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I have finally found the last car that I will have for a while. I have been searching all kinds of models to decide what to go for from E92 335i , E82 135i, E46 M3, E92 M3, M235i and also a renault megane RS265 but I have finally settled on what I think is the best car for me at this point which is the F20 M135i with N55 and 8 Speed ZF auto. Coming from a long list of previous BMW's as most of you know, it had to be a substantially newish car for it to be worth while upgrading. When I saw this come up for sale I jumped on it instantly, test drove and paid and collected within an hour of listing. Anyway, it ticks every single box on my requirements list - newness, powerful, practical, mod-able, and of course still BMW. (I still have my E46 which I absolutely love and would love to keep but I just dont see myself driving it as much now I have this thing which works great as a daily and a weekend car) I was lucky to find one with a sunroof which was my biggest requirement and this also came with a M performance exhaust already fitted which makes a great sound. Anyway, if you come long to the coffee meet no doubt you will see it but here are a couple of quick photos!

It's been tried before. The whole idea of illegal street racing is just that , Its illegal. I remember driving on the Auckland motorways with only a white line between me and the oncoming traffic . It was only after some serious crashes that a median barrier was put in place to prevent traffic crossing over. hasn't stop accident's but sure has brought the death toll down. All the driver training in the world wont stop traffic crossing over median line , I think its time for two lanes on all major roads and a median barrier down the middle. If you use work safe practice to isolate ,minimise or eliminate , then to minimise would be your best practise.

Replace everyone's drivers airbag with a spike and let Mr Darwin do his thing. Seriously tho, you can't legislate against retardedness (I'd class most bureaucrats and politicians as retards) but you can attempt to educate. Refer to my comments re: bureaucrats however when you think on the fact that skills based training was rejected on the grounds that if people have better skills, they will just go faster and have worse crashes. Add to this most people in transport planning national/regional level jobs are greenie types who are only interested in getting us to take a bus or bike- cars are old hat, embrace the glorious transport revolution, comrades! Yes we have a problem with drivers- but we also have a very real, very dangerous bureaucrat problem.

Curious with this as well, who is the recommended go to now? I was very happy with Glenns service, have the 330 booked in for a service with BM workshop, is there anyone else out there that has the bimmersport stamp of approval?

Popped down to Huntly earlier to do a spot of shopping. On the way back, a Nissan Lafesta which had been stopped on the hard shoulder pulled out and accelerated, indicated right and moved in to the right hand lane. I thought it was going to do a u-turn, but no... It continued in the right hand lane at about 85km/h. That was it. nothing had been in front of this car, there was nothing to overtake. Sadly this exemplifies the state of driving that many of us see so often. To most of us it is incomprehensible - what are these people thinking?

Replaced a chunk of the rubbish plastic window washer piping in the bonnet. Was leaking all across 5 points, replaced most of it, the rest will still likely need doing to complete, but at least it works now. Replaced the rear 4 speakers, thanks to Brent for BMWorld for some quality parts. Sound greatly improved with speakers that don’t have UV rot in them. Gave it a clean to round off the weekend. Already locked a few thousand kms under it, seems to like the running currently. Touch wood.

$10 says it's for sale within 2 months. JK. Nice car! These engines feel like a torquey v8 rather than a six. 0 lag.

Im all for letting Darwin get back to his regular job. We shouldnt have to have campaigns to tell people to wear their seatbelts.... Also agreed on the transport planning situation, what we have now is very scary (wife is a roading engineer) and will likely see a whole bunch of CE companies go bust and/or the skilled people leave the industry/country while plans for our nationwide gluten free monorail are drawn up.

https://transact.nzta.govt.nz/transactions/CheckExpiry/entry Very useful

You're not wrong but I think 1 in 4 is a bit extreme. In terms of having passengers while on your restricted, I think we should adopt some of the conditions which apply to Australian Provisional 'P' licenses, particularly being able to drive with one passenger, regardless of what license the passenger is on. When I did my defensive driving course, I remember the tutor telling us that studies found having a passenger was actually safer than driving solo, if they're aware of whats going on around them. Mobile phones definitely don't help. As for actually passing your restricted test, I think it's a pretty thorough test which is good, however it involves no open road driving. The full license test is a bit of a joke. Took me around 15min, a third of it was spent sitting at traffic lights as I did it just before a long weekend.

Sleuth level: maximum What a waste of a sweet wagon. iIRC the driver was in her 70’s? out of interest, how can you tell if a cars rego is on hold? Shows on carjam?

That's another part of the problem. There is no public transport outside Hamilton.

you give them too much credit.Thinking?

