder smoothness and response, automatic transmission with manual economy. The paint is lovely and the interior is immaculate. A credit to a careful owner.
I had an 1986 e28 525i Automatic 10 years ago. Loved it! Excellent for long trips and still relatively fast, even at almost 25 years old.
Thank you Richard - you are a credit to classic car custodianship.
I drove one of these back in the 80s. It was loaned to me while my own vehicle was in for repairs. It was in pretty poor condition bodywork wise, but excellent mechanically. It had a light at the bottom of the dash to tell you which gear you were in and changed automatically along with the gearbox. Pretty smart thing to have really. This one is a really nice example and is a real credit to it's owner.
After seeing the new M4, the hideous grille I genuinely thought was a meme at first, I love to see a genuinely good looking BMW. The E28 is one of my favourites.
Personally I can’t stand the 4 series. Such a pointless car, especially as the new 3 series is a great liking car.
Great car ,looking very sharp in red, had a few of these 20 or so years ago mostly rotten and loose to drive but even then they always looked something, never payed more the 2 or 3 hundred pounds for them, great days ,also the same thing applies to the ford Granada you tested from the same guy, I remember buying a gold 2.8 i Ghia x estate car in really okay condition for £400 to drive to Glastonbury festival in 1994 another great car ,unfortunately that rotted out round the bulkhead because of blocked drainage holes, so very well done to the owner for keeping these two great cars on the road.
Very desirable car in its day way beyond my means … didn’t stop me test driving one. That engine
Very supportive seats, they're always telling you how well you're doing while you're driving....
In America these were called the 528e, but had the same 2.7 litre engine. I had an 1982, which was the first year the E28 was released and for that year the ETA was the only available version of the 5-series we could get in the US as the 533i did not reach these shores until 1983. Mine was lapis blue with blue interior and a 5 speed manual transmission. While my steering wheel was not quite as sporty, it did have front and rear power windows, air conditioning, a bank of warning lights above the rear view mirror and an early attempt at an on board computer. Sometime in the 1980's, the original owner installed a cell phone, however by the time I bought the car in 1994, the early style of cell phones were largely obsolete. I bought it with 141,000 miles on the odometer and sold it seven years late with a whopping 325,000 miles on it.
Memories!!! My dad owned a 525e for a short while. It was replaced by a Rover 827Si fastback.
Finally someone has done a video on the BMW e28 525e and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Had one of these for many years and it was so relaxing to drive with it's low revving, long stroke, big capacity, high torque, low friction engine and armchair like seats. It would return 25 mpg around town and upper 30's on a long run all with whisper quietness and silky smooth six cylinders. This chappie seems to review all the cars I've admired throughout my years with his honest, frank and sensible observations, I find myself agreeing with most of what he has to say. Really like the way the video is wrapped up at the end too with the zoom in to the grille and the 'copter view as the car drives off and you can hear the engine first ticking over and then the exhaust doing its stuff as he drives off. Great job, keep 'em coming I say. P.S. any chance you could review an E21?
These and E21 3 series are my favourite bimmers of all time! Amongst some very interesting cars up and down my road (and a helicopter casually parked in someone's drive, as you do) there's a lovely E24 6 Series parked up in a drive and collecting moss and bird bombs, it hasn't moved for years! I'd love to have the spare cash and and a smile winning enough to part it from its owner.
Great review Ian, I absolutely love these cars and their oddly just off centre echausts!
EDIT: What ever is C3PO up to though?! 😂
What a great car, you certainly did this one justice Ian. Incidentally I had a 1997 528i with a 5 speed box back in 2000 whilst living in the forest of dean and that was a wonderful car.
I got myself a rust free Spanish E28 525i with the bulletproof M30 engine 4 years ago.
Coolest car I ever owned, love it to bits.
Beautiful! 2.7 litre ETA engine lovely!! I had the M5 in 2001, it was lovely and absolute weapon. It appears this E28 has the M5 splitter on it too.
You have brought back some delicious memories. I had one of these back in the day. Mine had the "525E" badge on the back and the E stood for Etta.
Thank you. Ken
I’ve had lots of e28s and the 525e is my favourite used last one as a daily driver for 10 years. The 525e I thought always had a sound of its own
Steering wheel is elegant, very nice design.
