2007 BMW Alpina B7

I purchased this 2007 BMW Alpina B7 in April 2020. It has always been in San Diego, has a clean title and ~73K mi. I am the 3rd owner.

The car was offered for sale locally on Craigslist for $13,500. I inspected the car and offered $9,000 which was initially declined. This is quite a rare and exclusive car but it's also a BMW E65 with a reputation for being unreliable and expensive to maintain. I kept in-touch with the seller and a few weeks later (this was in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic) he accepted my offer. In the few weeks between my initial offer and acceptance, the seller spent an additional $1100 on the car for a new battery, oil change and a yaw sensor! I believe this was a fair price for the car... certainly not a steal as it will require some work to be perfect. The seller included a very nice BMW fitted car cover as well.

I removed the supercharger cover for the pic below... more about this supercharger later.

This car is equipped with every available option. Here's the window sticker...

And just over 73K miles.

The Alpina user manuals...

The car came with full service records which I have catalogued below... all typical stuff for a BMW E65.

Not surprisingly, some of the dealer prices are outrageous such as $863 for spark plugs and $860 ea for window regulators! As is often the case with BMW ownership, the previous owner became tired of sinking money into the car.

The underside of this car is completely dry which was a bit of a surprise! Most BMW's of this vintage leak oil if not properly maintained. The alternator bracket seal which often leaks has already been replaced.

This car averaged ~ 9K mi/yr initially but in the last 3 or 4 years has seen very little use.

The car is not perfect and does require some work...

1. The paintwork needed a cut and buff. There's no sun damage, all the rubbers are in great shape. I applied a ceramic coating and now it looks much better.

2. Hood struts are shot (~$30). done - a very quick and easy fix.

3. The nav screen is cracked, I have a junk yard replacement. I swapped in a used LCD+screen onto the existing electronics (so no coding).

4. Steering wheel tilt is inop (I had the same issue on my 760i... an easy fix). Fixed.

5. All 4 wheels have curb rash. Wheels were acid washed and inspected. 3 have bends and all 4 have curb rash. Had them fixed.

6. Rear tires are dry rotted and must be replaced. 4 new tires were installed.

7. Soft close is intermittent on at least two of the doors. Likely because BMW did their recall on these! Not worth bothering with... works most of the time. In fact it might just be a timing thing as whenever I unlock it, it works perfectly.

8. Although there were no problems on the test drive. After I paid and drove away the car had an abrupt downshift! I also (later) found note of this in the service records. But since then it has been fine. I plan to service the transmission (filter, fluid, bridge seals) and possibly replace the solenoid set (one of which might be the issue). Bridge seals replaced and new fluid. Old fluid and pan looked great.

9. Front control arms are not bad but could be tightened up a bit. I will likely replace these. On inspection I didn't see any issue with these. Hold off on this for now.

10. Sunroof seal is noisy... a very common issue. The seal was replaced.

11. Engine bay is a bit dirty and will be thoroughly detailed.

12. Rear brakes are near end of life (rotors and pads). New pads and rotors installed.

13. Front bumper is cracked underneath. Not visible unless you get under the car. It can be easily repaired.

Absolutely no leaks anywhere and overall the car is in very good shape!

Spend to date... as with all BMW's it runs up quickly!

Supercharger

This car has been fitted with a brand new ASA supercharger (DOM 04/2017) that has equivalent performance to the OEM part.

The supercharger was replaced 2yrs ago (just 2,000 miles ago) at a cost of $4,300 . The work was done by a local independent BMW shop. I spoke with the shop owner who did not have nice things to say about the stock Alpina supercharger (no replacement parts available). 

ASA is the manufacturer of the stock B7 supercharger but that design is custom for Alpina. They will not supply parts for it and BMW has made few OEM spare parts available. There are specialty shops offering seal kits and bearings for the stock unit... I'm not entirely sure why this wasn't an option for this car. The seller indicated the supercharger became noisy (bearings most likely) and dealer wanted over $15K to fix it!

To mount this supercharger a custom CNC machined bracket was made. The oil lines are now by hose vs. the original part which routes them through the mounting bracket. It's nicely done.

Cooling

The cooling setup does not use a convention fan clutch/fan mounted to the water pump pulley.

The B7 has a single electric radiator fan on the inside of the radiator... the stack-up is AC condenser, radiator, intercooler. The PS cooler is visible in the pic below (front bottom). There is also a transmission cooler (radiator) above the main radiator and an engine oil cooler below the radiator.

