GorGasm

Going to an exhaust shop is a tricky business. I would hazard a guess and say few if any, actually know how to make a good sounding exhaust and some may just stumble upon greatness. That one you linked doesn't seem like a horrible deal, but if you could find a cheap factory option that would be ideal. FYI the factory 130i exhaust isn't quiet though.

Nostalgia'd back to my old one. Didn't really appreciate it at the time, I am far too picky. Looking back at the pics makes it look so solid.

IS350 and GS350, nice choice!

Not sure on the dynamics of the GT under power, but in my understanding rear toe in is always the way to go for a rear drive street car.

Capital Tyres in Hamilton sorted me out. Good bunch of guys, happy to hear me out, and dialed the car in to as close to the specs I provided as possible. Excellent customer service. It was toed out both front and rear, now toed in slightly on the front and stock in the rear. Car is much more confident at high speed now and seems to have decent turn in without being hyperactive. I'm not going to call it perfect, but i'm happy with it for now and I don't feel like I am going to die at high speed. Have a look at the sheet.

Here's a run down in order. Handling has always been a bit busy but nothing overly concerning and the car could be pushed pretty hard confidently. Rear PS4S tyres were shredded through to the belts. Replaced them with Atturo AZ850s based on some positive reviews from USA Charger drivers and being cheap as hell, alignment done at the same time/place as the tyres were fitted but no spec sheet provided after the job. Handling now totally off the wall scary at speed, drive in one direction, suddenly feels like it's going in another direction, way too scary to do any spirited driving. Not going back there since I wouldn't trust them to align liquid down a funnel now. Replaced front upper control arms since I knew the bushes were completely shredded and things seem better but still could use improvement. Called up this other place based on a recommendation from a friend, spoke to the owner, and briefly explained what's happening and booked an alignment. Turned up for the booking and as luck would have it the owner is the free person at reception so hand over the key. Guy walks out with me to look at the car and literally 10 seconds after laying eyes on it starts laying into whoever (newsflash moron, I fitted them and you have managed to insult me minutes after arriving at your business) fitted these cheap Chinese (they're US brand, Taiwanese made) tyres and that they are obviously the problem, cue diatribe on manufacturers spec tyres and unprompted pricing of 4x Pirelli replacements. Heck the front PS4S still have a solid 10k on them. I was pretty f**king annoyed as I ended up writing off a whole days work and likely a half day tomorrow. I just want an alignment done as I have no idea whatsoever what camber and toe the car is running. If the alignment is dialed in and I still have issues then I can look at loading up the parts cannon. That's about it really. The way he should have handled it is by looking at the car, asking some questions and then suggesting that maybe the new rear tyres could be the problem and they he could put it in the machine to check out and adjust the alignment to make sure it's all good but that perhaps that might not be the end of my problems. I would have been on board, 10 4 amigo. Unfortunately he chose to be a douchebag. My general MO is that if I get sub par or even poor service from a place is that I just won't return, nothing more. This guy really shat in my morning coffee. Quick rant eh? On a positive story. I had adjustable suspension fitted and aligned in my Subaru Legacy 3.0 at P&S automotive many years ago and that thing had sublime handling. My M5 didn't even match the level of confidence that thing had.

It's a premium shop in the car dealer area in Te Rapa, the guy had me raging after I left that's for sure. Given the price rise of houses in the last 5 years, any home owning schmuck could mortgage up a McLaren. Hell, that's how I got my cheap Maserati. Have to agree about wheel, tyre and general vehicle service places. There's a lot of macho, my way or the highway bullshit in there along with a lack of fundamental technical knowledge and willingness to learn or adapt to new information/experience. Other dumb sh*t, the place that put my tyres inflated them to 45psi. Door card says something in the vicinity of 33psi. Note I also replaced the front upper control arms this week since the bushes were completely falling apart and which was actually an easy job ~ 2.5 hours. Since that has been done it's a bit less crazy, bit still not confidence inspiring over 100kph.

Took my car for an alignment at a place in Hamilton yesterday because it's wandering all over the place at higher speed and is super quick to turn in, so I suspect the front is toed out a bit much. It has been happening since I got my new rear tyres and an alignment (for which I wasn't provided the spec sheet for). The owner came out and had one look at my car and said the problem is my brand new Atturo tyres and that whoever put these on should be shot. Without saying much more -or asking me- he went inside and got on the phone for 5 minutes to price up some replacement Pirellis for $3000(not a great deal but not too bad either I guess). He then proceeded to lecture me like am some sort of ignorant pleb about how there's a manufacturers spec tyre for these cars that they spend millions of dollars in R&D on and that he would never dream of putting anything other than Pirelli Corsa's on his McLaren. We "agreed" that it would be wasting my money to get the car aligned and that I would think about replacing my tyres for the ones that are meant for my car and they would throw in an alignment for free. f**king wanker. I'm not saying it's not the cheap tyres causing the issue, but the car needs to be aligned first to check that the basics are correct before replacing parts willy nilly. Called up another place and had a chat and they said bring it in Tuesday and they will check out what's going on and provide some advice from there.