I used to own this car 10years ago. It’s beautiful and so pleased to see it again, in such good condition. 😍
Hi. Interesting to hear you once owned this. I know two of the previous owners who had this since about 2012 I think. I bought it in 2017. Whereabouts are you in the country and how long did you have it etc? Thanks
@@MrRickp78 Hi, I purchased this from the original owner in 2010 and owned it for around 18months. I took on a 2 secondment abroad so sold my cars. It only had 88k on the clock when I had it. I love the E28, particularly the 525e’s.
I’m based in North West London. The chap that I sold it to lived up in the north of the country I believe.
@@nishilpatel1824 thanks for your reply. Yes I bought it from near Cramlington and drove it nearly 200 miles home. Took a chance and booked a one way train ticket after work and got back about 2am! It had an annoying occasional starting issue that ended up being the gearbox speed sensors but simple fix. It really is a lovely car. Interesting to hear the original owner had it some 23 years! Thanks
Back in those days, I drove those E28 524TD, with manual and automatic. Wonderful and responsive diesel and good memories.
My mother had exactly the same car back in the 80's. Same model,same colour,same wheels.
I always did like that particular 5-series of Beemer. Someone where I once worked had one and I loved it. Nice video as usual.
Not a fan of modern BMWs or the kind of people who often drive them, but this is a lovely looking, beautifully preserved vehicle. I think it's the combination of the red paint, chrome and that shark nose that does it for me. And I miss velour interiors. I guess the far eastern markets (which seem to dictate car design now) don't like them, but I wish they'd bring them back!
75 looks great too, sitting over to the side :)
Sounds like seat needed lowering a bit to help with visibility?
Thanks for another great review of another car from a golden era when different manufacturers actually offered different characteristics in their model line up. I was going to buy one of these as my second ever car but bought an 87 730iSE instead. What an expensive mistake that was!!
Takes me back to my 325i E30. I revelled in wet roundabouts what with the LSD. Made going sideways such fun. Loved the glorious straight six soundtrack.
Honeslty mate, I don't know what it is but I find your videos both very interesting and extremely calming at the same time. They've actually been a great help to me over the last few months with all the stress of COVID. Keep it up.
(PS if you're ever tempted to make it to Brisbane back in Aus one day I've got a poverty-spec Mk1 Golf 'Clipper' Cabriolet and a fully-optioned '88 Accord (yes I know you've already done the Aerodeck!) with your name on them.)
I had an e34 535i. (manual), On the open road I could get 31 mpg while cruising between 75 & 85 mph. Admittedly it was at altitude of around 1600m which helps. The secret for me was to never touch the brake pedal and never slow down for corners.
Yay old BMW content! 😃
The spare wheel is indeed under the boot floor, but it is on the left hand side.
You'd think having the interior lights in the middle of the roof would be good, but in reality they're useless.
The inspection lights are almost always non-functional on these, they do whatever they please!
The steering wheel is reach adjustment only and there isn't much travel. There is no height adjustment.
The drivers seat should have height adjustment (sometimes jammed) which might go some way to explaining your issue with seeing the gauges, and the feeling of being too high up!
Had a couple of 520i versions, and absolutely adored them. I would have another one in a second.
What an absolutely delightful car to watch, drive and sit it as a passenger. You really can't fault it.
very impressed how fast the kick down was
My father has been driving BMW 5 series since 1978 till today. As a solid family car for 10 years of usuage per model, it was never disappointing. Although the older BMW 6 cylinders engines 40 years ago had not been reliable at all and needed to be changed frequently...
What a pristine example. Wow. I drove one of these back around 2005 with an odometer stuck at 177k miles. It didn't look or sound nearly as lovely as this one.
Brilliant video Ian lovely old car pity they don't make them like that any more
Yes everything nowadays is complete shit. I often wonder why I don’t just end it all.
These 5 series have the strongest character, out of all 5 series generations.
Hubnut is currently doing the greatest hits of my youth. Last week's Granada (identical to one I had) and I also had the 2 litre straight six of this very model, and also one of my favourite cars that I ever owned. If I won the lottery, I wouldn't buy a supercar, I'd buy mint versions of what's currently appearing on 'Nut!
