I read this is the 5 series buying guide: "Sadly for some reason the M52 can pop its head gasket, if the car doesnt over heat then you should get away with the head being pressure tested/skimmed and new gasket(have £800 in hand and you should be ok!), If its over heated,throw the engine away, from experiance the heads can crack, However so can the block!. The alloy block sadly warps with the head which means stripping the whole block down skim it. Fear not your problems have not ended yet! If your block hasnt warped you will find that when you come to tighten down the Cylinder head the Threads in the block have a habbit of stripping which then need a few helicoils to fix this." Are the 3 series engines the same? Do they all have alloy blocks? I was thinking about buying an N46, but if a late E36 comes along at the right price and condition, then I might get one of those.
