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Imported last year this is my new ride. It's the second BMW I've owned, my last car was a 2007 e90 325i M-Sport in Le Mans Blue. I looked for a new car for 6 months, initially I wanted a 335i coupe but drove a 130i and was immediately sold. The handling and power was so much fun I immediately switched to looking for LCI 130i and found this one. It's an e81 130i M-Sport with less than 50k kms and a beige leather interior which is basically mint. There has been a couple of things done to it, wheels and tyres replaced by what I understand is the newer 1 series 17" wheels and 245/45 tyres. It's just had a ceramic coating and detail done, paint does look pretty good. Been a wee bit of drama in acquiring this car, when it turned up it was not in the condition it was described and driving it has revealed further issues. That is being dealt with through appropriate channels. It's a bit of a WIP now, so we shall see how far down the rabbit hole I go. I've had a few things mechanical and electrical fixed on it recently, it's been at Page European twice for diagnosis and repair (shout out to them for being awesome and helpful). I had previously given it a good clean and repaired a non functioning fuel flap, not much but electrical is a bit beyond my skills. It's also been at Winger BMW for a battery cable recall replacement. Recent work at Page: - Trans service/fluid replacement - Oil change/filter - Vanos Solenoids replaced - Gaskets replaced - Door Rubber replaced - Various electrical repairs - Steering angle sensor fixed I plan to change the cabin air filter and regular air filter then drive it for a while. There is still various bodywork bits to fix to get it mint(minor stuff like underbody motor shield, light covers in the boot, jack points and major bits like bumpers) but mechanically it's top notch now and I'll need to save up as the car fund is a bit depleted currently. Stuff I had originally planned to do to it: - 18" wheels preferably Msport or BMW - LSD/suspension down the road a way - A tune of some description

I'm thinking seriously about selling my low miles manual E36 M3 convertible. It's a bit special having done only 32000 miles (51kms), in great condition and i'm the 4th private owner ( plus 4 or 5 dealers). I gave it a treat recently and had it valeted along with a coating of Feynlab Ceramic paint protection - the paintwork looks almost like new ! ( apart from a few chips and the bottom of the front spoiler, which i may get painted ). I'm interested in what Bimmersport members think it's worth, i'm thinking it's somewhere from $20-30k, maybe towards the higher end - I've seen comment that the E36's are appreciating in value but to what degree ? I've seen the Evo's around $30k plus/minus on TradeMe with twice the mileage, none of which seem to be selling quickly.

Well my old Mitsubishi became even more useless than it already was, so i figured it's time to grab a new car and sign up over here ?. I picked up this NZ new 2003 320D with 120,000kms on it. It had an engine rebuild and a brand new turbo fitted 15,000km ago (all for an ungodly amount of money). The old turbo blew, pumping oil into the engine which messed things up. The crank case breather may have played a part in that, but the old man who used to own it isn't exactly alive anymore, so it's hard to know. The cooling system was done as a part of the rebuild, and a few other common failure points were sorted. I think the only thing i need to do mechanically for now is to have the swirl flaps removed, if they haven't been removed already. So far, It's been an absolute pleasure to drive, especially compared to the car i was coming from. And even with road user charges, i'm saving about $15 a week on fuel, which isn't bad at all.

Monday after a meeting I was getting onto the motorway when "bong" this error came up. The car went into limp mode, quite a bit of engine shake. Limped to Auckland City BMW, got a rental car organized through my American Express roadside assist benefit and proceeded to wait for BMW to quote repair. These result in anything from coils, fuel pumps, injectors, transmission...you name it. Luckily it was only the no 8 cylinder ignition coil that needed replacing, but while the car was there BMW also found leaking turbo coolant lines as well as a cracked rear differential mount. Fun and games, but Dylan (my service advisor) only phone me with the news after he received approval from Autosure to carry out the work ? Picked the car up yesterday, cost me $1500 in excesses (3 claims because they are all unrelated) for around $5000 of work. The rear diff mounting is particularly labour intensive since you pretty much disassemble the entire rear suspension to get to it. Moral of the story, don't underestimate the value of warranties...

randomly remembered this after seeing Glenn's BBQ posts. I am still going strong havent touched a single cigarette since I quit beginning of May 2018 so 9 months now!!

Some light entertainment for the BMW fan, apoligies if this has already been posted

Alpina are targeted for rapid transport and a more luxurious feel then the std BMW models which are more sports focused. That’s their target market, agree the older ones in the small models do look a bit tacky. They are best in B5 and B7s when they make more sense. Would loose a left arm for a B12 E38. In saying all that the newer D3s are pretty nice.

OK, worse reputation might be a bit overboard, but that V8 should be bulletproof and it just isn't, if i am going to have to do an expensive rebuild every 100,000 km then i would much rather spend my money on the V10.

keep an eye out for a 135i exhaust to put on there, makes a nice difference!

Ive seen one company (penrose somewhere?) offering a N52 tune, claimed something like 300bhp which sounds pretty "optimistic" Interesting to see the results though, nice car.

123d in manual would be good too i reckon

I need more info on the steering thing. Its news to me and owning an f20 m135i with electric steering i can confidently say it is totally different to my old 130i lci. But i dont have any experience in a pre lci e87 so need to try one day..

I expect aspects of my job will be done by software/ AI / robots, but i am not worried about being made redundant, i have a very diverse job description that involves everything from answering the phone to maintenance and repairs on machinery, product development, troubleshooting, quality control, driving and more, it would require several very capable and expensive technologies to replace one worker, just doesn't add up. By the time it becomes cost effective i hope to be retired anyway!

We bought a 2009 130i for the wife 5 months ago to replace her completely terrible in every single way E90 320i. It's such a fun car, we bloody love it. We took it on a trip to Wellington and I grinned the whole way down and back. The sound of it over 3000 rpm is most arousing. It handles like no 5 series I've ever owned and OMG the sound. Make sure you get the LCI though, get the motorsport, the auto is great, the manual would probably be pretty good too. Ignore anyone that talks about fuel economy, they are boring people. Who cares how much fuel it uses? It's there to burn, burn it. But the wife's long time average is 9.8l/100km, but so what? I think we got to Wellie and back on 7.8l/100km or thereabouts. Except for that part in the Desert Road where it was over 35l/100km. I prefer driving her 130i over my E60 540i by a long, long way, so that's what we use in the weekends. Yeah, the 540 is very comfortable (so comfortable) and quiet and fast and smooth and has all the things (comfort access, adaptive headlights and active steering etc) but it isn't fun like the 130i. The 540 will be replaced in December when its warranty runs out and I can't freakin wait. Buy the 130. There will be no regrets.

Apparently, BMW changed the steering to electric with E87 LCI. This took out the need for running the hydraulic pump for steering, hence a slight fuel saving effect.

Wasn't that because they were slotted though Dan? Funnily enough the best rotors I found for the E30 were the cheap chinese one's that Paul Olson brought in - $100 for a pair, nice and soft so plenty of bite from a good hard pad, but not too soft that they fell apart.

you want the later e28 style platform better suspension and brake setup also way better electrics etc

Not classic and not even nice. A late 540i msport is nicer.

That's Lani Fogleberg's old car, pretty sure she sold it for $12K back in 2009.

Even at 20k those KMs would put any serious investors off.