Love the e28 5 series and 520i was my favourite for its silky smooth inline six - these cars saw the BMW brand take off in Australia and the 325e and 525e only came to Australia in ‘86 as we transitioned to unleaded fuel and this saw them as the only models until cats were fitted to other models - eta was designed for low down torque which Australia’s like
This may be the most beautiful saloon car ever made
The time when BMW made good looking cars . Unfortunately they have lost the knack since . Pity really
That's still a very nice car and very HubNut
We had E34 535i with the same velour seats. As a boy I sat in the back and both interior and ride were very comfortable. Lovely car but MPG was 19. Lovely engine sound
Steering column adjust was for reach only, if I remember correctly
Yep even the e34 is like that..
And I'm pretty sure you can adjust the seat in a million ways
@@rohankiwi well unless u got the sport seats ur kinda limited
Dear Mr Hubnut: thank you for being so relaxing and chilled out. Plus, you put in the title the few times you do have an anger.
I enjoy watching your videos at all times of day, but I must say you're wonderfully soporific when I'm so inclined. Your voice is well balanced against the engine noise, which I also find incredibly relaxing by itself. Wonderful to have an evening snooze to in an armchair to :) and then wake up a bit, have more tea, and enjoy hearing more car facts. I'll often put on your older videos on automatic play.
So thank you! :D
What a lovely specimen! A business administrator's car, would love one! Never sold in Sweden as far as I know, 518, 520, 523, 528 and 535! Didn't know they sold as automatic, seems to go against economy, even with lock up! Love the Bavarian strict interior, stereo should be Blaupunkt. Suddenly I am craving for Bratwurst and need to search AutoScout24 for a BMW525!
For that authentic 1980's German vibe, you could also play Big in Japan by Alphaville whilst driving this car 😁
Love these 5- Series. Thanks for this upload.
I adore this shape of 5-series, this and the E34 are by far the prettiest and classiest BMWs ever, love it in red too. Used to have friends who had an E-reg 525e and always loved its almost centre exhaust. Great test of a fab car - it’s got the classic 6 cylinder/automatic whine noise too. Sold.
all too often today quality looks vulgar, but back then... very different. Maybe I'm gettin old. Great vid Ian, thanks
Glorious. Love a BMW straight 6!
The only BMW I have ever owned was a 2004 318i. It certainly was firmly planted on the road and just rode well. Here in Australia though parts are extremely expensive and dealers or anyone in fact prepared to service or do any work on them are few and far between.
I have one which was made in 85. It came with the 4hp zf as many were made. I just changed the rear diff for a 3.73 instead of the 2.93. The torque converter would lockup at 70km/h rather than 90km/h. I used it as my daily with no highway speed over 100km/h anyway in my area so it was a good upgrade. The low end torque combined with the 4 spd auto (and 3.73 gears) made it very very nice everyday in traffic.
It now has a Getrag 240 from a 320i (with the nice ratios), I converted the 3.73 to lsd, fitted a rear sway bar (eibach stamped bmw part). It's a bit different and got away with the original spirit, but it's way way better. The engine has a 731 casting head with the K camshaft (pretty much the same as a 325i cat only 6° advance if I remember), b25 intake, thottle body, afm and motronic 1.3 conversion. Give that 6 injectors from an E36 M3 (S50B30) injectors, drives 100% E85 too. Plan to keep it with my e30. Best bimmers ever
I had a 1973 BMW 2002. It was a very surprising little car. I seem to recall it being a four cylinder and did quite well fuel economy wise while being fairly quick. It also rode surprisingly well for a small car. A fun little car. I have a fondness for BMWs though I have heard reliability is a bit of an issue with some of them.
I have always loved the look of these, any 5 series BMW. I lusted after them and started searching for one. Research showed the service costs, and the cost of fixing one that had not been serviced when it should have been. Scary enough for me to chicken out out buy a 3.5 litre Mitsubishi Magna instead. No BMW for sure, but it went well and handled great.......and I could afford to service it LOL.
Blooming heck! I lived 1.4 miles from the dealership that registered that car at that time. Happy days! A northerner now.
Back in the days a friend of mine had a 325i E30 convertible with all options converted to a 325e, IMHO the perfect combination. Still sad that I sold my 318i E30 Touring years ago, best looking car ever...
As an owner of an E28 518is that I´ve had since 2004, I really enjoyed the video. It´s a beautiful car from an era when BMW design was at its best. Quality inside out is surprisingly good and everything just works with basic maintenance. Of course, simple mechanics and electrics helps . My e28 unfortunately only has 4 cylinders, so it lacks a certain effortless prestigious noise reserved for the 6 cylinder models. On the other hand the timing chain of the M10-engine makes owning this classic a bit easier.
