Leaderboard

Hey fellow E60 owners and congrats on your purchases Chris - like the aftermarket alloys and understated body kit. I-Drive - if your car is a jap import and you want NZ Nav then typically you will need a conversion job done (with hardware changes) by someone like EuroSurgeon - it's not just a case of getting the local DVD. I got my radio localised by recoding (cheap) and had the Nav done and all up it cost $750 from memory. The Nav is Ok but won't be as up to date as your phone. Not long after I had mine done the whole computer died - it looks like the cooling unit on the back of it had not be refitted - either by EuroSurgeon or by the muppet (previous owner/car yard presumably) who tried to fit a band expander. Luckily I had AutoSure Extreme cover and the failure was covered - otherwise it would have been best part of $2K for replacement and fitting/recoding. So - just be careful and if you don't need the Nav then maybe don't worry about it. After getting the unit replaced by Autosure via Jeff Gray BMW I only had the radio re-code done and left the Nav as I didn't want anything more to go wrong. A replacement I-Drive will match the car original spec - Japanese!!! OEM Bluetooth kits work well but are ~$1K so I've never bothered with that - have a Bluetooth visor unit that I can switch between my 2 BMWs Much cheaper and works fine. If you don't have a service history showing coolant and oil seal stuff being sorted then be prepared for a bunch of stuff possibly. Don't know how different this is for a 530i. Usually no expensive parts involved but can be a lot of labour changing oil seals in difficult places. The cars might be solid but the plastic and rubber in them just doesn't last more than 10 years. Highly recommend having a Mechanical Breakdown Insurance policy on your vehicles - I have them on both and they have easily paid for themselves within the first year of ownership- which is good (and bad). You can buy policies for vehicles you already own from MTA Mount Victoria - [email protected] or 027 22 44 295. I do wish the V8 had a better exhaust note but sorting that properly with a performance exhaust would be an investment I don't want to make after what I've spent on the car. Sam - glad I've warned you off the muffler delete - I'm sure it could be done with better results using a dual pipe approach rather than the dumb basic single pipe PitStop did for me but overall it was just *horrible*. Overall I love my E60 - the lines, the cabin quality, stereo quality, space and the performance when you give it some welly. After driving @treone's M5 (wow!) I seriously intend to get an M5 but need to own my 545i for a while longer to make sense of what I've spent in getting it sorted. Anyway - enjoy your E60s! Pete

Ok its time to get serious about selling the 330ci. I have to admit I am fond of the car and with my 335i being a bit unreliable I have continued to use it but now its time to sell it. Some of you know the history but heres whats been done. Has Ohlins Road and Track Suspension, $4000 new! (Certed). Eibach HD sway bars, and strut brace. Wheels are 7.5 front with 225/45/17 Pirelli P Zero Nero's 4mm tread. Rears are Bridgestone Potenza Re003 245/40/17 7mm tread. KMS 193k. This is a very good handling E46, just ask Olaf. The common faults have been addressed. Vanos rebuilt with Besian kit. Vanos oil feed line replaced. PCV System including hoses completely replaced. Rocker Cover gasket replaced. Oil Level Sensor replaced. Idle air control Valve serviced. DISA Valve rebuilt Alternator replaced. New Water Pump and hoses. Front Control arm bushes (Poly) Rear Control arm bushes (Poly) Strut tower reinforcement plates. Rear Shock reinforcement plates. Transmission serviced, flushed and new filter. Hawk performance brake pads. Slotted and dimpled rotors (Near new) Braided brake lines. New Radiator overflow bottle and sensor. Aircon regassed. Warrant til September and Rego to July. M Sport Steering wheel, Sony Bluetooth Head Unit, Wood Interior trim replaced with Silver/Alloy (Armrests not done but replacement silver arm rests supplied and you can have the wood as well). Serviced only 3 months ago. Synthetic 5w/40 and new filter. A lot of M54's I have driven feel slack in the mid range this is like because of the DISA and the VANOS being stuffed, this one has great torque to go with the strong top end power. Faults: The clock spring in the steering column can click sometimes when turning the wheel. The sunroof interior blind is missing this does not affect the operation or waterproofness but you can always see through it. It is tinted though so no problems. The car has a few small scratches There maybe better looking 330cis out there but this is one you can own without having to spend money on it. The interior is clean no rips or tears and did I say it handles well, yes it really handles like a BMW should. So Special Bimmersport price is $5500 that's my bottom dollar.

