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The gods were on my side for once, and finally picked up one of the 96's hellrot red 540IS on the weekend (not the unicorn, but I aint complaining). Great to find out it came with the M PACK! Car just needs a re spray, which will be done over the next month or two. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, the feeling of owning a E34 540IS, something to treasure for a life time.

Parked outside Dressmart.

Not quite today, but removed rear spoiler and m3 mirrors and clear lights back to original spec recently:

Only putting this price as I’m not 100% sure if I should sell or not, I’ve been on the fence for so long now. But if the right offer comes along that means I can fund another project. $30,000 OBO 1996 nz new m3 258,xxx kms Please PM me for genuine enquires or txt on 0277723242 based Franklin, Auckland

A funny watch for what the problem ends up being.

My son has a 1997 Z3 and brought a set of seats from a later Car and electric plugs / connects are different, anyone recommend anyone in Auckland whom can make work in his Car ?

Hey mate, i think we all were a bit confused about the 5k price tag. No not an auction, was on FB market place, so anything goes i guess. Was my first time buying anything from market place lol. When the guy finally contacted me, he said someone had put in a offer of 6500, so i put in a 7k bid and asked if i got out bidded to contact me. He never did, and the next minute i seen the car was sold, couldnt believe it to be honest, was gutted. But god loves a tryer, and no not religious lol. So sent him a couple of messages more, saying thanks for considering my bid, was happy to go to 10k plus and could pay cash that day, said i hope it went to a bmw enthusiast. Next minute i am getting a phone call from the guy saying the first deal fell through at 7500, guy who turned up was put off by the paint. Went had a look, and knowing he was just about to let it go for 7500, we talked and settled at 8500. It was a bit of a weird dealing, we just couldnt believe our luck, i said to my partner while we still had an active bid in, if its meant to be, it will be. And what do you know, we are the very happy owners of a 540IS with M Pack in hellrot red. Re spray is on the cards very soon.

Congrats! Sounds like an awesome deal, but you know it didn’t happen if there are no pics 😆

So you got it, what a deal it was !!! I was trying to buy this as well. Glad someone in the community got it in the end - make sure you keep us updated

There are a lot of different E46 front bumpers, but for simplicity sake, there are 3 "main" msport ones. M Tech 1 which come on the PFL sedans M Tech 2 for FL sedans (almost same as the below one but has the black moulding) and M Tech 2 for coupes (both PFL and FL) no black moulding but has a indent line across it

That seems to be a real common thing to do, but since i try to avoid autos I dont have direct experience with the job. It looks like its the common overflow in the drain plug setup, which yes, will require the transmission temp to be within a certain range to be correct, which can only be done with a scan tool. I wouldnt drive it low on fluid. If you have to, i'd put 1L (or as close to what you drained as possible) in and carefully nurse it to the mechanic and then have them do a full service on the trans there.

Brutus - 46 litre displacement... AZJ0bQ.mp4

@Southerner FYI - Weitz Industries has a Silver Facelift Sedan and Silver Facelift Msport kits in stock. They are in Hamilton though.

130i going fast

https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1246509 Rarest of the rare 18" forged Schnitzer typ 1's notwithstanding, turns out its had an S70 and 6sd swap too.

Ooooh. Hard decision though. E30 or save $10k and have something that is actually rare. Better looking and a V12.

Oh very nice. They are nice - F20 to drive around in.

Miss M has bought a 2013 116i F20. She's very pleased with it - it's a nice car. Seems unlikely she would have found a decent E30 for the same money!

For me - as @E30 325i Rag-Top Jon, Trade In Clearance Centre isn't a great start for any car, the risks would have to be qualified. Those beads, though. Wow, hard to let them go!

Well I got permission and a deal was made with Alex. Should be a great runner for me.

Hmmmm...worth it just for the hanging beads surely?

If you can wait 1 week delivery time you can order from rockauto I might also be keen to split shipping costs since I’m gonna be placing another order soon. last two orders took 7 days and 6 days to arrive incl weekends so actually 5 and 4 working days. edit: FCP - 22usd each plus shipping for Lemforder ones https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mini-front-control-arm-bushing-cooper-31126767530 Rockauto - 17nzd each plus shipping for Vaico ones https://www.rockauto.com/en/parts/vaico,V202705,control+arm+bushing,7532 Otherwise you can get the poly solid bushes from powerflex but cost a bit more.

