Annual Service & Top-Speed Run - V8 BMW E39 M5: The Autobahn Mile-Muncher

Coming up! We drive fast. We're gonna call it 300. And there's a dead animal in my taillight. There's laughter. And of course, strawberries. I love strawberries. Welcome to what is a very clean and beautiful BMW E39 M5. And today we are going to do an annual service on it. I've had this beauty for nearly three years now. It's my third E39 M5 and my favorite car ever. I initially did a ton of work on it. That was before I started YouTubing. Mainly preventative maintenance and it's been very happy. 30,000 kilometers ever since. Let's get it inside and I'll talk you through what we are going to do. There are several things that I do every year or after a certain number of kilometers on all of my cars as part of the service schedule. Engine oil on this particular car I do it every 6,000 kilometers just because of the way I use it. And that is foot to the floor most of the time on the autobahn. Otherwise on your normal engines like an E46 or E32, max 10,000 kilometers or once a year. Whatever comes first. Engine air filters and cabin air filters once a year. Coolant every two years. Brake fluid depending on what type of fluid you're running. Once a year or max two years. We're also going to upgrade the brake master cylinder today. Transmission and differential oil every 50,000 kilometers. Okay, I do it every 30 on this car and we are going to replace them today. Power steering fluid every 50,000 kilometers. And that's I think all of the fluids. Let's get oily and I'll show you underneath the car once we're done exchanging bodily fluids. And then of course we'll go fly down the autobahn later. Sounds like a plan. Gonna start with the oil change since the engine is nice and hot. I just drove it on the autobahn. And we are gonna first remove the oil filter. So whatever oil is in the oil filter housing can drain into the pan. Anything interesting in here? Nope. Put the cap back and get the car up in the air. Remove the plastic protection so we can have easier look around. 13 was it? So on every oil change I collect an oil sample and send it to Blackstone Labs in the US. And they do the analysis and tell me the health of the engine. And if there's like a lot of metal or something like that. So far I've done like four or five of these I think. And all of them were like super clean. Oh no. Drop the drain plug. Let's catch here. Perfect. All right, that's enough. Refit the plug. Make it good and tight. Nothing more, nothing less. And let's go up top and replenish it with oil. The engine oil. Prescribed oil from the factory for this car is 10W-60. And that's what this engine saw ever since it was new. But I'm gonna try something else now. 10W-60 is great oil. But it's really thick for cold starts. And especially if you live in colder climates like I do in Germany in winter. 10W-60 it's like honey, literally. And recently I put 5W-50 in the E60 M5. And I immediately noticed three things. One, the cold start is much smoother, much quieter. Two, it gets up to operating temperature a lot quicker. And three, the engine is just revving a lot easier and a lot quicker than before. When you give it throttle, it just goes a lot smoother. Which comes with thinner oil. The oil spec is very similar to 10W-60. Of course, it's a bit lower. But it should be fine in the long run. At one point, BMW actually prescribed 5W-30 for this engine in the US. So some engines actually sell that oil as well. But I just wouldn't go thinner than 5W-50. And I'm not trying to force anyone's opinion or give recommendations. Just I don't care. Use whatever you want. This is my car and I just want to experiment a little bit. If I like it, I'm going to keep using that oil. If I don't, I'm going to switch back to 10W-60 and next oil change. Simple as that. And when it comes to oil, just keep up with the oil changes. That's the most important thing here. Fresh oil and regular oil changes will keep your engine happy. No Legos in the old oil filter. It's clean. Lube up the o-ring. Now get the oil and start filling the oil filter housing. All the way to the top. And slowly insert the new filter. It's more fun without the funnel. The oil capacity for this engine is 6.5 liters. I've put around five and a half. So now I'm going to start it. Let it idle. Then shut it off. Wait one minute. And then you pull the dipstick out and take the reading. Perfect oil level should be between minimum and max. So right on the half. That's how you take the reading on the S62 engine. Sounds about the same as before. But I had no change in sound when I put it in E60. So I'm not expecting anything there. Next up, cabin air filters and engine air filters. A little bit dirty. Pay attention to the airflow. Let's do the engine air filters. Again, a little bit dirty. You might say I'm crazy for replacing this. But that's my maintenance schedule. There you go. Finito. Now