When I worked at a BMW dealership, well before the internet & cheap copies were available, they wouldn't well M badges etc, unless you could prove you had a M car

Update #8 So after a week of backwards and forwards to hospital with my wife, wife is now better and Dad, James and I spent yesterday making more progress. First up was finishing up the RACP reinforcement plates. We tack-welded the second rear plate, and then seam welded both of them up. The two front plates were just simple bends. We measured the fold lines and were able to manually fold the two front plates :thumbsup2: the folds ended up perfect, no gaps at all around the arc of the curve. With the plates welded / folded up, the next step was to drill the holes for the mounting bolts. Obviously it's important to get these in exactly the right place, so that the hole can be no larger than necessary for the bolt to fit through (i.e. enlarging the hole to allow for imperfect fitment, is then not supporting the mounting bolt as well as it could). A brief discussion around how best to do this led to Dad's excellent suggestion of using a laser sight to mark the centre of the hole. We rigged up the laser level like so: A piece of masking tape across the hole lets us align the laser dot correctly. We were then able to locate the plate, and mark the plate where the laser dot fell. With the holes drilled we have a set of 4 completed plates: Here's how they look sitting on the RACP. (Note: Only showing three, as the two rear ones are essentially a mirror image of each other.) The last items to manufacture are the two small plates for the diff cradle. They're pretty straightforward, small flat spacers with two holes drilled in them. Here's a token picture of their manufacture to prove that we made them. That pretty much brings to a close the manufacturing stage of the plates. They will of course get a final clean up prior to being epoxied on, but there's no point in doing that until directly before they're going to be affixed. I've got the 3M 8115 epoxy on order. Rather than paying for the special applicator gun, we'll just modify a standard caulk gun. Provided the epoxy arrives this week we'll look to attach the reinforcement plates next weekend. :thumbsup2: After finishing up the plates, we split up, Dad and James took on changing the diff seals, and removing the rear cover so that it can be glass bead blasted to clean up the aluminium fins. The diff looks to be in pretty good condition. With new seals and some new oil it should be good to go :parrot: While Dad and James did the diff, I armed myself with some degreaser, and scrubbing brush and a towel and got to work cleaning up the underbody. It's pretty tedious work but the upside is that it cleans up really nicely. I got through the two rear wheel wells with the degreaser, and did one well with kerosene to take the tar spots off. Unfortunately the photo below shows the wheel well that hasn't been kerosene'd (the lighting didn't allow for a decent pic of the other well, so just imagine the below, without the tar spots :lolhit:). I'll do more degreasing and cleaning up after work during the week, and then next weekend we'll hopefully be ready to epoxy the plates and commence reassembly of the rear axle. We're going to build it up and then lift the entire thing into place at the end. This is preferred for a couple reasons. 1: easier to work on, 2: allows us to work in parallel while the epoxy plates are curing. We'll also be starting on disassembly of the front suspension in the near future, as there will be some lead time on cleaning and painting parts etc. that we want to get a head start on. Starting to feel like it's all coming together! :parrot:

GLWS! Be a good buy for somebody

I ran the 318i badges on my m50 turbo e30 for ages ?

What's wrong with a de-badged BMW? o.O

Damn and bother... timing... this would be ideal for my next Beemer - anyone want to buy a bargain Accord Euro for the shopping run or oher half? lol... GLWS @Herbmiester

Thanks Ray!! Will do - we're taking a closer look this weekend - so will give you a call if we need some help Thank you muffler was degreased, sanded with 1200 wet sandpaper, then an initial polish with jif, then a buffing wheel - it's basically a lot of hard work, but it does come up well Thanks for the encouragement! Really enjoying the restoration process! Haha I'm with you - at least we know how to recognise it right!! As long as I don't think about my bank account too much it all turns out fine in the end Yeah he is a bit! I'll show him your post - he'll be chuffed! I suppose you can borrow him, but only after he's finished helping me with my car!!!

Has past its cert and new plates are ready to go