When owning an older BMW, you should either be prepared to spend a lot of money maintaining it, or be willing to fix most problems yourself.

On these pages I will explain how to fix a lot of things. It looks like most of these problems are common to the BMW community, but none the less I find the same questions beings asked time and time again, so I decided to do something about it. Consider this some sort of FAQ with pictures.

A low beam/rear light suddenly turning off while driving, outside temperature reading of minus a-whole-lot even at summer time, hot air coming out of air ducts no matter what the setting on the dial is and so on, are amongst the most common BMW problems. You will find the solution to all of them here if you keep reading. Please note, though, that I am a 100% amateur, so you shouldn't rely on my information solely.

In November 1999, the American company Bentley Publishers released a 980 pages service manual for the BMW E32 series. A manual for the E34 has been released too. These books have a lot of information, especially on the electronics, but doesn't deal with most of the problems that this site covers. Don't know why. Maybe the publisher thinks that small stuff and easily fixed problems are best left to the service centers, but that is exactly why I find it important: it's easily fixed! And since so many cars have these problems, why shouldn't we be able to do the work ourselves?
In the Bentley manual, you will be instructed on how to tear down the engine and rebuild it, but not on how to fix that pesky headlight, that turns itself off again and again. So consider this site a help for the not so experienced BMW repairer, and buy the manual (no affiliation) for instructions on the more complex tasks.