I'm going to go for a test drive. And then tomorrow we're going to do the rest of the fluids. It's the following day. And I just wanted to quickly reflect on the oil change. I experienced the same things as I did on the E60. Cold start, much quieter, much smoother. The engine is getting up to temperature a lot quicker. Before with 10W-60, when I drove from my home to here to the garage, it would never get up to temp. With 5W-50, it did. I also drove it on the Autobahn and the engine feels more alive. It feels like it's revving quicker, like it's a tiny bit faster. I mean, different oil is not going to make your car go any faster. But it just feels more alive. And I like all of those things. When it comes to the sound on the idle of the engine, it sounds exactly the same as before. And well, I like all of those benefits. Let's call them that. And I'm going to keep at it. I'm going to do another oil change with 5W-50. I'm going to send oil for analysis, see what the results are. And if I like it, I'm going to keep using that. Edit that out. And I want to talk about gearbox in E39 M5 and gearbox oil. If you own one of these cars or you've driven one, you're probably familiar with the second crunchy gear when the car is cold. Every time you start the car cold, you have to Arnold Schwarzenegger it into the second gear. And I own three of these cars. I test drove many of them. And it's always the same story. One of them was a really low mileage car. And just when the car is cold, it's just really difficult to shift into the second gear. As soon as it gets a bit warmer, it's shifting fine. And over the years, I've tried a bunch of different fluids to see will help. I tried the original BMW fluid. I tried Castrol 75W. I tried Motul DCTF, which is in the car right now. And all of them are fine in the beginning for like first 100 kilometers or so. And then as the time passes and you drive the car more and more, you're back to the same thing. It's just really difficult to shift into the second gear. And I hate that. So this is Liqui Moly 75W. There's BMW part number. MTF LT3 approved. So you can go into this gearbox. And gearbox oil additive MOS2, which is a friction additive. And I put this in my E46 before the winter. And I started that car in minus 10 degrees Celsius. And it was shifting fine from the first like shift. It would shift smoothly into the second gear. That being said, E46, the tiny gearbox in the 325i, is completely different than the gearbox in the E395. But I'm going to try this sauce and see how I like it. Hopefully, it's a bit better. Especially this thing is really good for friction or whatever. So we're going to give it a go. And then as the time passes, I'm going to let you know how it goes. And if I feel any improvements. Otherwise, there's nothing that can be done, I guess. I know some guys in the US run Royal Purple, but I heard the same thing. It's really good in the beginning. But as the time passes, you're back to square one. So if you have any suggestions as well, let me know and I'll ignore them. Anyway, let's go. As always, crack open the fill plug first. Get eye protection because this is going to be one big splash. Brace yourself. Yep. What did I tell you? It's pretty clean. Let it drip away. Refit the plug. And I use some thread sealer. Pay attention. I didn't say locker. Thread sealer. So it doesn't leak through the threads of the plug. First, add the additive. Squeeze it in there. Now replenish with oil. I love Liqui Moly bottles because they have this thing. Makes it easy to refill. Pump. And we are pumping until the fluid comes out. Yep, we're there. Let it drip out and then refit the plug. All right, that's enough. Give it some torque. That's enough. And then just clean it. And now the diff oil. If you remember when I made a video on this car last time, it was a long time ago. The diff was wet. It was leaking from the seal here. And now it's dry. I didn't clean this. So you got a lot of its self-healing powers. Anyway, let's replace the fluid. Yep. Nice and full. And then a spanner. Will that work? It did. And now the fluid. 1.2 liter is the capacity. Yep. Full. Close it. Good. Now the coolant. It's been about two years since I flushed the coolant. So it's right on time. And I didn't use any since then. It's not leaking. So that's good. Gonna unscrew the cap. Lay it like that. And then drain it from the bottom. The coolant is drained on three places. Radiator drain plug, of course. And then there are two plugs on the block. Gonna start with this one. Get ready to get coolant everywhere. That hurts, bastard. Oh, there we are. And now we need to drain from the block. That's the plug here on the passenger side. That's on the driver's side. And that one is a little bit tricky to get to. You need to be a magician or made of rubber or something to get to it. And this one makes a mess. It really does. It goes everywhere. Yeah, great. Need