any opinions on a 93 BMW 525 TDI?

[the caveman]

A pal was looking at a BMW  525 tds [TDI?] wagon. I went to have a look at it yesterday, body's okay, rolls nice enough, but has a few electrical issues. Does that engine use a chain or belt?
It was a little hard to start ,but perfect once running, except when one or another electrical load was switch the idle would start hunting. If anyone is interested, i think he found it in Kijiji Montreal

[snakemaster]

its a idi and runs a chain, bosch E pump ,and has a bit power, 6 pot, same engine thats in the range rover 95 99 ish diesel one

[the caveman]

Okay but it had a TDI style pump i.e. no throttle cable

[snakemaster]

Okay but it had a TDI style pump i.e. no throttle cable

yea thats what there like E idi  , some opel / vauxhall idis are the same

[skaunejohan]

i think you mean the 525 TDS

i own one myself 1993 year model

if its 525tds it has camchain and a crappy electrical injectionpump prone to electrical wear out in the contacts within the pump wich result in lopey idle and uneven engine rpm at times ard starts etc

im gonna convert mine to a mechanical injection pump from a 524td since these are much better pumps

[MJF]

I've done one pump conversion too. It had crappy idle and misfiring, just like many other tds. If it was my car, I would had found what was the problem with stock pump. Lost torque and got more smoke with mech pump, even the new pump was modded to have max power.

[skaunejohan]

then you really got it wrong 

mechanical pump has MORE tourqe especially at lower rpms that the electrical even when tuned canno get....

[MJF]

Why wouldn't electric pump have more torque at low rpm? This one did have, it was most likely chipped. Off boost power was better without smoke.
Oh well it was crashed and sold as parts soon after conversion, no need to look why it was like that.

[skaunejohan]

well you obviousley had a problem with either the mechanical pump or its timing


it was almost a year ago i talked with one of the best diesel injection pump tuners in scandinavia (possibly europe?) about this


but i think it was something about the injetors being thin so they cannot deliver much fuel at low rpm BUT you can go around this by using a mechanical pump since it can deliver much much more fuel(or was it fuel pressure???) (even a untuned stock mechanical pump) vs the crappy electrical pump

[drrtybyl]

Does that model come with the M51 engine?  I was looking at importing one of those from the UK to drop into my 318ti at one point.  I knew the recent era BMW td/tds were sold in limited quantities in CA, but assumed them to be very limited/nonexistent.

Can't speak for BMW TD/TDS quality, but my ti (M44 gasser) has 211k mi on the clock without a rebuild and runs just as well as it did/great compression at 80k. 

[galaboff]

525TDS is a good engine, only "bad" thing is low torque at low rpm...
260Nm for this engine is not enough

[R.O.R-2.0]

all IDIs are lacking in the torque department if you hadnt noticed..