My750.com > An Owner’s Experience With BMW’s First V12 Flagship

One classic weighed by a checkered history

Clock back to the spring of ‘01.

The Bush Administration was in the stupor of an indifferent honeymoon. BMW Chief Designer Chris Bangle, armed with flamethrower, was busy redefining the term “surface entertainment.”

And one man elected to start writing about his ownership experiences with his M.Y. 1989 750iL; one among the first V12 flagships BMW e’er built.

Playing ostrich these past seven years, I completely missed my750.com >>> among my many, many Internet searches for fly Teutonic content.

So when I uncovered this site that features one of my all-time favorites; having driven an ‘88 735i (with 5-speed stick) and ridden in a ‘93 740i, I was very eager to know more about what it meant to own the top model that powered the Roundel into the 90s.

Asking the general public to opine on their experiences, the site’s publisher left user comments to do most of the initial telling.

“1989 piece of $#*&. Need I say more! Pissed owner. BMW (Bring Money With you),” wrote Ken V.

Phillip K. took account, “Horror … cost me $72,000 … sat in the repair shop more than three months … one day my accountant … told me we have a problem … The bill had accumulated to $43,000 and more coming. I was stunned … ”

And finally MJ confessed, “I am a BMW Service technician. I am so glad someone has started a site to speak the truth about the abomination called 750iL! 750’s are about as bad for the technician as the owner. They are difficult to work on and a pain sometimes to diagnose, a car never really fit for this world … BMW should be ashamed of the E32 750 (unfortunately with what we’ve seen with the new E65 7 series so far, history may repeat itself) … a nightmare financially. Forget resale value … The car is junk…”

Were these dark episodes part of some troublesome trend among BMW’s finest sedans? Or did it just happen that the site publisher’s own car was built on a Friday afternoon in the middle of Oktoberfest?

Amazingly, the publisher went on to write that despite itemizing his 7’s seven months of downtime and $36,720 in repairs that included fixing everything from slow coolant leaks to replacing clogged windshield washer nozzles, he still found merit in his ride.

“Make no mistake- the 750iL is quite a car and I’m still impressed by it, however, if you have one like mine, be prepared to be equally or perhaps even more impressed by its repair and maintenance requirements.”

Now that’s what we might call true (read: dumb) commitment.

Granted, the guy’s probably since moved on from his rolling cash siphon. The site really hasn’t seen a substantive update since 2002. Further, there’s no direct way to confirm if anything that he’s written is true.

But this WAV file of a recorded voicemail from some non-committal BMW rep. is interesting >>> as is the site itself – if only for dual aspects of the fly nature of its Teutonic subject matter and for providing thought to what problems might wait in store for the far more complex current generation >>>