I´m a bit disappointed Hubnut didn´t make a point of the absolutely fantastic sound of shutting the doors- Think of a zippolighter and a vault that had a baby.
Fantastic wiper action! RHD as well 👍🏻
My favourite looking 5-series still looking good for its age. But I also liked the mk2 Granada. Lovely well made simplicity
E28 is my favourite BMW, they're so handsome & incredibly well built. The concept of bigger engines to make cars drink less fuel was surprisingly common. Some models of Talbot Horizon came with the 1592cc lump for that reason, the engine doesn't have to try as hard & as a result, drinks less fuel
Yes handsome
Even back in the 1980's, BMW's method of monitoring the speed was the use of road side speed cameras and/or the blue lights of a police car. Hence why they only give you a view of speed up to 20mph, and inexcess of 120mph.
So that's why BMWs go so fast, as their drivers can't see the speedo! :)
Only one for sale here in Au, an 1984 E28 528i Executive Auto for £31,000.
The steering wheel can only be adjusted for column length , not angle, so push or pull the wheel with the adjuster unlocked.
@@robertwatts1664 I had the E34 - you can in that variant of the 5 series. The base has 2 adjustments, front & rear of the seat base.
@@robertwatts1664 At least in my 84 528e (US version of the 525e) you were able to. I don't remember if the Euro version got the same power seats from factory
I've had two E30 3-series from the same era, and they didn't have much luxury extras, and you could adjust seat height in them ,so I would be very surprised if you can't do it in all 5-series.
Truly liked that model you drove, had a E34 diesel few years ago, found it gutless but built like a Tank....
A very nice example. The colour almost matches the colour of the braces from the 80s loadsamoney brigade. Good review Ian.
I drove an E28 a few years back, a gypsy was selling it in the West of Ireland. Felt like I was driving into the bronx to find this machine to test drive it. But test drive it I did. When I opened the manual sunroof a ton of rust fell on my head. That was the sign I needed to negate the notion of reliving the gentleman of his BMW.
Incidentally, comparing the E28 to a Granada is rather like comparing a BMW 3 series to a Ford Sierra.
BMW E28 is a 5 series, that's the Sierra equipvalent.
The Ford Granada aspired to the refinement of a 7 series BMW, one would be drawn to presume.
top comments !
we got the E28 turbodiesels here in the states. my grandmother had one when i was a kid and she loved it. oddly enough, the motor was borrowed by Ford for the Lincoln Continental Mark VII of all cars!
Outside of the likes of E-types and Miuras, I can't think of many better-looking cars than this one. What a fantastic design.
That’s a stunning car !. Looks all original, not restored. A great find and a great motor, a credit to all of its owners. The original autobahn stormer !.
I had one of those, air con and 4 electric windows. Had a bigger and older style wheel that didn't obscure the gauges
Really enjoyable, those older BMWs and this is a fine example of the breed.
As you can tell from my avatar i'm a massive BMW fanboy, especially from this era. My forthcoming (please god) lottery win will be spent on A LOT of old BMW's. This ones a beauty, kudos to the owner!
As for 6 cylinder BMW's not being very economical, my 330d has just done a 1300 mile road trip to scotland and back and managed 50 mpg! Amazing.
I love older BMWs from the 80s & 90s but I think modern BMWs are so boring and mundane. Although they are brilliantly engineered car. Can’t believe you got 50mpg in a 330d, that’s well impressive👍
beautiful looking car, much better looking than the stuff they are churning out now
My parents had an e28 1.8 lux throughout my child and teenage years, it was so slow but beautiful.
Had it parked on my drive for years with the intention of doing it up and keeping it, but had it scrapped! everytime I think of it I feel sick I'm such a clown but at the time you could pick one up with MOT for £800
I had an E28 524d for a while. It was fun and pretty economical. I think that 3 spoke steering wheel might be an optional extra. The standard one might have been a bit bigger.
I think you Could be correct!
Correct, standard was a 4-spoke steering wheel, with the typical horn buttons in the spokes.
I put that 3 spoke wheel on my E30 316i myself after finding it in a junkyard. Back when they still let you wander around junkyards.
Lovely. The best styling era. Cheers