Stephen, pretty much yeah! Until i can hear it for myself i am just guessing. But every video that comes up on youtube after typing in bmw v8 sounds the same. It sounds like either someone under the bonnet firing an ak47 or a old 4.2 diesel land crusier.

Which makes me think a fairly common failure item is most likely. And from reading alot it seem guides break regularly tensioners go weak and of course the famed vanos noise.

Obviously i must listen to it first and go with my judgement it may just be a noisey aux belt and the guy selling dont have a clue.

Ive been driving land rovers both petrol and diesel from old 90's to my current p38 and know all about how shit they are as a manufacturer but think i'd rather deal with a propper rover v8 that uses a litre of water every ten miles than this over complicated bmw engine!!!!

Anyway, back to the subject in hand, assuming the noise sounds awful im planning on bidding him a grand. If all it needs is a tensioner for 70quid then happy days. If it needs 1300 worth of parts then it will still be a cheap car. Worse case scanario i strip it down find nothing wrong and it ends up being bottom end then i can break it and still make some cash.