Leaderboard

I was kindly alerted of this by an old highschool mate. His Mum was about to sell, having had it since 1997. Would I be interested in an NZ-new 1990 316i manual? Turned out to be full poverty-spec, 103hp, 4 private owners, 257,000 kms, and reasonably tidy. Our offspring are approaching driving age, and I want them to learn in a simple manual gearbox car, with none of those fancy driving aids we associate with steering, these days. Helps that one can see every corner of the car, too. Sr E-Thirty Andy kindly agreed to come with for inspection, as e30 expert to help with my mid-range mech capability. We determined that it was an honest, reasonably tidy example, needing some TLC. It had only been doing around 250km per year for a number of years now, but had been garaged. It started (stone cold) willingly, first go. Serviced last week by Mike Page. It was sold through Shelly BMW when new, and when the last owner bought it new; I even found @Barryn's card in the service book from back in the day. A deal was struck, I did the ownership change, paid the cash, got the key stuck in the driver's door, Andy sorted that out, phoned insurance and paid, and set out for Wellington from Paraparaumu. I'm pretty taken by it, it's nice to be back in an e30. Plans: give it TLC to get it machanically sorted (clutch and associated bushes and seals), precautionary cambelt kit, general servicing and maintenance (leads, cap, rotor, fan clutch). In summer, check out what's underneath those front guards, and sort out bootlid keep it fairly stock for next three years until both of our scone-grabbers have their licenses then - quite possibly - make it into a well-sorted clone of Andy's "MY E30". Or at the very least, a 318iS. Hence "project" rather than showroom. Here she is in monochromatic glory:

Is that an E30 thing, meaning acres of rust? ?

Stable Update The White 520 got writen off and was since replaced with 2 other cars. First a black on black 2000 328i motorsport, NZ new 160000km that we picked up for $3k. Second was a 2003 325Ti in silver, NZ new 90000km full service book that we paid $4250 for. These two will be the daily runners so that we can keep the black on black 530i motorsport (also NZ new with full service book, 140000km) in pristine condition under a cover in the shed.

Love this. Looking forward to seeing another E30 round the eastern suburbs regularly. The BMW clubbers will also be able to tell you where your kid(s) (at least the car) is without installing a GPS ?.

"Surface rust" seems to be a UK term that means "the whole thing is riddled with rust but I'm sure it's not structural and you should trust me". Rust is rust. And if it's in one place, it's sure to be in others.

Not so sure what the point of that would be, as you don't actually end up with a spare key if you have to cannibalise your existing key to make the new one? So all you are doing is changing the case from the "old" style to the "new" style. You would really need to know what you are doing with a soldering iron in there as well, having smashed up some of these keys it's a pretty small and intricate pcb to start soldering things onto and off of. Good luck if you give it a go, let us know how you get on...

There are x2 NZ new, x3 UK imports in NZ.

yesterday I... added BMW #3 to the fleet. Come to think of it. @Haitoman we passed you in the opposite direction (Kapiti somewhere), while you were out in the M3. Only saw you at the last moment, such was my e30 reverie... Today, I took a train to Petone with my lad, to collect it. Showroom page coming soon.

Wow https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/bmw/auction-1764577990.htm?rsqid=c186d4b916b24eb0832edeb7ef45cb55

http://www.trademe.co.nz/1762530935

I would be more worried about fitment and rubbing than pot holes. Unless they are real cheap rubbish made from recycled plastic they should be more than ok for everyday road use.

Hope this ends with dealer being named and given sh*t reviews everywhere possible. Amazing what lengths they went through just to skimp on the repair costs. Absolute scum if this is all what it sounds like.

Haha hey man, was at Mister D's getting a cheeky donut before Gumboot Rally day 2!

Was thinking maybe issue with trans cooler and thermostat as the setup is different pre/post vanos. Battery disconnect is supposed to delete trans adaptive learning feature. Google had a thread with guy that had the exact problem but he never came back with the resolution, dont you hate that. Rheingold (ISTA/D/P) is the newer diagnostic tool, much easier to use than INPA

I would suggest clearing the adaptions since you have changed the box before you damage it

Have you got a decent scanner? Surely EGS codes would give some info

Arrow wheels also custom make wheels centers. Otherwise import some?

Oh noes, you had to buy two more BMWs, how sad ? they sound like great deals!

Seem a lot of these had engines replaced by BMW at around 100k so I wouldnt let high km ones be ruled out. If it were manual . . . . . . ?

Finally got some decent weather and managed to co-incide it with some free time, and managed to be fairly productive with it as well. Took the tow bar and wiring off of the F31 as that is now being replaced with a different car and model. Also cleared out all the accumulated junk and bits off stuff that seem to accumulate in daily drivers. Brushed the brake dust off the wheels to make it look half clean when it goes back. Since the yellow ball made an appearance in the sky I took the covers off the convertible and took it out around the block to drive the cobwebs out. (Oh, if only it were really that simple!! Full story would be... Put the garage door up, which pushed two tyres and a wheel off the stack by the door causing them to bounce off the convertible and around the garage. Luckily the cover saved any damage to the paint. Looked in about four cupboards and three drawers to find the keys for the convertible, tried to start it - not quite enough juice in the battery, found keys to wife's car, moved that, then pushed the vert back so I could boost it off the race car battery - finally got it started. Drove it around the block a couple of times to get things up to temp, tyres really squeaky - need more air. Pumped up all four tyres by foot, put it back in the garage. Brushed some of the dust and bits and pieces off the outside, put the cover back on.) Total miles travelled this year, since last WoF, now up to 92miles - woop, might make triple digits before it goes for next WoF! On Sunday took the E46 wagon for a drive as it hadn't been started for a while, it's sitting waiting for me to give it a real good clean and tidy up before we sell it. Also managed to find a bit of time to fluff around on the racecar, got the bushes pressed out of the new rear subframe and cleaned up some of the bodywork ready for painting, wrote a few more things on the list of jobs that need doing. Treated a little bit of surfacre rust on the subframe and around the lip of the boot where it was starting to bubble. Painted a few more parts for the latest model kit M3 and stuck a couple together, so much more detail on this one than the first one it's testing my eyesight that's for sure. Overall quite pleased, and don't feel like crap today which has happened the last couple of times I have tried to do anything, so might chance my arm at a few more jobs during this week.

No doubt they'll try get him in to a newer less reliable model

Bloody hell that is nice. Good job it's all the way down south otherwise I could see myself accidentally buying that.

Thanks man. Yeah I had to get a couple of new ones on the front....been sitting on these rims for a while waiting for some spare money to come round. Went for the cheaper option of hankooks @ $215 a corner. My tyre guy wasn’t very impressed that I was swapping out the 10,000km old RE003’s and S001’s for these. I’m just going to hoard them for now.

So I hate having cables everywhere and i equally hate a messy centre console storage bin. Having successfully code Apps 6NR and purchased an iPod touch to drive it all my next mession was to find a way to clean up the console. I made some slight modifications to the snap-in adaptor base plate with my dremel, mounted the iPod cable, routed it along all the existing wiring abd out ubder the piece of plastic that houses the snap-in. The result is a much cleaner, less cluttered centre console bin.

Napier CBD this morning @CSET

Sold them outside on Facebook so letting the auction run instead of paying more trademe fees Updated: In fact, got a nice courtesy email from trademe withdrawing the auction for me with no fees but did get a lengthy telling off

An AA inspection would be waste of money on a car like this.