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I think you would be fairly safe if you copied one of these.... Cheers...

Waiting on Fed Ex to deliver my car parts so kept myself busy for an hour or so taking to 33 years of filth with a wire brush, some degreaser and Aerospace 303 to get the M20 looking presentable until I get round to restoring the manifold / valve cover / AFM / brake-booster properly next year. Was supposed to be a much more thorough job but decided in the heat that an 80% effort was good enough!

loggin in this morning OSX treats Bimmersport as un-trusted, tells me the cert has expired.

I'm here all day for the Estonia shout outs Awesome touch, love the old school look with all the functionality you need.

Saw this guy, I assume he is called Jon and driving a BMW as suggested by the plate. Got me curious what model that is, as it didn't have a BMW badge, maybe a new Alpina or Dinan logo?

Yeah, I have tweeters 👍 was plug and play - came with a quad lock that plugged right in

I think the “HiFi” or whatever it was called back then came with tweeters in the door mirror housing? Might help identify? Most of the few MT2s I have seen seem to have this option. But you literally plugged it into the cables at the back?

Yet to route the microphone - not sure what front speakers I have, but has some old dusty 6x9's in rear tray (rectangular cutouts so assuming did have the hifi speaker when new).

@_ethrty-Andy_ lots of generations of X5s, lots of different models, and lots of different suspension set ups. One X5 is not necessarily like another. Inner rear shoulder wear is usually the first point of wear on the later E70 / F15 models, especially when they have staggered fitment wheels and tyres which prevents you from rotating them around. A lot of it also comes down to driving style, there are many that drive an X5 like a sports sedan and as a result see short life spans for tyres, brake pads and rotors.

@E28E30 @Cammsport Modified reverse RDS with custom text (can have anything up to 8 characters) arrived today from Estonia in a week 😎 Very very happy - unit itself is mint including display and actually sounds pretty good - I also have option of adding amplifier too with optional RCA pre-outs. Genuine plug and play (installed after a long liquid lunch). Was about $700 landed so not cheap but hard to go past for the stock look and modern functionality - looks much better than the Blaupunkt SQR46 IMO which gets mixed reviews. FullSizeRender.mov

Yup, I will see if one of the technical gurus can help...

Look into checking things like the front control arm bushes, and front strut tops as they are quite common to fail. Other common failures are power steering pumps, waterpumps, ignition system, and basically anything that has oil in it. Mine was a pain in the arse, needed a bunch of stuff fixed, wasnt that fun to drive and I really ended up hating it. My R50 (Cooper non-S) was more fun to drive as you just rode the revs and drove it at 100% everywhere. I guess with a bunch of mods you could make a base S better, but I was already into it for too much by the time I fixed all the issues.

Can sell you this one:

Hi - here are some useful links and reviews I found when researching an R53 Cooper S (bought a 130i instead) Seems the best model years were build date July 2004 onwards, when the gearbox was improved along with other mods noted in these articles. You can ID the model change by their later headlight configuration and the rear lower central white reversing light was replaced by a red reflector lens. I still lust after one of these little go karts https://www.lohen.co.uk/blog/gen-1-engine-faults.html https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/buying-maintenance/a30177/mini-cooper-s-buyers-guide/ http://www.motoringfile.com/mini-r50r53-buyers-guide/ Youtube links which includes the one noted in post above: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23ModMINI Good luck John

My wife has one, r53 with a manual trans. Fun car to drive, short wheelbase and zippy as hell. I understand you can put different pulleys on the SC and do a few other mods if you are that way inclined. I don’t actually find it that bad to work on - once you know how to put it into ‘service mode’ (bumper etc comes off) it’s no worse than any of my previous Toyota/Mazda cars. Better in some ways. You will have oil leaks to fix, I’ve done all the common ones in ours (various seals and orings). We have had some issues, throttle body went, I had to do the clutch when the throwout bearing exploded and serviced the supercharger, water pump, hoses and all the front end ball joints and bushings etc. at the same time. First time I’ve done most of that on a car and was done on jack stands in my driveway over the course of a weekend and a week or so of evenings. I don’t regret buying one even though I’ve done a fair bit of work and thrown some money at parts, but perhaps would feel different if I had to pay a mechanic to do it. Watch out for noisy timing chains as that doesn’t look like nice if it goes, I replaced the tensioner on ours as preventative maintenance. This YouTube channel playlist has been extremely useful. There is a video in there on common faults/checking one out for purchase too from memory.

Not a BMW but the OG fast wagon so thought someone might appreciate it (just looked, performance is extraordinary for a mid-90's 1600kg wagon, 4.8s 0-100 🤯)

Was it this one? Took a few photos of it at Caffeine and Gasoline in July. Had a distinctive un-painted carbon bootlid and the BBS wheels

Yup FedEx in Auckland is stuffed. Lots of work things stuck there for weeks. 2 days from the US. 3 weeks sitting in Auckland....