a bigger pan, but don't have it. Oh, yeah. It's going everywhere. So that went according to the plan. Really did. I have a bigger pan. But just now I realized it has a gaping hole over there. So I need to buy a new one. It's garbage. Okay, so that's fixed. Plug with a new gasket ring going in. And that's torqued. This one is a little bit trickier. But with long extensions, it's doable. Oh, my. Oh, that was a firm one. So a lot less is going to come out here. Here comes the waterfall. That's it. Now, new drain plug. Always try to use a new one because there's an o-ring on it. And you don't want this to leak. Here's the new one. There it is. To vest it. Look at that. And now let's spray brake cleaner everywhere. And that's all more or less clean. Now we're going to go up top, re-add the coolant, start the car, and then come back and verify there are no leaks. This is the coolant from Liqui Moly. And it's Blau, like B&W OEM coolant. And it's mixed 50-50 with Vasa. Adding the coolant to S65 engine is the easiest thing in the world. Ignition on. Set the temperature to max. And fan on the lowest setting. That way, heater core valves are open and we can start adding coolant. The system is self-bleeding. So you don't have to do any special bleeding procedure. Only that thing that I did in the cabin. Once you top it off to maximum, start it. Let it cool off later and recheck the coolant out if necessary. And that's it. The level is good. Now you can start it. Let it run for a little bit and recheck coolant later. Now to verify your excellence, radiator drain plug not leaking. Block not leaking. And good here as well. That is a job well done. Power steering fluid. It just uses your typical ATF. A really good way to flush the entire system on this car is to remove the power steering reservoir. Then get a big bucket. Fill it up with four or five liters of fresh ATF. Connect the hose to the bottom of the bucket. You're going to need a valve of some sort. Then connect that line to the feed line. And then return line to an empty bucket. Start the car for 30 to 60 seconds. And it's going to flush the entire system. I think three liters should be more than enough. The whole system is one, one and a half liters. I don't have space or such contraption to do that operation now. But I will in future. Because it's a really good way to make sure you flush the entire system. Now I'm just going to do the old suck out. Put the fresh fluid in. Turn the car on. Turn it off. And we're going to do that five to ten times depending on the mood. And you want to do that on an engine that's warm. You don't want to start and stop an engine that's cold. I have a ginormous syringe here. It looks smaller in the pictures when I bought it. One and a half liters. I did replace this reservoir when I did all the maintenance on the car. Top it off with fresh ATF. That squeaking Mickey Mouse sound. I don't know what that is. It happened a couple of times in the past recently. Before I parked it for winter. I think it's the starter. But I'm going to remove all of the belts now. And just start spinning stuff to see if anything feels wrong. We are done. I got over one and a half liters of fluid out. There's still some in the syringe as well. And it looks pretty good. Still nice red color. And I did this procedure two years ago. And it just keeps the fluid fresh. When you see coffee color of this fluid. That's really bad. But this is really good. I did replace everything on the front of the engine when I bought the car. So all of the belts. Pulleys. Tensioners. Rebuilt the alternator. Bearings and the regulator. Water pump. So nothing should be amiss. But let's see. That squeaking sound. I think it's the starter. But let's verify. So let's check the pulley. That's fine. The lower one is fine as well. The alternator that I rebuilt. Sounds fine. Power steering pump. Yep. Everything sounds fine. This is a continental belt that I used. No cracks or anything. Installed brand new three years ago. Let's remove the AC belt. That belt is like brand new as well. Pulley. Good. AC compressor pulley. Good. So everything is rotating fine. Everything is still great. I had a friend start the car while I was underneath with a stethoscope. Listening to the starter. And I think it's coming from over there. Because I can hear resemblance of that sound coming from it. Of course you wouldn't make that big screeching sound. But I'm pretty sure it's coming from the starter. Did you know that every single E39. Starting from the least powerful one. I think 520 to the most powerful one. The M5 shared the exact same brake master cylinder. Even though 520 has pathetic little brakes. And the M5 has the big brakes and big calipers. And I owned an E39 530i. That was my first BMW actually. And I distinctively remember how much better the brake pedal feel was on that car. Compared to the M5. It's just a lot shorter. A lot firmer. And it