Vass

If there's a market for it then all power to them I guess. Personally, I find it hard to "support local" knowing that there was zero value added to the original product by the entity taking your money when you can get the exact thing from elsewhere for 1/3 of the price. I'd rather support businesses that, you know, do something.

Interesting, didn't see that as an option on there when searching by part number. Oh well. I've ordered a Hella unit, will see how it goes. Not too fussed with replacement as I've figured out a way to get to it from underneath without having to take the intake out so not that much of a hassle. Before ordering it I called up BM Parts to see what they stock locally, got offered the same Hella unit for $420+GST. From Spareto it's €76+30 shipping so all up $480 vs $190. Bonkers how we're getting shafted over here left & right

What starter brand did you go with? Just went down the rabbit hole trying to figure out the best option nowadays. Didn't want to go with Bosch as their new units seem to have switched to 1.1kW from the 1.4kW that the originals came as for some weird reason. Chatter online seems to lean towards rebuilding an original rather than going with anything aftermarket...

The amount of effort that's gone into it is kind of impressive but also... somehow nauseating? Won't see another Z3 like it, that's for sure. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/z3/listing/4674093509?bof=hgofd8wg

What an absolute weapon! Never realized this existed, your latest project thread led me to it. Glad it did. Amazing work!

I think the main factor is the climate. Singaporean imports are notorious for electrical issues due to higher humidity and are worth steering clear of in general. UK & Japanese (depending on region of origin) imports can suffer from rust due to salt on the roads etc. Beyond that I wouldn't read much deeper into it. Both NZ-new and ex Japanese/UK cars can be equally as pampered or neglected when it comes to maintenance, all very much subjective and dependent on the particular car and its owner/s. I guess NZ-new cars are more likely to come with comprehensive service histories as most the paperwork generally get lost during the import process, on purpose or otherwise, but heaps of NZ cars come with zero information as well so... I'd steer clear of any overarching generalizations.

Ohh is that getting parted out, is it? Would there be a spare towing module in there somewhere I could scavenge? 😏

Was up for $35k in September, no takers.

It's been intermittently listed up for sale for months now, same photos throughout so must be the original owner still. Must have finally run out of patience and chucked it up with no reserve. One to keep an eye on.

Paint the spoiler white and slap back on.

Another one just dropped. 2000 BMW Z3 M Coupe Silver

Never raced or beaten on either

BM Workshop on Moorhouse Ave would be my best bet. Eurocare used to be the go-to but some of their best people have jumped ship over the past few years from what I've heard. Haven't used either personally but have a mate that's had some decent service with the former. That or just DIY. It's not rocket science

As a finishing touch, I finally got all the boot trims repaired and reinstalled. The plastic tabs holding the trim bits in place are notorious for breaking upon removal, no matter how careful you approach the task. Mine were of course already busted and creatively held in place with double-sided tape and sticky goo courtesy of the previous owner/s. Fortuitously, a while ago I'd come across a clever solution by one ///Mark_D on the E46 Fanatics forum who came up with a set of replacement steel tabs that can be glued in place of the broken plastic ones. Naturally, I snapped up a bunch and finally put them to good use. Between the bits that came on the car, a set that @Hazzy dropped off on his way through town and a few various bits I'd collected off a few parts cars, I put together a tidy looking set and got onto fitting replacement tabs. I first marked out the exact footprint of the new tabs, cut off and filed down the remnants of the old ones, used a dremel to roughen up the mating surface for better adhesion and then glued the tabs in place using some high strength clear epoxy. Every trim bit needed at least one new tab with the total number coming out to 17. With most of the boot taken apart, I took up the chance to give everything a good clean treat the plastics with some Aerospace 303. Also swapped out a few remaining cracked and busted bits that I finally managed to find good replacements for. All the interior trims are now looking as good as they ever will, pretty happy with the state of it on a 20+ year old car. All the goo cleaned off and trim bits installed. Awesome seeing everything nicely buttoned up for the first time in 3+ years. Reverse camera fully functional. No adjustment possible but good enough angle to avoid backing into stuff. The headunit Android system still takes about 20 seconds to boot up but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the reverse camera functions straight away after startup without any wait time. Good stuff. The towball is also in full view when installed. One of the main missions I've been putting off is getting that all wired in. Will need to get my hands on a towing module (part #61356955253) that the E46 shares the the E53 X5 & E83 X3. If anyone has any leads on one, please do shout out. One funny thing I discovered when making my latest parts order is that the "aero" windshield wipers are RHD & LHD-specific. LHD Bosch ones are pretty cheap from Schmiedmann but of course nobody carries RHD ones. No surprise that my car came with LHD ones with the fin facing the wrong way... Not that it makes a massive, if any, noticeable difference but just another thing that triggered my OCD. They were due a replacement anyway so ordered a set of correct ones from Wipertech - seems to be all the rage lately. Love that new wiper feel.

