1998 BMW 520i

The government only ships one car for people that take overseas assignments.  So we shipped the Odyssey and sold the Accord.  We initially floated the idea of getting by with just the Odyssey but it quickly became evident that having a second car would simplify a lot of things.  Things got even harder when Tina was asked to be the Young Women's President (meetings every Thursday) and I was asked to be the Ward Clerk (meetings before church every Sunday).

I ended up buying a 1998 BMW 520i in late October.  I bought it from a German guy that was advertising it on a Craigslist-like website that is for military communities (bookoo.com).  It drives really well and the previous owner was a non-smoker (what are the odds?).  A few weeks after I bought it, I took it up to 190 KMPH (118 MPH) on the Autobahn and it was nothing but smooth.

The car is German-spec so it has some quirks.  Of course, the speedometer only shows kilometers per hour.  This is less of an issue since the speed limits are all in KMPH anyway.  Then there is the radio.  It has a mind of its own.  Whenever a traffic report is playing on a different station, the radio automatically switches to the traffic report and turns up the volume.  It is very annoying.  The owner's manual probably tells me how to disable this feature but it is in German so I haven't tried looking through it.  Finally, I discovered that the idle is not steady when the car is cold.  I'm not sure why it does this -- the engine revs up and then falls back down before revving up again.  One time when it was idling, the RPMs fell low enough to stall the engine.  As soon as the engine is warm, it idles smoothly.  Strange.  Any ideas?

The boys were really excited about the car.  They know that Uncle Amrit has a BMW so wanted to go for a ride in mine.  Then they told everybody that "daddy bought a new BMW."

I have uploaded some photos to Picasa.