@Allan, yes good point, how you react at the initial point of loss of control (which I think is what 3Pedals was on about car control) can have a great effect on the outcome of the situation. The only way to train this is on something like a skid pan, or closed track, etc. Even simple things like being able to steer whilst heavy braking through the use of ABS is alien to very many people - ever noticed how many trees or power poles manage to hit smack in the middle of a bonnet? Continuted driver education is a huge plus, as are things like "Defensive driving" or "advanced driver training" courses, perhaps these could be either subsidised by the government or even made compulsory though insurance companies?

Waikato covers quite a large area with lots of road variation, plenty of poor roads around, lots of rural areas etc. Auckland is just numbers game but im sure deaths are kept down by the shear traffic volume keeping you safe in gridlock. The consequence of technology is the dumbing down of everything

cellphones ,

Part of the way there. Picked up a standard muffler from Ray at @HELLBM thank you again mate. Spent a bit of time on it y'day: Untitled by Christian Taylor, on Flickr Untitled by Christian Taylor, on Flickr Untitled by Christian Taylor, on Flickr Untitled by Christian Taylor, on Flickr Untitled by Christian Taylor, on Flickr Also have swapped bootlid, indicators & wheels, yet to put in standard seats and front bumper. Also have replacement OEM chrome grilles & side vents on the way, this car is going to be more standard than it ever has in my ownership haha. Untitled by Christian Taylor, on Flickr Untitled by Christian Taylor, on Flickr Untitled by Christian Taylor, on Flickr

166699kms. With the assistance of Autosure Extreme MBI, I've purchased a box of these: Yes folks, 32 hard, filthy, worn-out valve stem oil seals. Not much said quickly, and not that pricey to buy. A bunch of other gaskets and seals. Collateral damage of one auxillary water pump (it's done behind the radiator by the left chassis rail); it fell to pieces during strip-down. Good old BMW plastics, eh? Rather it happened now in controlled circumstances, than out between towns in use! For reference, if you're doing this job, factoring in BMW Auxiliary Water Pump - Pierburg 7.02078.37.0 would be useful. I bought OEM Pierburg item. I digress. It's a long and complex job. I got the car back yesterday after two weeks (I'd prefer it wasn't rushed, or they felt under time pressure). Great to have it back. More details coming. I think I'll edit up a movie. PS: I also took Page European's recommendation, and had them run a Wurth Intake System Cleaner through it. Initial impressions - after all the work - are that it's running better. I'm sure there'd have been a vacuum loss through the knackered guides, it builds vacuum on liftoff faster than before... wonder if the fuel economy is going to improve as a result of all this work? Anyway, it's no longer making like puffing billy, which is a good thing.

Thanks Glenn for helping me get my BMW 330i M-Sport - I still love the car. Now to find another reputable BMW specialist who can do my next service. Not keen on going to a BMW dealer if I can avoid it. Recommendations?

OCD may not be the *last* word in everything car prep related, but they're very good, and their affiliate company - United Car Care - sells much of what they use. There *are* other products out there but the ones OCD use have been proven to work.

Ok, last couple of weeks have been centred around the head unit upgrade and I put a E46 steering wheel on. Might alter this in the future but for now I like the feel of this wheel. Purchased a Avin Avant 3 unit from the US, arrived super quick. Spec’d it out with reversing camera, Apple CarPlay, Maps on SD card. Comes also with Ibus connection, Steering Wheels Canbus connection, SIM card port and its on web phone connection, USB ports X 2, SD card slot running on Android 6. GPS and it’s on wifi hotspot. I went with this as I wanted the factory look connected to the Ibus for OBC inputs and utilising the DSP and factory setup, (with all its problems and age, but hey it’s ‘unique’) Have been running it the last week and finished the install today. OBC and coding is very cool ?. Being able to cycle speed into the IKE display is great, it’s also the GPS adjusted speed identical to the speed on my radar detector. Having all OBC controls and monitoring I also like, it’s easy to use as well. Coded the indicators to flash 3 times like a real modern car as well. Big step forward, lots of other built in coding as well you can use, welcome home lights, setup DRLs etc. Android 6 platform seems very stable and has been working great, mainly running music through Apple Carplay and display on OBC then Google maps, using the live web connection for traffic updates and advisement, been excellant so far. Response and speed of operation has been very good. Had a couple of times where the unit seemingly has booted up twice after initial start up but no other operational issues. Takes a while to install running harness to the boot and the camera into the boot lid, overall it’s very durable and the quality looks good at an install point. Having the unit even seems to have brought the DSP amp back to life, we’ll see how long it lasts, might need replacing or at least a good inspection by a techie, above my pay grade. So suitably happy to bring the old girl up to the latest standards and the results so far. Next on the list is the bumper and bonnet replacements. Replacing the ribbon that gives the PIXEL issue in the main display as well, see what the weather comes up with tomorrow.