test driving the 05 tonight - if all goes well it'll be mine this weekend

Thanks for all your input guys - I'm actually usually over at bimmerforums (bmw fanatic - currently own a 99 540i 6-sp) but will spend a lot more time here once I get my new ride. Regardless of what I get though, I'm throwing on some craven STPs asap.

 

good luck. is this your first time driving an mcs? if so, you'll love it

i love e39's. i think they're pretty much the best bmw ever made

 

FYI, check the power #'s and mods in my signature. It is very easy to equal or exceed JCW for much less. At the dyno when I had my RMW tune done, a JCW GP put down 204 hp while almost every MCS with the standard intake, pulley and exhaust put down 190-205hp. These #'s are at the wheels and all cars were tuned by RMW.

 

this is a good point but the big thing in my mind is is that the JCW is cheaper!

 

It also has 19k more miles on it. If someone offered you $600 to drive your car for 19k miles AND get in an accident, would you take it? I sure wouldn't.

 

I drove an 05 JCW package S up here in SF a couple weeks ago and haven't been able to get it out of my mind. That supercharger whine is addictive..

Researching here has dispelled a lot of my doubts about reliability - seems like the one that scares me the most, strut tower mushrooming is fairly easily prevented with STPs and reinforced camber plates. I'd also misread some of the earlier reliability issues on the manual trannies - I thought it affected all of them and it sounds like the issues are mainly with the older 5-speed midlands unit, while the 6-speed getrags in the S models are pretty bulletproof.

I absolutely love E39s myself - I've owned several different bimmers and the E39 is by far the most solidly built.

 

Drive them both before you make a decision. I would stay away from a wrecked car. I bought my 05 MCS new without test driving an 05. I had test driven an 04 and found it to be a little low on power, so I opted for the JCW Engine Kit before I took delivery. The 04 JCW may make more power than an 05 with just a pulley and CAI, but the 05 will run stronger due to the improved gearing. If you want to check for LSD, turn off the traction control and spin the tires moderately hard. If it leaves two black streaks, congrats on the LSD.

For my car's 2nd birthday, I bought the JCW brakes and suspension kits and installed them myself (resipsamcs helped). If you want to add some handling and braking performance, the JCW stuff is very moderately priced if you do your own work.

The E39 is a great car! I always liked them. Good luck on the new to you MINI!

Rawhyde

 

Haha - I doubt the current owner of the 05 cooper would be very happy with me doing those kind of hooligan antics in his car when I'm test driving it

Definitely plan on doing suspension mods - springs, reinforced camber plates and stps. I think I'll end up going with some lightweight 18s with non-runflats... I'm kind of a modaholic

 

go with the 05

 

Just me, but with big 18's on I'd get some camber plates to protect against strut tower shoomage.

 

umm isnt that what supark says hes going to do in the quoted text?

 

No, he said "I'm throwing on some craven STPs asap." Camber plates protect against mushrooming much better than strut tower plates (STPs).

 

i have both on mine

 

I think it was mentioned before in this thread, but I second the fact of checking to see if either was hit/in an accident. That would greatly affect my decision.

Good luck and happy hunting!

 

Yeah the 04 JCW car was in an accident, so that kind of soured it for me. Will hopefully be picking up the 05 tomorrow or this weekend!!

And I'm def getting both the camber plates and craven stps. WHere is the best source for the camber plates?

 

Depends on what your suspension goals are. If you're car is for daily driving and maybe the odd track day/school, then get the fixed camber plates from Ireland Engineering (IE).

http://store.nexternal.com/shared/St...t=products.asp

If you plan to autocross, do a lot of track days or otherwise highly modify your suspension, get adjustable camber plates. H-Sport and Helix plates are often the first to be recommended and are highly regarded, but TSW and IE are also pretty popular.

 

Definitely mainly going to do mainly street duty so the fixed plates look good to me - if I were to choose between camber plates and stps, it sounds like most of you are recommending that I do camber plates first as it tackles the source of the problem most directly and then perhaps add the stps later on as an additional bit of protection?

Just got back from a test drive with the 05 (and then worked on my car for an hour changing out a stubborn fuel filter), and I wasn't in love. There were dents on the car that weren't mentioned in the ad, and it had a fair amount of entry level power mods (alta water mister, CAI and 19% pulley) and wasn't particuarly in very good shape.. the clutch seemed a fair bit heavier than the one in the lower mileage 05 JCW I'd test driven a while back - is that a sign it's going out? He'd also installed a short shifter which was making the shifter fairly high effort - which scared me a little, because higher effort shifting in some transmission design can signal impending failure.. All in all, pretty underwhelmed - it's crazy that the 05 JCW with 20k miles on it that I drove a couple weeks back could be so different from a modded 05 standard S with 53k miles on it, but they almost seemed like they were built by different companies.. Owner seemed like a nice enough guy though, so I didn't insult him by lowballing him with a price that I thought the car was worth..

I've also found another dark grey S in LA that's an 04 with 50k miles on it, not as well optioned but from what it sounds like meticulously maintained... the search continues..

 

What did i say. The jcw car was a better deal.
Btw try cars.com thats how i got mine.

 

Very good point. This is what I was going to mention. If you figure that the 04' has been driven for ~4 years and the 05' for ~3 years consistently, they both average about 17K miles a year. So they were both driven about the same amount annually.

Here's the thing: do you want this car to be your daily driver or as a weekend/when I feel like it car? Honestly if it were me, I'd get the 05' with 50K if it was either- because less miles on a DD is good, and less miles on a car that you might get a head/cam, etc for is good too!

 

The accident and higher mileage is still kinda bugging me on that one... but if I end up flying down to LA I might end up getting it after all

 

i have heated seats and nav, but i don't have LSD... i don't think.

 

I would vote for the 05 MCS.

I have the JCW on my 03 (same as 04) and a JCW 06. A lotta money for a well sorted, but frankly conservative package.

The 05/06 is a better car foundation. The gearing alone changes how it feels. Add even just the fundamental mods and you'll be really happy. There are tons of little things they improved between the 04 and 05 as well. Lots of build quality issues were remedied.

The JCW you are looking at is a good price but it's "good" for a reason.