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Alfa the king of unreliable.

Bored and browsing. Want! https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/alfa-romeo/auction-2637514215.htm?rsqid=05f9715a23cc4d9ea2977f652a1d4501-00

Yup but NZ'ers have had it hammered into them that low KM's are better. Some of the time they are. But not always. But I see that 12 year old car as a City traffic Crawler. When i was looking for an E60 530d years ago I jumped on one that had done over 100,000KM's (OMG ITS REACH 100K IT'S GOING TO BLOW UP - Most NZer's probably). It was a NZ New South Island car. It felt new. And I didn't have any issues with it the entire time I owned it. Amazing car. I think it had done 180,000 when I sold it. Still felt and looked new.

I have a set of BBS RS 17x8.5" refurbed 2 piece but no centre caps. Have to buy those from USA.

Low KM and jap import means nothing, its a false economy. Could mean its done huge engine hours sitting in start stop traffic, wearing out 1st and 2nd in the trans, or it does a lot of short, cold, trips. My first E36 was flogged out despite having 72,000km on the clock. Jap import. Jatco box was buggered (worse than most with twice as many KM), bushes and joints were floppy.

selling already?

We have a 159 at work at the moment that has had money spent on it hand over fist and it's still finding ways to not work. Currently (heh) has a mystery current draw. Gorgeous cars, but big nope to owning one. My 156 was a great car to look at and drive, but it was also an endless source of issues.

Only real way to tell is to load test the battery or check voltage when the car is running and see if the alt is charging it. If you don't know the age of the battery, it's probably given up and dropped a cell.

The hens teeth I picked up last week were expensive too ?

Finally got a rear parcel tray, that being absent was annoying me disproportionately. Everyone I called wanted $120-140 for one, picked up this mint one for $70 (which I still consider expensive but they seem to be like hen's teeth).

This afternoon also installed an Ireland Engineering poly Steering coupler. Had to drill out the rivets in the factory one and bolt this bad boy in place. Job wa a bit more niggly than expected but got it all sorted. Only got out for a quick test around the block and felt tight and direct, not harsh at all - steering was a little spongy before at times so hoping this comes into its own on the open road.

When a M car shows up in a Porno - perfect excuse to give to the missus.

Summit Road in the Port Hills is an excellent place to put a sports car to the test... Had an evening blast there to finish off the weekend!

Fine! Have done some more driving, on my second tank of fuel now! I'd say while it's clearly faster than my tuned 335i... it does what it does with much less drama. It's quieter, so stable and composed like it's not even bothered when you're flooring it or slamming the brakes. I floored it in a countryside intersection and did a small drift, I was definitely a little sideways but I couldn't even hear any tyre squeal. Perfectly smooth, most mellow feeling drift ever. Maybe the fake interior engine noise was hiding the tyre sound. I guess if I imagine myself driving the 335i hard, making a lot of noise, spinning tyres, slamming the brakes... the M4 would casually keep up without breaking a sweat or making much noise. It's so insulated, you can see why they added the fake engine noise. It's the only way you can tell what the engine is doing unless you have the windows down. At least with the stock exhaust, because it's not that loud. I think I'd want an aftermarket exhaust or downpipes before I disabled that (which I'm not doing any time soon). I also don't get why some people online complain that it's constantly trying to kick the back out. I think these guys just drive with the assist on and assume every time they see the TC light come on it's just stopped them from throwing the tail out. I drive it around in MDM (from what I understand, it means assist only kick in if you go beyond a certain slip angle). Even with foot to the floor on imperfect roads I never had any unintended sliding, just on one slippery wet bit of road it struggled for traction from a standstill. Maybe my opinion on this will change as I get more confident with it, I'm still taking corners very carefully - both because I haven't driven in 6 months thanks to the situation with my old car and I'm still getting used to the M4. Speed builds up both more quickly and smoothly than the tuned 335i, it's even easier to get into loss-of-license territory when overtaking. I performed what felt like a slightly aggressive overtake on a country road of a single car, who was doing 90, and I hit 150kph as I was going past the guy... it barely felt any different to 100kph. Think the same effort in the 335i might have me hitting 130... at least then I might keep my license if I get caught doing it! The HUD is also great, seeing your gear and speed without having to look down is actually super helpful when driving a bit 'spiritedly' on the back roads.

I've been wanting to do something with my intake for a while to give me some more induction noise to tide me over until I get to the exhaust. Originally planned on doing a long tube CAI but no room with the Xenon ballast in the way and seemed like a pain to relocate, so decided on the dirty old short ram with a heat shield to stop it being a Hot air intake. Was going to try building my own with aluminium sheets but saw a cheap E46 for sale on Facebook that happened to have a nice intake on it that I had seen online but wasn't about to pay $600 odd all up to get shipped to NZ. Its the Cosmo racing one pictured below but not the carbon fibre finish. Got a deal done with the guy and swapped for my stock airbox plus a few $$. I like this design as its fibreglass, really nicely moulded, utilises the factory air scoop and actually blocks off the expansion tank as well (most don't). I also had some really good 10mm foil backed foam insulation I bought a few years ago to insulate my home brewing kettle - a very effective product as brewing, I'm boiling for 90 minutes and this retains heat and is cool to the touch while 35 litres of 100c beer bounces around inside - very sticky too, has lasted 4 years plus on the brewing set up. I used this on the outside of the heatshield to get a much better thermal barrier than 3mm of fibreglass and then finished with aluminium tape to finish - should be very effective at reflecting / blocking engine bay heat. So it looks pretty good, sounds great and shouldn't be losing any ponies - quick test with my dual probe smoking thermometer showed about 9-10c differential in the air compartment vs engine bay after a 5 minute ideal - worst case heat soak scenario really. Next step is a new coupler for the filter pipe (one with it is shot) , new 'boot seal' for the top to get a better seal with underside of the bonnet and might also run some 3" flexible ducting up from the brake duct.

Ecu anti theft(vats delete) issue... doesnt have correct spark and injection re programmed to suit stand alone wiring loom..have to send back to sparky in palmy????...anyway...to hear the strain of 6.0 ltrs of compression turning...has to be enough for now. Cant freaking wait i tell yer!!! Will complete mid exhaust, gear lever, driveshaft and tidy wiring for now....another week??