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I've been riding motorbikes for 40 years and my wife wanted to get her motorbike licence. during the test she fell off. after that, she was afraid of even riding on the back of my Harley Softail. Remembering back to my older days when i had a 1971 Corvette, convertible, i saw that as as close as you can come to a motorbike. Hence we started looking for a practical convertible. My wife's friend had a 70's Mer SL350 but when thieves decided to steal (what turned out to be nothing in the car) they sliced the top and it cost $5000 to repair. My first choice for a convertible would have been a 1974 Jensen-Healey or a 70's Fiat 124 Spyder ; wife didn't like either so it came down to a Merc SLK or a E89 Z4 since they are hard top convertibles. comparing the looks and finish along with the top operation, it was a clear choice. Mercedes is less refined and the roof makes noises going up or down like my back makes when i get out of bed in the morning. we ended up buying a 2010 S-drive 2.3 N52 6 cylinder import from japan for 23k in 4.5 condition with 68k I spent a couple of thousand upgrading it to carplay which integrates with the factory CIC with NZ maps, 2016 side markers, LED headlamps with daytime driving lamps, cruise control ,parking cameras and sensors. And all for less than a 15 year old stock Mazda MX-5. Now in its present form it has every available factory option along with carplay. During my life I've had many cars; a GTS Dino, AMC AMX, a Porsche 911SE,, a 1971 LS 454 Corvette convertible and a 1978 Bandit Trans Am. I've never got more positive feedback as I have with this car. I've had 5 people ask me in the last two months if I was willing to sell it. When I was thinking of buying the E89 I thought it would be a rough riding car like my Caldina GT-four. It's a very smooth GT tour with a top speed a can't disclose here. it has exceeded all my expectations. I just wish it was easier for my old bones to get in and out of. I do have a handicap placard that I do display when i park(since I have one leg) in a handicap parking spot, but people have keyed my car inspite of that. I think they think that no pour person could afford such a car but it's cheaper than a new Suzuki swift. I do have a question about the wheels: they are staggered 19x9.5 in the back and 19x9 in the front. does anyone know the code and paint code for the wheels? I think the are LA Star Spoke.

