From 1999 until 2001 I was stationed in Germany. While there I purchased a 1985 635CSiA and became hooked on BMW's. The 635 was scarcely worth bringing home for a variety of reasons, the least of which being that the same year and model were available stateside. I figured that towards the end of my tour I would just buy a new M3 and take it home. Well, two things conspired to keep the M3 from coming to fruition - firstly, the new M3 cost substantially more than its predecessor, and, following a long string of coupes, the frau though maybe we should get something "practical." I didnt want a sedan, and I wasn't going to be caught dead in an SUV - so I came up with a suitable compromise: an M5 Touring. As you can plainly see from the pictures, I did not end up with an M5 Touring, here is the story of the 540iT that followed me home.



I searched for around 6-8 months for a suitable M5 using www.mobile.de, www.autoscout24.com, the Sperrmuehl (local want ads), and the MotorMarkt (like Autotrader). All these are great sources, but with only 850 some odd M5T's produced, they weren't exactly in great profusion. Plus I was picky: I didnt want purple car, I didnt want a smoker car, and I didnt want a car with more than 100k kms. This pretty much eliminated 90% of the M5T's for sale. I looked at several cars, and drove 2. Most had really been beaten around, and many had new engines. If I had more time, I think I could have found one, but time wasn't on my side. One day, when searching through the "Gebrauchtwagen" ads at BMW.de, I came across a nice 540iT at a dealer only about a half hour from where I lived.



The car had only 43k original kms and looked the part. Everything was in perfect shape and it even came with a 24-month "Europlus Garantie" - the equivalent of being "factory certified used." As it turned out, I would be reassigned 6 months into my warranty, but at least I got the piece of mind. While searching for the car, I did my research. I read the ridiculous guidlines at the NHTSA Website and got in touch with some registered importers. I selected JK Technologies early on because they had been in the business for a long time and they came recommended. They advised me that any car with more than 30k miles would require new catalytic converters and O2 sensors. They also double checked the DOT's regulations and told me that an e34 would be relatively straight forward to bring in to the US - especially if it wasnt an M5.



All this made the low-mileage (kilometerage?) Silver 540 look very good indeed. The motor had passed EPA in sedan trim (unlike the 3.8l M5 motor) and the body style was available, just not with the 4.0l engine. These two factors combined to set up an importation scenario about as straightforward as such scenarios get. Armed with all this knowledge, I bought the car. I negotiated new catalytic converters and oxygen sensors as part of the price (a 1600 dollar savings) and being a US servicemember, I was able to save the sales tax. All told, the final price was just under 28,000 DM (approx 14k USD)- which I considered a great buy. It would have been a better buy if I wasnt about to lay out large cash to import the devil. Either way, there arent too many e34's with only 26k miles on them with a 2 year factory warranty, and I enjoyed 6 great months of the car on German roads.



I shipped the car commercially using EH Harms as my shipping agent. The car was sent via William Wallenius lines to Baltimore. Between shipping, customs fees, port fees, duty, inland shipping costs, and forwarding fees, it cost just over 1500 USD to get the car from Frankfurt Germany to Baltimore. Jk quoted me 7800 USD to convert the car to US specs. Foolish me thought I could save some money by doing the conversion work in Germany. This only resulted in me being able to keep the old parts instead of the importer having to dispose of them. It took almost 5 months to complete (approx 15 February 02 - 15 June 02) and the bill had climbed to 8100 by the time I paid for the truck to take my car from the port to the shop. I learned that importers (good ones) have to be taken with a grain of salt - they are knowledgeable professionals doing specialized work and they must be taken with a grain of salt.



My experience with JK was good, even though I didnt get a discount for providing my own parts. I was happy enough that my car wasnt mired in red tape and in the custody of some fly-by-night operation that I wasn't about to get bent out of shape over 1000 bucks worth of parts. Having heard some people's importation nightmares, I was satisfied with my reputable, if quirky, importer. JK did try to save me some $ by having me petition the EPA for an emissions waiver. The car being a low-mileage derivative of a US model, it should have been a no-brainer to grant me a waiver which would have saved me 4000 bucks. But after I spent 3 weeks putting together the 27 page (!) submission, the bureaucratic troll at the EPA took only 30 minutes to disapprove it. The reason: "you and your wife both work, you make too much money." Whatever, I may be solidly middle class, but its not like I was importing a Ferrari.



All told, the car and the importation together cost just north of 25k USD. You can decide for yourself whether or not you think that is a good deal, but they way I look at it, I paid a little more than high dealer retail (2001 numbers) for an almost totally unique car. I dont know of any others in the US, though I would be curious to know if there are any. My only complaint about the whole process is that I would have liked to have had a 6-Speed, but given the mileage, color, and options, I'm not disappointed. When the autobox goes out at 125k miles like all other e34's, I'll send the thing to Brett Anderson and get it converted to a manual. I'm not planning on selling it, and given what I've spent, I'm squarely in the red anyway - so whats a few thousand more? Admittedly, many people wouldnt go to all this effort and expense for a station wagon, but I appreciate its "geek chic."



Final Notes: The things I had to change are listed as text in the pictures. You can see that there was actually not that much to do. People are usually quite nonplussed that parts do not represent the major expense in importation. The major expense is the ridiculous system. The car has Park Distance Control - it came as a BMW retrofit package. I'm sure you could add it to your car if you can scare up the proper part number. It only cost around 400 USD. This car does not have the troublsome double sunroof. I have a set of M-Parallels sitting in the garage waiting for these Pirellis to wear out. The two pix at the bottom are the car sitting at the dealer when I took delivery. You can see the factory clear corners, and the "modellschriftzug entfall" (model script delete). Yes, I know the car looks cleaner without it, but after all I went through, can you blame me for wanting it to say "540i" on the back?

My email address is jimcheney@hotmail.com, please feel free to write if you have any questions or are thinking about undertaking an importation of your own. I would really like to assemble several "Importation Stories" and put together a website. I would love to hear your importation story.