Hi guys, Jake here from Slovenia. As I'm quite new to NZ I was really amazed how many Bimmers are around here - and how many fans too! Love all the work you guys do here, from mods to conversions etc. When people here started to warn me not to buy European car due to expensive spares I just couldn't put my head around it as I've been seeing so many of them. Luckily I've been DIY oriented my whole life, so I didn't care too much about the rumours and just went and bought myself a 2002 e46, 325Ci. Car had many owners and will need some work before I'm completely satisfied with it, but it's a great car to drive, except the auto transmission makes me quite sad - as an European, auto is a no go, so hopefully I'll be converting it to manual in about a year or two if budget will allow.
Since purchase, I did front brakes & pads, new radiator & water pump, transmission oil & filter change. Next on are rear rotors & pads, pulleys inspection & new belts, fixing 2 tiny spots of rust, front bumper bottom sanding & repaint + slider installation. Was also looking into Mishimoto Performance Intake (anyone has one? thoughts?). Will also do a scan when cable arrives to see if there's any misfires & vacuum leaks.
The car has smoked taillights - would be happy to swap for original ones if someone prefers the smoked ones. It also has black emblems on both body & wheels which I'm not a fan of, so if someone has any spare ones let me know.
About the auto to manual swap - I've seen posts about HELLBM doing full conversions. Would be great to know the total price for that, but then again would also love to do it myself and learn something + test my nerves
Will post some photos - I don't have any good ones as I didn't actually take time to make some yet.
Cheers, looking forward to browsing through some awesome projects up here.