Thinking of buying the 2002 BMW 530i automatic transmission for about $700 (could get it for a bit less) from individual (not dealerships). Seems like the car drives and all, a few things have been changed like the front train, shocks. It has 140k miles.
Seems like there a few things to fix, but for a project car, is it worth it?
If you got deep pockets for that car and you're willing to put money into it, sure why not? $700 is nothing for a car nowadays and you said its got 140k miles, but don't even think about using it for daily driving unless you redid the whole thing which IMO would be a waste of money since an automatic e39 530i is not going to be some collector's item vs an M5 or manual transmission model, even though they got beautiful design language that we all loved before they became controversial.
The engine in that car is a straight-six, so it will be somewhat easier to work on than my E34 540i was. The M54 engine for that car was released in 2000, so it likely has a lot more plastic crap than the E34 530i. From 1993 to 1995, the 530i was a V8, along with the 540i, and most of the stuff under the hood was metal.
The automatic transmission was the bad part of those cars. My E34 had the transmission replaced 30k miles before I bought it at 185k, so I'm sure the E39s are going to be similar. Find a standard to make it less of a possible issue down the road.
Use BMW OEM parts wherever possible and become friendly with your local BMW parts dealer. Mine gave me 50% discounts when I had my E34 because of it being an old car (20 years at the time). Doing my own work, I drove the car through two years of college. I got rid of it when I got tired of putting $25 liters of BMW power steering fluid in it every month because the power steering leaked.
