2002 BMW M5

2002 BMW M5

I bought this car from Momentum BMW of Houston with about 20,000 miles on it but in mint condition.  An M5 had been on my wish list for years, and while this one is now two generations old, at the time it was the "new one".  I kept it and drove it for a long time before finally selling it for considerably less than what I paid for it.  

Unlike a 1999 M3 that I had previously owned, this car had some real power.  It was a beast at the time with about 400 HP - and you could feel every one!  The car was fairly tame when just driving around, but when you dropped the hammer you knew it.  The M5 is really best described as a German muscle car.

I loved the car, but the 6-speed manual wore on me over time.  As a daily driver it was an automatic away from being one of my favorites.  The clutch was just too heavy to be a comfortable car in the real world.  Still, no real complaints and I would certainly enjoy one again.  

That said, there are good reasons not to buy one.  You can get this body style M5 for very little money today, but I'm not sure you should.  Maintenance costs are going to be excessive, and I doubt many of these were "babied" - they're just too much fun to drive hard.  

Interestingly, I've owned 13 BMW's over the years but this is the newest one I've had.  I just stopped buying them for some reason.  I hate the SMG transmissions they started putting on cars for one thing.  Another problem is that they all started looking alike to me.  The 3-5-7 series became difficult to tell apart to the untrained eye.  I guess that's what they were going for, but it was a mistake in my book.