> Simple quesiton, isn't the 960's inline six essentially the same as the 850's I5?

Yes. And the 4-cyl in the S/V40 is their 'little brother' as well..

But the problem with the 960's (and to a lesser degree the S/V90's) is that this was basically the first generation of these engines.

We all know how well a 'version 1' product usually works :)

Didn't BMW also suffer major problems when they brought their new all-aluminium engines to the US for the first time?(excessive wear on cylinder walls and such)

I would guess that a late S/V90 (1998 or so) would have much less of the engine problems associated with the early ones.

Some people have reported similar problems as the 960's on very early (1992 in europe) 850's with block porosity and such, but that was all remedied in later production years.

Bye, Arno.