The engine oil cooler is mounted below the main radiators. You can see the slots that route air through it in pic below... air exits out the bottom and for this reason the cover under the engine is unique to the B7. There are a lot of unique (to the B7) and expensive plastic parts in the front of this car!

Navigation display 5/24/2020

The plastic window on the navigation screen was damaged (I don't know how). Fortunately I had a replacement on hand from the junk yard.

The BMW service manual says you must remove the wood dash trim to get this out but it is just possible without... but you have to unplug it before removal which is a bit fiddly (reach in behind it). Pull fuse 5 (in glove box) to disconnect power from this module first.

To avoid the possible need for re-coding, I dismantled the display assy and swapped over just the plastic housing and LCD panel.

Pic below shows all the pieces...the main electronics module on right was not changed.

On the left is the LCD panel which just drops into the housing. A plastic cover holds it in place and also secures the backlight driver (lower module).

A flex PCB assy interconnects everything.

Sunroof seal (5/25/2020)

The sunroof seal is a self adhesive foam strip that runs around the inside of the sunroof opening. It hardens and loosens it shape with age.

After peeling off the old seal you are left with this adhesive foam...

The best way I've found to remove it is to slowly roll it off with your thumb... it takes a while and it's tough on your fingers if you are not used to wrenching!

It took me an hour or so to clean off the residual glue and foam. I then removed any remaining glue with Goof off, cleaned the surface with rubbing compound and then a final wipe down with Alcohol. This ensures a clean and oil free surface for the new seal to adhere to.

Roll the new gasket out from the rear center (there is a small dimple in the metal that indicates where to start). You have to feed it into the corners to ensure you don't stretch it out. I've done a couple of these now and each time I was left with almost exactly 6" of gasket material left over.

Finally you need to reset the sunroof... press and hold the sunroof button for about 30 seconds.

I also made some small adjustments to the glass positioning as it was sitting a bit low at the front (3 screws each side of sunroof glass accessible from inside the car). Its now nice and flush with the roof panel.

Adding a convenient hook up for a trickle charger

My cars don't get driven very often so I connect a trickle charger when not in use. Lifting the hood to clip on to the battery terminal is a hassle so I ran some wires out the front.

I use an in-line fuse where I connect to the charging post just incase anything goes wrong. I drilled  a small hole in the charging post and used a #6 nut and bolt to secure a terminal lug with the charge wire (red wire in pic below).

The charger connects at the lower front. The connector tucks away when not in use and is barely noticeable..

Harbor Freight had this trickle charger on sale for about $25. I like it because it has a mode for AGM batteries (which this car has) and works great.

Replacement wheel emblems

The wheel emblems were looking a bit tatty (right). You can buy replacements from Alpina but they are not cheap! I got these Chinese knock-offs on Ebay for about $2 ea!

They are not exactly the same and may not last as long but for $2 ea they look pretty good!

To get the old ones off I drilled a small hole and then worked a set of wire cutters in there. Slowly peel and cut it off.

The replacement emblems have an adhesive back but I glued them in with adhesive sealant. I also lightly sanded the perimeter of the new emblems as they are just ever so slightly too big.

After a bit of work they look good as new!

And mounted on the wheel...

Transmission Service

This is preventative maintenance but I could see some oil residue around the mechatronics sleeve and if left unattended this can cause issues.

First job is to loosen the fill plug (to be sure you can refill it) then drain the fluid. Keep all the old fluid so you have a good idea how much to add... I recovered exactly 2 Gal of transmission fluid from the oil pan and valve body. And then flushed about 3 additional quarts from the torque converter/transmission cooler.

The transmission oil pan is a casting on the B7...

I was very please to see very little residue on the magnets and old fluid and pan look very clean.

You can then remove the oil filter (just pull). This one is dated 2006 so this is clearly the first time it has been changed.

Then disconnect the transmission electrical connector, release the white locking lever and pop out the mechatronics sleeve (which in my case came out with almost no resistance... no wonder it was leaking).

Release and lower the valve body to replace the bridge seals (I used a Harbor Freight transmission jack to make this easier).

The bridge seals are retained in the transmission body...

I use a pick and needle nose pliers to remove the 4 rubber tubes.

Here are the replacement seals (mechatronics sleeve not shown)..

These are the old (removed) parts.

I drained almost exactly 2 Gal of fluid from the transmission. To refill most of it I used a pvc tube from the fill hole fed up to the engine compartment. I added tape around this pipe where it enters the transmission to ensure a tight seal there. For the final fill I used a small hand pump.

I also separated the return hose from the transmission cooler. Start the engine and pumped a few quarts of fluid until fresh fluid emerged.