Managed to knock out the tedious task of repairing the boot harness over the past few weeks. Wasn't as straight-forward a process as I'd have liked but got there in the end. Also installed the reversing camera that had been sitting on the shelf for a good few years. Went with one that slots in instead of one of the number plate lights. Despite it being advertised specifically for an E46, turned out it didn't quite fit. Namely, it back cover was too large to fit into the housing and would hit the inside wall before reaching the seating surface. Had to take out the dremel and hack off quite a good chunk out of it until it clipped in, so much so that it left a few gaping holes in the thing that I sealed up with hot glue. Turned out quite ghetto, but as long as it works, it ain't stupid. The grommet for the boot wiring had been badly torn ever since I got the car so was long overdue being addressed. The plastic trims around the tailgate were also all busted up and were held in place with some disgusting goo that took quite a bit of effort to clean up. I already knew the black wire to be broken but also discovered the brown ground wire to be on its way out after cutting up the boot/grommet. The black wire was going up to the module under the hatch spoiler/brake light panel which turned out to be radio antenna amplifier. A few wires going in and out from either side so not exactly sure what that particular wire was supposedly powering. Never noticed issues with getting radio signal but good to have it repaired regardless. There was a lot of splicing involved. In total, there was 24 wires - 21 going to the main hatch and 3 to the glass window, all routed through the 3-legged "elephant trunk" harness. I went with this kit from Schmiedmann that included replacement wires, crimp connections and of course new boots/grommets. Weirdly, half of the crimp connectors were good quality ones with incorporated glued heatshrink sleeves and half were the shitty rigid plastic casing ones with no heatshrink. I wasn't a big fan of the latter so went out and bought some more to match the former, in sizes that I could find anyway. The kit looked like the perfect solution for the issue but unfortunately packed a major flaw, one that I only discovered having already hooked up the 3 wires going to the glass window. For some stupid reason the replacement grommet that goes to the body of the car was way too big to fit into the opening. The difference wasn't minor either but was a good 15-20mm longer than the original grommet. I tried ever which way to cram it in there but it just would not budge, the thing was just way too oversized. The process of reporting the issue to Schmiedmann turned out to be comically difficult. Must have gone back and forth with their representative a good 10+ times. Sent them the photos and the description of the issue, to which they said I must not have done it right, that the grommet is very flexible and should fit without issue, then demanded precise measurements of the grommets and the opening, photos of both grommets next to the opening, then claimed my car must not be standard as they've sold heaps of these and I'm the first one to complain so it's my fault somehow... All a bit silly as the photos really speak for themselves. The original grommet was already a tight fit into the opening and with the replacement one being proportionally longer by a good quarter there was just no way it would fit, without issue no less. The openings for the wires were the same size but the Schmiedmann grommet had about a cm of extra material either side of it compared to the original. Why they didn't just make it to match the genuine grommet I have no idea. In the end managed to claw out a partial 50% refund. Was going to use it on a new genuine grommet (part #61136900190) but unfortunately the lead times on those are 3-4 weeks and keeping the car out of action for that long wasn't an appealing option so I tried to make this one work by chopping it up. I cut away at the extra material either side of the opening and cut a new sealing groove with a razor, giving my fingers a good few cuts and bleeding all over the place in the process. Unfortunately, didn't take any photos of the end result as I didn't fancy taking it back out again after the first successful test-fitting, it didn't look pretty though. Luckily looks to have sealed up fine in the end. I'm a bit concerned about the angle the rubber folds at which makes me doubtful of its longevity, so I'm still putting an order in for a genuine grommet to have on hand as a backup. The most time consuming part was of course reconnecting the wires. Took my time numbering and labelling every wire to make sure nothing got crossed up. 48 crimps in total as well as soldering in the reversing camera connections and the new number plate light. Got quite repetitive in the end. In the end tidied up quite nicely. All the lights, boot latches and of course the reverse camera all fully functional without any hiccups, which was a great relief. I'm mindful of this solution introducing new potential failure points but the connection points should be far enough away from any moving parts that or pinch points that I'm fairly confident it won't be an issue. The shifty grommet is the main point of concern for me so will be something I keep my eye on.