just feels overall a lot better. And I did some research couple of years ago. To see if I can find a bigger master cylinder to fit on this car. That can help with the brake pedal feel. Because it's just really annoying. Especially when you drive an E46 for example. And then I jump back into this car. Even though the brakes are 100 times better. Like braking wise. The pedal is just not there. So my research brought me to this. This is a brake master cylinder from an E65. Which is the 7 series that came after an E38. And physically they are pretty much identical to the one in the E39. Except this connection here. It is M12. And on the E39 it's M10. So we need to use this adapter here to convert it. I'll leave the part number for that. But the reason I want to try this brake master cylinder. Is because it has slightly larger front diameter bore. Than the one on the E39. And I don't know much on this topic. But I do know that a lot of owners of E30s. When they do big brake upgrade kit. They use E32 master cylinders. Because they are bigger. To help with the brake pedal feel. So that's what I'm trying to do here. Hopefully this helps and makes the pedal a bit more firmer. I posted this research a couple of years ago on m5board. And a few people already tried this mod. And they were all pleased with it. And as a bonus you're getting a brand new master cylinder. And it's not that expensive. It's like 60 euro or something. The only thing that needs to be done. Besides converting this line. Is this flange needs to be grinded off a little bit. So that the reservoir can fit. But other than that everything else is plug and play. Since all of the hardware is coming out. I'm also going to replace the brake booster. It's not that expensive. And might as well put the new one in. Since that one is what 20 years old now. Anyway let's get cracking and see how this works. The brake master cylinder and the brake booster. Live under the cabin air filter box. So let's remove that. The brake booster and brake master cylinder. Need to come out as one. I'm not gonna pull up the reservoir. I'm gonna try and not disconnect the clutch line yet. Because that is a separate reservoir. And there's more fluid in there. There we are. Oh there's more fluid coming out. Perfect. Bravo. Felt it in my hair. So that's good. The bastard. Can we just put this to the side. And not remove it from the car. That's the reservoir out of the way. Now we can disconnect the lines. Oh we need to remove this as well. I forgot. So you use a lot of brake cleaner. Because brake fluid it's really bad for the paint. But for now let's go into the cabin. Gotta remove this panel to access the linkage of the brake booster. And detach it from the brake pedal. Smells nice in here. Oh the tree is in my way. City style. Don't remember buying that. Let's put that somewhere where I can step on it and brake it. Brake pedal. And this is where the brake booster attaches. And we need to remove these pins or whatever. Clips. All right so that's detached. So now I'm going to detach the brake lines from the master cylinder. Under the seat. You really need these spanners when working with brake lines. This is a good one. It has it. Everything detached and ready to come out. Two nuts there and the brake booster can come out. Now schnell clean up the mess. Unbolt the old master cylinder. Oh there we are. So the difference is quite clear with the flange. It's much smaller on the E39 and much bigger on the E65. So we're just gonna grind this off and then the reservoir can fit. Let's do some marking I guess. Something like that. Kind of don't want to grind stuff in here because I don't want metal shavings in my strawberry dessert. So I'm gonna see if I can do it in my neighbor's garage. Here it is. Got it done in the neighbor's garage and my dessert is safe. Just remove enough in order to clear the reservoir. But now I'm gonna test fit because maybe a little bit more here needs to come out. Let's see. Oh yeah. Fits fully. Here you can see it clears it nicely. That's all it needs to be done. I'm gonna install the adapter and use a bit of thread sealer on the threads because this does not need to come off ever again. Excellent. Now we can bolt it to the booster. There's foam inside. Now we can slap this back onto the car. Oh mustn't forget the gasket. Good. So now we can go inside and do everything on that end and then come back and do everything on this end. The booster is bolted up and the brake pedal connected. That's all done. Magnificent. Collect the tools and get out of here. Now we can start reconnecting the lines. Everything connected to the master cylinder and you can see that the adapter worked a treat over there. Now we're gonna put back the reservoir. Push it home. Yes. Now the most hateful part. Bleeding the brakes. And bleeding the brakes on a four-post lift on a car that's as low as the M5. It's like going to the bathroom