Went and looked at a '91 535i 5spd today.
Pros: no tears in the leather (grey), no crooked seat, cold AC, pretty much everything worked, owned for 12 years by a non-car guy, but he took it to a well known BMW specialist in town for all it's service with an open ended fix-whatever-needs-to-be-fixed type of agreement. New tires, new brakes, new radiator.
Cons: Mediocre-at-best Islandgrun respray (small amount of peeling, poor masking, minor surface rust, etc), quite a few pixels out on dash OBC display, neglected leather. A couple door panels coming unglued. No VIN stickers down the entire left side of the car or in the trunk. And it felt pretty slow compared to my E28. I figured that the extra power would offset the extra weight. Is that not the case, or is something possibly amiss?
He's asking $3K.
Pointers?
Thanks

Miles?

Well, the 525i doesn't feel very quick in general at low end, but once you get it at the 3500-4k range you will feel a significant amount of up and go.

Seems like a good price if there is nothing wrong. check for oil leaks under the hood, also
check for any torn/ripped hoses....and listen to the car for a while as it idles.

201K miles, 20K fewer than my e28.
Well, the 525i doesn't feel very quick in general at low end...
It was a 535.
No noticable leaks in the engine bay or undercarriage. Hoses looked good.
Also the center vent in the middle of the dash was popped up. It still worked but it looks a little ghetto. Is that common? I wanted to push it back down but didn't want to break it.

Sounds like a good deal. The center vent issue is pretty common. Get a chip and maybe a new diff if you want it to go faster than the ol' e28. Throw some sways and maybe a drop if you want comparable handling. This has been discussed recently on mye28.com, though the bias toward the e28 is to be understood. There is love over there for the e34 though. If I were in the market for a new car though, I'd definitely grab that car if it looks to be in decent condition. The only thing to really watch out for is front end suspension issues. Only 5% of e34's came in the 5spd flavor btw.
e28= sports/luxury
e34= luxury/sports

Thanks for the tips guys. I think I'm going to make him an offer tonight.
I love my E28, but I think the E34 is more along the lines of what we need right now. My wife doesn't like to drive the E28, and we don't feel comfortable putting our baby in it. Like you said, trade a little performance for more luxury.

Just bought my E34 a couple of days ago, and besides the small things I have in my post, it is a wonderful car. Take it for a spin, and see how it feels.

We settled on $2750 and he's going to get it inspected (it was due this month). I'm always nervous buying used cars but I think this should be a good car. I'll post up some pics as soon as I can.
:alright

If you can swing 91 or better octane, the first thing you want to do it put an EATS or Jim Conforti ECU chip in it. Performance will be night and day, assuming the spark plugs are in good shape.

You'll get better gas milage with the chip which makes up for the need for 91 octane. The chip is a no-brainer for me. The m30's love'em. Check the cap n rotor too. I forgot to mention that adding a single mass flywheel would probably make it a little more e28'esque.

I was supposed to take delivery yesterday, but he got tied up at work until late. So we made a plan for me to pick it up today before lunch. I get an email this morning saying that the A/C had started to blow a little warm on his way home last night, so he took it to his mechanic. He said everything checks out and they topped off the freon. That makes me a little nervous, but like I said before his mechanic has a good reputation in town. So now the plan is for me to get the car this afternoon. My wife is getting pretty annoyed with all this... I tend to agree with her.
Hopefully it'll all be worth it in the end.

Finally got it! WooHoo!
Drive drives pretty nicely. The previous owner was able to find some of receipts for work done on the car. Found out it had the clutch done about 20K miles ago.
The car was on fumes when I started home, made it to a gas station and it cost me $70 to fill up! Holy crap!
Then I get home and notice it has a fuel leak... son of a bitch... It's coming from a rubber line behind the right rear wheel, where the filler neck is. Is the fuel filter back there? What could it be? I was hoping it was just from over-filling the tank, but after a short drive it is still dripping.
-edit-
After looking on RealOEM, I think it's the vent pipe from the top of the tank to the filler neck.