November '21 221,XXX km Fast forward a few months, the car had been in regular daily service without any major issues, but with some inevitable annoyances cropping up here and there. Having replaced the radiator, water pump and radiator hoses, it didn't give me much trouble for a while. The gearbox was still smoothly shifting through the gears but going into limp mode when stopped at a red, so I stuck to shifting it into neutral when having to stop for longer than 10 seconds. Did a wee checkup and engine bay detail on both the babes at one point. Look bloody good side by side those two. The pulleys on the coupe were still fresh so was all trouble free, the wagon ones were in decent condition as well, only wanted a wee scrub. The one point of concern was a slight rattle in the power steering pump pulley. Can't seem to be able to upload a video for some reason, but seemed the whole shaft had a slight in-out movement. As I would have wanted to do a whole reservoir and hose replacement at some point anyway, I noted it down as a potential issue and left it for future me to deal with. Then I ran into all sorts of issues with the lights. First off I noticed the fog lights and front indicators kept sucking in condensation every time it rained. Annoyingly, the moisture was sucked in-between the two layers of glass, so took quite a while to dry those out. Was thinking of drilling a few tiny vent holes through the shell to solve the problem, but ended up coming into a different solution further down the line. The fog lights were a different story. The state of them was horrendous. Not even sure how it was possible to get to such a condition but the coating was flaking and peeling off from both the in and outsides of the housing. As well as that, the fog light surrounds were missing altogether and one side's housing had a clip broken off so it was just rattling about. Luckily, I found a fella in Auckland with a couple spare that were in decent condition so had those shipped down, as well as getting brand new surrounds which were relatively cheap. After a wash one weekend, I noticed one of the tail lights had a whole aquarium inside of it. Pulled it off to inspect and turner out it was coming apart at the seams nearly halfway down. With some minor prying, it came apart altogether. Lucky it didn't fall off whilst driving. Cleaned up the surfaces and mated the housing back together with some clear epoxy. Seems to be doing the job. Whilst I was at it, I replaced all 4 indicator bulbs that all had their coloured coating peeling off and were barely flashing orange anymore. Went with the cheapest ones for now, might go for clear ones further down the line. Took the car out for a first wee road trip. Had a weekend away with a bunch of mates near the Rangitata River. Fun wee drive with some gravel roads thrown into the mix. Definitely enjoying the added practicality of a wagon compared to a coupe, perfect for road trips, exactly what I'd bought it for. I'm not much of a racer so the added size doesn't take much away from the driving experience. I'm still yet to sort the rear wiper issue. The mechanism itself moves freely with the latch open, as it should, but seemed the motor just wasn't getting any power, with the likely culprit being a seared cable with the rubber tubing also being cracked open. Pretty hard to get to to solder up properly so is another thing added to the to-do list for the future. Also, this: Love to see it. While messing about with the cooling system, I noticed the sway bar links looking pretty tired, so with WoF coming up at the end of November, I decided to tackle those instead of waiting to be pulled up on it. The old ones came off fine, but putting the new ones in I ran into an issue that I should have checked for before embarking on the job. The stud didn't have a hex slot on the end of it to hold put for tightening, instead having a slim little slot for a spanner the other side of the plate it connects to. Every time I tried to tighten it, it kept jamming the spanner, making it impossible to remove afterwards. With the car jacked up in the air and the coupe having finally sold in October, all I was left to do is jump on my pushbike and pedal my way to Supercheap to pick up a cheap 18mm spanner, and then went to town on it on a bench grinder. Filed it down just enough to fit in and get the job done. Another item added to the BMW specialty tool collection. With the car jacked up, I gave it a visual check over and to my absolute delight, found the diff bushing to be at the end of its life. I did start noticing a slight clunk coming from the rear when first taking off from being parked up overnight, and seemed to have found the culprit. What an absolute bastard of a job that is. Luckily a mate of mine has a two post lift and was willing to help me out, so made the task a wee bit easier. Still ended up taking a whole day. Instead of taking the whole diff out, we took off the rear cover to get better access and went to town. First we tried pulling it out with a set of cups, a rod and an impact wrench but the thing was so rigidly stuck and rusted in place that the stainless steel rod just snapped off with a huge bang, nearly hitting one of us right in the noggin. We tried being nice, but in the end had no choice but to resort to violence. Out with the old. In with the new. Topped the diff off with fresh fluid and she was good to go. The previous owner did note the diff oil had been changed, but at this point I wouldn't have been surprised if the "new" oil had come from the parts bin and run through a sieve or something, so was worth doing anyway. She flew through WoF without a hiccup, but weirdly enough, after doing the diff bush, the clunking noise had only become more prominent. No clue what it might be at this stage. Could be some other bushing, or the springs. I wouldn't know what a cracked subframe mounting point would sound like, but I sure as f**k hope it isn't that. One to keep an eye on. Also, I noticed this on the front shocks. I'm no expert, but shouldn't the end of the spring rest up against the edge of the indent here? I've never worked on suspension components before so have no experience to draw upon, but somehow this just doesn't look right. On an aesthetic note, I gave the car a good thorough wash and clean, went over the exterior with a claybar and tried my hand at a basic hand polish. Did nothing to make any noticeable difference except to bring out the numerous imperfections even more. After failing at that, I've invested in a DA polisher whilst SCA had a decent sale on. Yet to try it out but keen to see what a difference it might make. Fully acknowledge that multiple panels will only be salvaged with a full respray, but might as well try and make it a bit more presentable in the meantime. Here's the glorious bird poo wound in all its glory: Gave the wheels a mighty old scrub though, so those will look fresh for at least a couple of weeks, before being caked in brake dust once again. Never had that issue on the coupe which seemed to have had some dust-free compound pads installed. Will definitely look to switch over to those sometime in the future. Recommendations as to which ones are worth going for are very much welcome. On the bright side, I finally invested in a decent headunit, going for an Android 10 double-din with an 8-core processor and 64GB storage off a random Kapud brand. An AliExpress special, but does seem decent enough quality and retains the OEM look. The only downside being the ~20 second startup time, but I was fully aware of that prior to purchase so no complaints there. I opted for that model as it didn't have a CD slot that most similar ones come with. I wouldn't have any use for it anyway, and without it, it looks a bit more minimal whilst leaving a lot more space inbehind to fit all the wiring. Also got a 3D printed HVAC relocation bracket from a UK seller on eBay for something like $40-50. Not cheap but holds the unit in nice and firm without any rattles. There seems to be a few more of similar ones that have popped up since then and are now cheaper as well. Worth a go if anyone's looking for one. I also got a reverse camera that slots in neatly instead of one number plate light but turned out it didn't quite fit in properly, despite being marketed as e46-specific. Might have to butcher the plastic housing on it to make work but that's another thing I left for a later mission. I thought the speakers were shot and I was prepared to tackle those as the next step, but the unit livened them right up. Gone are the rattles and the sound is now way crisper. Not audiophile level by any means, but to my untrained ear it's more than acceptable. Happy days.