without your phone. It's just not fun. But first the dessert. For a job well done. What's your favorite fruit? I love strawberries. This is the brake fluid. It filled up the clutch section as well. And we're gonna change that part of the fluid as well. Just not today. Because it's getting late and I need to be home for supper. Any immediate leaks? It would appear not. First I'm gonna bleed with the power bleeder. All four corners. Then come back and at the same time I'm gonna pump the brake pedal. And then final step we'll be bleeding with the ISTA and cycling the ABS pump. So I'm just gonna hit all corners three or four times just to make sure it's 100% bled. 15 psi. We're not gonna go more than that. So I'm done bleeding all four corners with the power bleeder. And I also pumped the brake pedal five times. And now we're gonna bleed with ISTA plus. Activating the ABS pump. So whatever bubble is in there it can dislodge that. DSC unit brake system ventilation. So it tells you everything you need to do. Start bleeding. Continue. Brake bleeding is done. I hit all corners three times. And I bled about two liters of fluid. Now I'm gonna put the cab back. Start the car. And just make sure the pedal is firm and it doesn't go to the floor. Nice and firm. Less travel than before. But of course the real test will be when I drive the car later. Yes the engine bay is dirty. No I don't care. I use this car a lot and even when I clean it it gets dirty. So whatever. Torque time. Dude that's done. Let's see. Oh yeah that's already much better. I like it. Oh yes that's already a lot better. Definitely shorter pedal travel. Oh yes 100%. Another thing that I need to do is change stupid D2 Racing brake pads. Because I know they are responsible for the soft pedal as well. But I'm super happy with this. Yeah definitely a lot better. Right time to go home for supper. Adios amigos. I drove the car home last night and the brake pedal is definitely better than before. It's firmer with less pedal travel which is exactly what I was going for. So the E65 brake master cylinder and E39 thumbs up. If you have a big brake kit like I do and you just want a little bit more firmness from the pedal. This is the mod for you. Or if you're just servicing that system in general. Just go for the E65 brake master cylinder. It's better. Anyway moving on to the rear of the car. I want to do a couple of things here. Namely there's a dead animal in my taillight. Well a fly but potato tomato. How did that stupid thing get in there in the first place? I'm thinking remove the bulb and suck the poor bastard out. Oh yes boxes. Great. Open sesame. Which one is that? The lowest one. Get the sucking device. Now watch it disappear. That was nice and easy. Put the bulb back. There we are. Animal free. While I'm already in here I want to do another thing. And that is install clear turn signal bulbs. Oh look at that. Not good. Throw that away. Then don't touch the bulb with your hands. Take a cloth. Install it. Like that. Put it in. Yep. Verify that it works. It does. Also gotta make exhaust tips shiny again. Wipe off the dirt first. Now break out some metal polish. And slightly used carbon fiber towel. And give it some. There you go. One beautiful looking shiny super sprint muffler tip. Don't forget to hit the bottom as well. For the exhaust tips that are 18 years old these look phenomenal. The seat belt is retracting slowly. Very slowly indeed. Simple fix for this. Pull it all the way out. Wise grip it. Like that. Take carpet cleaner. This stuff. Spray it both sides of the belt. And start cleaning. Look at that. And this is the dirt that came off the seat belt. Now leave it to dry. Then you come back and spray some silicone spray onto your carbon fiber cloth. Rub it all over the belt. And it's gonna shoot right back in. Back under the seat. Still no signs of a little mermaid. This is the silicone spray. Spray it on. And rub it in. Also be sure to clean the seat belt first. Don't just rub in silicone spray. That way you're just rubbing in dirt. Remove the vice grip. Would you look at that. What do you think of that huh? Okay don't just slap everywhere. Scratch my car. See that is a nice and simple fix. Because there's nothing more annoying than you want to get out of the car. And the seat belt doesn't want to retract. But now perfect. Let's make a little tour de France underneath. BMW with no oil leaks. I know what you're thinking. What kind of saucer is this? It's medical marvel boys. It's called maintenance. Does not have any current active leaks. And I've done a ton of work underneath this car when I bought it. For example complete suspension is brand new. Every single ball joint, bushing, shocks, I'm sporting honey yellow shocks with stock springs. The ride is sublime. The only thing that I don't like about them is that they are adjustable. I don't need adjustability. And the front ones are really easy to adjust. But