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The joys of passing on a car to a fellow member!

The car has definitely sung for its supper over the years, and has a rich tapestry of stone chips on the bonnet and windscreen (which were significantly added to by some prizewinner hammering through roadworks on SH32 last weekend). The paint has some water spot staining, which I'm not experienced/brave enough to tackle, but I had a go at the spotting on the windows today. Not sure how well the photo will show the difference, but the return is pleasing for the right combination of product and elbow grease (which I'm now all out of).

After weeks of successfully ignoring the classified, I finally cracked and messaged @qube about the car. He was extremely patient with my questions, at first general, then specific, and finally random as it became increasingly clear that I was very keen on the car. I had a yarn on the phone with @EUROHO, whose enthusiasm for the car tipped me right over the edge. My father-in-law and I flew up from Vellington last weekend, and Kyu picked us up from the airport. We chatted with him and his dad in a supermarket carpark before shaking hands and promising to treat it right. They were both gentlemen, and it was a pleasure to meet them. We filled up at a motorway services on the southern motorway. I was impressed that when we got home the obc still promised 150km of good times in the tank. We stopped at Good Union in Cambridge on the way - a lovely church that has been converted into a great pub/restaurant. Apart from a leg stretch in Bulls, we knocked the drive out in one from there, and had a great drive, SH32 from Cambridge down to Turangi was a lot of fun.

FS: E39 540i Motorsport 18X kms Auto WON'T START- While testing new DME and EWS module, wire from PIN 9 shorted, damaged harness under dash. Was running fine for ~1 month prior after an existing no-start issue. Looking for $3000 (less wheels and rack, to be sold seperately) will come on stock 16". Will part out as a last resort. Perfect for someone who wants to put in the time to fix and sell on or just part out. Also have an ME7.2 DME with immo off (EWS bypass) purchased as I thought I had an EWS issue or AFAIK perfect for anything with an M62 and definately M62 swaps. Cost me $600, selling for $500. 18x9 RD2 Wheels, no kerbing and repainted with good TZ700 tyres $800 Pro-Rack rood racks $120

Nah e36 tourings are ugly :-) Ray's monster is awesome!

I thought the same - and I'm colourblind lol... worth investigating further. Luckily, I work just up the road so may have a wee nosey tomorrow

Is the front driver side fender a different colour? Nice car for the money though.

First impressions are extremely positive. I'm used to an e30, and I was a little worried about the step up in size to a 5er touring. Once I was in the drivers seat though, it was like an optical illusion, feeling astonishingly nimble and compact. The power of the 3l is a significant improvement for me, and the roadholding and handling are really pleasing. Picked up a nail through one of the rear tyres on the journey home, unfortunately it was too close to the sidewall to repair the hole. As the fronts were near their wear indicators, I went for a new set. Would have loved some RE003s like all the cool kids have at the moment, but the staggered 66s are apparently getting low on options. I'm sure the Falken FK453s will be far more than I need anyway, I'm always happy to have new tyres on a car. Other than that, I'm trying not to get to carried away with it for a bit. Had a huge win finding this old post, couldn't believe it was that simple! Stoked I don't have to dibble about with a band expander or whatever.

Finally found and installed a mint set of 350M wheels 8x18. Given the chance I put 4 new tyres as well. No more run flats... looks good and most Important did not cost me a fortune. Thanks to Kyu he sealed the deal super fast.

In the end the market will dictate, if someone pays that price then its worth it. As always we buy on emotion and justify with logic.

Interestingly, theres been quite a lot of negative facebook commentary about the price the current owner is asking. I think people forget it takes killing / using a damaged M3 to make one of these, So automatically it's at least 25k worth going by regular M3 coupe prices. A decent E46 late model touring is generally close to 10k worth, rougher ones are cheaper of course. Then you have the time to sort the M3 body panels and paint them, that looked to be very well done and would have cost a fair bit of coin if you were to try replicate it. Electrics, coding, and fine tuning of everything transferred over to the touring chassis isn't a 5 minute job, especially to get everything working like it's a factory car. Other stuff like the physical work changing parts, subframe work, exhaust work, all the suspension installed, certification too. You need to have experience with BMWs to do such a build properly, not many people in the country could pull it off. It's up to the owner to find the price they want anyway, given the above I think he'd get close to the asking price with the right buyer that sees it for what it is.

I'm not sure about posting on a public forum if you don't want comments? But anyway, GLWS, it is a unique plate and I look forward to the TM auction.

If you are using BMWFlash just remember the dme will take a maximum of roughly 30 flashes before it locks up and stops flashing. When MSSFlash was still around, till about two weeks ago, the tool used to be able to clear the flash counter again. But now it’s gone and no longer (thank goodness!! Can’t even count the number of times I’ve had to fix a dme because of that software) you are sh*t out of luck so to speak once you hit that flash counter.

Bonnet was down but this looks like the real deal, yummy, spotted at caffeine and classics.

I treat the forums as a refuge from the people on Facebook. I may not contribute much around here but value the community here a heck of a lot more than the Facebook one.We should have a thread where we discuss where we would like to see the fourms go and how we can consciously contribute to achieve it. I certainly think its possible, I've seen it done before. This is our community, there's little stopping us from being aware and conscious of cultures we want to develop. I would hate for the forums to completely disappear as the thought of bring exposed solely to the Facebook scares my very core