You can use this pointless exercise and remove all emotion? 170km/day for 48 weeks My commute will be around 50k/yr soon I'll keep driving the cheap Camry 'till it explodes The cooling system "plastics" failure are entirely due to temperature, PA66-GF30 nylon has a bit of a massive lifecycle decline over 100°, hence why there are so few failures of plastics in BMW diesels compared to the petrol models. Same goes for previous generation Japanese cars, operating temps are typically lower by design (probably less efficiency and emissions care?) hence the lower rate of failures

If it were me id get the car running and driving first before pulling the head. Lots of work and extra tools required for maybe minimal gain unless you know the engine is burning oil etc. Subframe floor reinforcement is massive and exhausting job if you do it properly ie top and bottom plates. You need to be a decent welder or know someone who is and can do it on jackstands\hoist unless you want to pay someone massive labour rates - RMS say its a 30-60 hour job, lost count how many hours ive put in so far. Never heard of anyone needed a cert. You can make blend the repair in quite well if wanted. Id just inspect the underside and internal cavities when the frame is out and go from there (see Reddish Motorsport videos and CMP write up on it). If you don't see anything then i wouldn't bother in your case. I replaced my bushings with Lemforder\Meyle ones because im re-enforcing and they are much cheaper than poly(and look better). Poly is suppose to be better for limiting frame movement hence reducing stress on floor\welds. See my thread later on today for an idea, mine had 2 extremely minor failures but i wanted to do it anyway for piece of mind.

This thread is more interesting than most shows on netflix these days. following with interest!

December '21 222,XXX km One evening I took a drive down to Ashburton to have a look at a potential side project, a deregistered E91 320i going for cheap. Looked tidy enough but luckily it ended up selling to someone else before I had time to make the dumb plunge into the 4-cylinder world. Barbara here must have gotten jealous as on the way back she threw an engine code, the sassy bitch. P0174. Classic. To my knowledge, the DISA hadn't been refurbished, but then again could have been a whole handful of other culprits. The prospect of going on a wild goose chase for vacuum leaks didn't really appeal to me. Nor did chasing down the persistent clunk from the rear end. Then one day I discovered a line of coolant running down the crank and it just threw me over the edge. Everything else had been replaced by that point so it must have been one of the hard plastic lines under the intake manifold. Nope, not keen. So I did what any rational idiot would do when faced with another minor annoyance... ... I went out and bought a bloody parts car. Jokes aside, it had been a while in the making and not at all an impulsive decision. I'm sort of a 'demolish and rebuild' type of person, would much rather start from scratch and tackle everything in one go instead of playing whack-a-mole chasing down persistent issues. I settled on doing a full on assault on the engine, but if I was going to go down the full refurb rabbit hole, I figured it might as well be a 3L instead of a 2.5. I saw a few M54b30's listed on TradeMe for around $1,700, which seemed silly money for just the engine, so I started keeping an eye on Turners and Manheim damaged car auctions. Auckland had a few 330's come up, but quotes for transporting them down south came in at $2k and over so was a no go. Then when this fine specimen popped up locally, I knew it was the one. A 2002 330i with 160,XXX km on the clock, all up cost me a touch less than the asking price on the aforementioned engines alone, written off with side impact damage. The two doors took the brunt of the damage, with just a small dent in the B-pillar behind the door, which is what did it. Doesn't take much nowadays. Funnily enough, the previous owner reached out when he came across my part-out listing, so I got a nice insight into the car's backstory. The repair quote had apparently come in at $8k. Yikes! Luckily, we'd managed to get our own modest little place earlier in the year, so I now had my own decent-sized garage to mess around in where I wouldn't be driving any housemates up the wall with my lunacy. Getting a whole car meant that I could go for a full 330 conversion - engine, brakes, drivetrain, whole rear subframe with trailing arms and all. The plan is as follows: Rebuild engine with new seals, gaskets, new auxiliaries, rebuild DISA, VANOS, the works. Was tossing up whether to pull the head off or not but probably might as well. Have it checked for cracks and hardness, get it machined and honed. Probably change the piston rings, likely retrofit the M52TU ones. Still figuring out the full scope, but don't want to leave much to chance. The main thing I'm concerned about is the head bolts pulling the threads when reinstalling the head, which I've read might happen. Installing timeserts seems like a whole heap of mucking about that I'd rather avoid at all costs. I'll probably start a separate thread for the engine build itself as that's the biggest part of the project that I'm going to need tonnes of advice on, which would probably make this thread too convoluted with everything else that'll be happening. Refurb the whole rear subframe - already have a full kit of rear subframe bushes sitting in a box waiting to go on. Will probably clean everything up and spray paint to fight off rust and for general visual satisfaction. The one question I have is whether it's worth upgrading to poly or any other sort of aftermarket bushes even if for some individual components. The kit I already have is all OEM Lemförder and Meyle. Obviously this isn't going to be a competitive track car, just a daily driver / road trip tourer. Seeing how I go, might try my hand at a track day or two just for fun, but won't be seeing too much abuse. Opinions more than welcome. Was going to drop the auto box from the donor car to hopefully cure my limp mode disease, but after staring at it for a while, I went f**k it and shelled out for a ZF 5-speed manual from a fella in England as there's currently bugger all of them available in the country. Might as well make it a full on money pit. Getting a full conversion with full driveshaft and manual diff. Hoping it all comes through without any hiccups in the next few weeks/months. Refurb, paint the 330 brake callipers. Ideally want to rebuild the pistons with new rubber seals - if anyone knows the best place to get those, would be very much appreciated. I think I saw some on ECS a while ago go for something stupid like $50 USD each! Probably refurb the front running gear as well, control arms and such are still factory so long overdue a replacement. Still tossing up whether I need to do the rear subframe reinforcing plates or not. Would be sensible but I'm not sure how to make the logistics work. Would I need to take the car to a shop and pay the extra labour to remove and reinstall the subframe? Do I get a welder to come to me and f**k around with the car on jack stands? And how does this affect certification? Do I even need to get it reinforced if I won't be tracking the car? Whatever else will inevitably crop up, will tackle it as it comes. With the engine still in the car, I went ahead and did a compression and leak down test. The results were a bit all over the shop, sometimes retesting the same cylinder would give radically different results. Probably down to cheap-ish test equipment, but got some sort of gauge anyway. Cylinder 4 seemed the dodgiest one, but retesting the leak down on it the second time came out to 14% which fell in line with the rest of them. So heck knows. The engine still held compression fine, car was driveable, but not the freshest. From the outside too, the engine was in a bit of a state, leaking oil like a sieve. Not sure how that happened, but the oil return hose from the CCV to the dipstick had completely split and was pissing all over the place, drenching everything in the vicinity. Anyway, the slow dismantling continued whilst selling off bits to recoup some of the costs. The holiday break ended up being a staycation with me spending a better part of 2 weeks doing 12+ hour days in the garage. Bloody love it! Also, after being on the lookout ever since I'd gotten the car, I finally came across a tidy looking wagon being parted out at a local wrecker's, so I jumped on it and scavenged it for all sorts of boot trim bits that had been so hard to come by up to now, as well as nabbing some real tidy leather rear seats that are of course touring-specific. For just $100 I couldn't pass up. Those, along with leather door cards off the donor car, and I'm two seats shy of a full interior leather upgrade. By no means a priority but something I'm looking to do somewhere down the line. As a little treat, I bought myself a crappy wee Ford Laser as a cheap runaround, in anticipation for when the wagon will be out of action getting a heart transplant. Ugly little duckling with barely any clear coat left on it, but cheap on fuel and being a manual, I almost enjoy driving it more than the wagon itself hahah. Maybe this whole endeavour was a massive waste of time and money from the get go...