the rear ones you have to take them out completely. And then adjust them which sucks. So I just left them on the softest setting. Engine mounts, power steering hose, all of the belts, pulleys. All of that is new. Oil level sensor. And this is the starter. And I'm probably going to replace it. Because the rebuilt Bosch unit is only 60 euro. And I think that's the cause of my screeching Mickey Mouse noise occasionally. It doesn't happen always. So it's really difficult to pinpoint where it's coming from. But I'm pretty sure it's that. Transmission typically stays dry. Rear main seal bone dry. The one thing that I would very much like to change on this car is the headers. I would love to get super spin headers. But I can't. Because Germany. These headers, if you don't know. Are actually exactly the same headers that you can find on E34 530i. The V8 version. The M60 engine. And that's just ridiculous. Because these headers they're really restrictive. So when you put different headers on the car. You tune it. You can get a lot more ponies out of this engine. And not to mention the better sound. But in Germany it's kind of really difficult to do that. Moving down the line. Diff self-healed. Got all of that. Not leaking anymore. Supersprint X-pipe. And Supersprint mufflers that have been on the car since 2003. And they still look in excellent shape. And they sound amazing. Various suspension holes. Everything brand new. Stainless steel brake lines all around. And this is an Italian car. I bought it in Rome. What is it? Three years ago. Which means it is absolutely rust free. There is not rust anywhere on this car. It's completely rust free. And I want it to stay that way. Which is why I stopped driving it in winter. It's not going to see any more salt anymore in my ownership. That's about it. Really clean from underneath. And this is how I keep track of my maintenance. Simple axle spreadsheet. And every single nut and bolt that I replace on it. Goes in here with kilometers and date. It is a pretty long spreadsheet. Here we go. Deutsche Autobahn. Did I mention that I removed the limiter? Because I did. No way. Not long enough. I can't do 300 in a corner. So I'm out for my third attempt to max out the M5. And I'm going to do it. The problem is there's only one stretch of the Autobahn that's long enough near Frankfurt. Where you can achieve the top speed of the M5. And that road it's always packed with traffic. Especially during the day. So now it's Sunday. Nearly 10 o'clock in the evening. Hopefully it's a bit better with traffic. And we can do it. Another thing to keep in mind is the Autobahns around Frankfurt. They're really not that great. They're really bumpy. Uncomfortable. So when you're driving really fast. Your car is just jumping all over the place. That's not something you want to see or feel. When you're driving 250 kilometers plus. So when it comes to it. I'm not going to push my luck. I don't want to risk my safety or anyone's else. So if we can do it. We can do it. If not. So be it. Here we go. Fifth. If that guy moves it would be nice. Move. But no I'm not going to switch to the right lane. It's too risky. 280. 290. And that's we're gonna call it 300. I'm gonna ease off. What a rush. And now I'm doing 240. And it feels like I'm doing 60. God I love this car. This was for you Sabine. Rest in peace you legend. I'm in this car. 20 years old. And I was just doing 300 kilometers per hour. And it's like a tank. It's just going straight. No drama. Nothing. It just pulls and goes. Man I love this car. I really do. I need another one. So I can entirely refresh it on the channel. By the way. The Liqui Moly magic potion that I put into this gearbox. So far feels the best out of them all. It's shifting super smooth from the cold start. I need to put more miles on it. But it's a lot smoother than anything else that I tried so far. I said in the previous episode that we can't do anything fun and useful in Germany. I'll take that back right away. Because we have the best thing in the world. The Autobahn. And TÜV. Even though it doesn't make sense for some things. I actually really like it. I said that before. Because TÜV means. German TÜV inspection. Means that there are no crappy cars on the road. I mean you gotta love how this car pulls. I'm in the sixth now. You just press the pedal and it just goes. Switch the lanes. Feels stable. Another bull. Why not. Go my beauty. Go. And please don't ask me if I want to sell this car. I get enough of that on traffic lights and gas stations. I'll never sell this car. I hope you enjoyed that and we're going to wrap it up here. In other news, the new merchandise is here. The new design that is. T-shirts, hoodies and whatever else. The link is in the description. So I would appreciate if you go and check them out. As always, thank you very much for watching. And please consider subscribing if you liked the video. Until next one.