spotted in Wellington eastern suburbs this arvo and

Not sure how many people will see this, but back in November I made the wise decision to buy a high mileage V8 E34. At only 18 years old not only were the future fuel costs daunting, but so too was the project I had undertaken. I assumed that buying the car would force me to become more mechanically minded and try to do things to the car myself. My other car which I have had for a few years is a 2009 Peugeot 207 GTI which I have tried to keep fairly tidy and have never had the confidence to do anything major to it, always opting for the easy option of taking it to my mechanic. When I got the 540 however, my confidence to try fix things myself grew. The car was in a bit of a state when I got it. It had heavily oxidised paint, a completely rusted out sunroof, quite a bad looking patch of rust where the little piece of plastic trim behind the rear door goes, and was generally filthy. Of course there were many small broken and cracked pieces of trim on the interior and exterior, but nothing too major. Because the car had some significant flaws, I had confidence to do things to it because I knew that anything I did, successful or not would not greatly impact the state of the car. I started by polishing off the oxidised paint. If the paint came off, who cares, it already looked terrible. What this mentality resulted in was me achieving some stuff that I never expected I could do with such little experience. I am pretty happy with how the car currently is. I still need to get my sunroof resprayed as well as sort out the piece of plastic bumper trim on the back of my car, and source a driver's arm rest or get my current one reupholstered. I have slowly been addressing bits of the interior, replacing things like the dome light housing, shifter roller etc. By far my favourite thing so far has been the new wheels! The car had its factory BBS basket weave wheels, and while they look nice when they are spotlessly clean, being only 15 inches in diameter made them look a bit out of proportion with my car. They were wrapped in Michelin tyres that were quite old and were beginning to dry rot - something that was especially noticeable when going around round-abouts where squeels from the tyres sounded as though you were doing double the speed limit, when in fact you were barely touching 20km/h. I had always wanted to have throwing stars on the car, but never thought I would find a set, and thought I might have to settle for some vaguely similar replica wheels. However, thanks to Facebook MarketPlace and my procrastination of University Lectures, I came across a square set of throwing stars and I just had to have them. They are 17 inch in diameter and I think they propertion the car much better as well as fill the arches and provide the sporty look a 540 deserves. I needed new tyres anyway so I might as well have just gone all out right? Now I have gorgeous throwing stars wrapped in pirellis and it has made quite the difference to the car. The lower side-wall means you definitely feel bumps more, however the wider tyres and fresh rubber mean the car feels significantly more planted on the road than before. Of course with any old BMW, I have fallen in love and now it controls my wallet. Of course I've blown any kind of mental budget by ignorant past self set when I first got the car, but oh well who cares. Anyway, I am writing this instead of doing my philosophy assignment (philosophy is my general education course and I'm not a fan especially with the anti car ideology that swirls around in class) lol so I should leave it there. Here are some before and after photos of the car. Not sure what order they will be in but hopefully you can tell which photos are from before, and which are from after. Cheers, Kees

Just to keep the thread going.

Ordered a new gen bmw hvac panel with button set. There was a label warning to not use the panel, just use the individual buttons...lol... The old panel had broken plastic around the heating buttons, so even new ones wouldn’t stay in. All went pretty smoothly once I worked out how to snap in the circuit board without disturbing the fiddly little spring bushes. At the same time I vacuumed out all the dust around the air sampling fan.

Hi guys. I'm new to this forum but thought I'd add a pic of my 540is. 1996 e34 6 speed manual. I purchased it end of 2019. It's full M kit with black Bison leather. Love this car it's been my bucket list car forever.

Hey all, So did a dumb and embarrassing thing and accidentally drained transmission fluid instead of the oil. Eating that humble pie now. Thankfully it’s not all of it, we drained about 1L - in some ways was a blessing as it looked pretty nasty anyway. Problem is now we have to fill it up before getting it to a shop on Tuesday to have the bushings replaced to pass WOF as I’m assuming it’ll run the transmission if we run it with not enough transmission fluid. Referring to an article online for it and have some questions to avoid doing any more dumb things 1) Should we just do a proper change, replace the filter, fill up with new fluid or can we just fill it up with new fluid to get it to the shop by Tuesday? 2) If we’re just filling it up with new fluid, should we get the leftover fluid up to temp (35-45deg C) and heat the new fluid as well at the same temp (35-45C) before filling it up 3) Any tips if we should just do a proper change? Do we really need a scan tool to measure ATF temp or could we just let it idle for a while? @KwS thoughts? 4) Mechanic said to just drive it to the shop and he can do it there - is this safe or should we just tow it there? Below is the article we were looking through https://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/MINI/28-TRANS-Automatic_Transmission_Fluid_Change/28-TRANS-Automatic_Transmission_Fluid_Change.htm Cheers!