It means they will stop bullets. That's 120k worth of cars on a good day. $210k is dreaming.

Nope. Styling is totally wrong. Best ever probably belongs somewhere in the E3x range.

Cool, but shame it's auto, miss mine sometimes. GLWS.

Can't be much different to my 535i with the ZF 8 speed. It's a pretty boring drive train, smooth quiet and relatively efficient, but boring. The GS450h is also e-CVT with a planetary gear setup rather than your normal CVT.

Have any experience with the GS450H? I have been idly thinking about one for a while now if I ever sell up the Maserati. Or even just a GS350.

When looking at that E34 it strikes me that design hasn't really progressed that far in 30 years but materials and electronics is wildly different. If I wanted an E34 for 55 grand I would build my own, possibly in the spirit of an Alpina B5. My late night musings while waiting for BBQ.

Perhaps I should reword it. What if your work could be less that 5km from your home? Sure people should still be allowed to live and commute however they see fit but they shouldn't have to. When I lived in Auckland I couldn't afford to live close to my office, I had to buy my first house 20+km away, I would gladly have purchased a place which would have reduced my commute. Looking back perhaps I should have bought an apartment, but I've been conditioned to want a 3 bed standalone house with land attached. I also specifically mentioned commuting for work purposes. Save the traveling for recreation activities that you want to do, that shouldn't have to change. What I'm suggesting is reducing the travel time and expense for productive activity. In doing this you either have better productivity, more personal time, or more efficiency, or a combination of all three. If everyone was able to save $100 on their weekly travel costs, that could potentially be fed straight back into more productive retail business.

Not saying that everyone can or should do it. But what if you could live within 5km of both of your jobs allowing you to walk or scooter or something?

I agree that there's very few if any affordable locations in NZ anymore. But for sustainability I was meaning more around the issues of poor design that have compromised the cities. Specifically in Auckland poor infrastructure, poor land usage, council bloat, overpopulation, lack of transport. Very tough or maybe impossible issues to solve. Spread some of the load to other cities to allow them to grow, alleviate some of the pressure. For off shoring. Sometimes yes, often no. Depends on the job and the company ethos. Issues with offshoring: Poor communication skills. Culture clash. Time zone issues. Outcome quality. Other stuff...

Agree with the first part, you gotta pay to play. Personally the price of petrol doesn't really affect me at all. The rest is exaggeration and scaremongering. Passenger cars have a light footprint regardless of their power plant, it's trucks that f**k the road to pieces. I'm not against EV's paying RUC but they aren't going to impact the roading any different to existing passenger cars. NZ society needs to stop commuting for work in passenger vehicles. It's a colossal waste of time and resources. I used to spend 2.5 hours a day in Auckland traffic and spend $150 a week in petrol and I now do the same job remotely and live less than 1 km from all essential services (Supermarket, doctor, day care, school, takeaway, service station, hair dresser). I get that not everyone can work remotely, but you should be able to live close to your location of work enabling you to travel on foot or via public transport. This ideal is currently out of reach for many people in the main centres due to out of control property price increases and that's a real crime. Thus i suggest abandoning Auckland and Wellington for other more sustainable cities.

I don't plan to buy any time in the near future but my next car will almost certainly be electric as fossil fuels are going the way of the dinosaurs. I might keep my weekend toy for a while though. If I was buying now I would probably just get a cheap petrol car to last a year or two as I think we'll start to see cool stuff then. I live in a city which isn't a complete disaster from a transport perspective and also have very little need to commute or travel more than a few km's at a time. I encourage everyone that can to move out of Auckland and work remotely. Auto manufacturers are coming up with some real next generation cars these days.

PS4S on the rear of my car have worn through the belts at 20k. So yeah 18k isn't far off the mark. Fronts probably have another 15k in them though. I'm grabbing some Atturo AZ850s once the shop open again, $600 for two fitted vs $1300 for Hankooks and moon beams for anything else. Will report back.

Maybe if you were doing 20k per year on them. Better off getting a cheaper fresh tyre though.

Yeah RS4 or C63 are newer, better, cheaper.

Yes but the 335i had the N55 instead of B58.

If I was after a boring car, this one would be real nice. Great color, interior and B58. If only it was a 540i https://www.trademe.co.nz/3381569364

Yeah i'm not sure that's fixable... I think there's more air than chassis left and what's left would dissolve in a cup of tea like a super wine if you tried to clean it.