Then grab one with a ppi by Lexus/Toyota that leads into a No Worries Warrantee, it means what it says. Full coverage to 150km and drivetrain thereafter, but iirc, if you had the car prior to 150km when the warranty was issued, full coverage is maintained. Just have it serviced there, they normally do a nice line in courtesy cars and servicing is competitive. Just avoid a Singapore import. Nz new first, then Japanese.

A Leaf would be able to handle those KM's if it is nice and healthy. You won't love being in one for that long each day though. At 10K you won't get a healthy one.

Get a Leaf?

I would definitely put ride comfort high on the list with 50k kms per year. the difference between say a 1 series and 5 series is huge as driftd pointed out above.

Doing that many KM's I would put some effort into test driving a number of vehicles. Many cheap Jap cars have terrible seats and uncomfortable driving positions. Find something that suites your shape and size. Look for a car that will soak up NZ's trash roads. I am currently using my E87 130i as a commuter. It's getting 8.6L/100kms. However the suspension just doesn't suite the crap quality of SH2 and I am sick of bumping my way too and from work. So I am going to a F10 535i soon which was wonderful on the open road. And as mentioned above. Try and find a NZ new Lexus or you will have the exact same problems as any other Tokyo crawler. They are no more reliable and have the same shitty plastics. The 1UZ is long gone.

Hey Everyone So I finally got the left hand side all tacked up and ready for full weld which ill do this coming long weekend. Drivers side has been fully welded up, a little tip my engineer told me was to use stainless filler rod instead of mild and what a difference it made with the splatter and holes I was getting with the mild filler rod. Im quite pleased with how they turned out, good pratice for when i do the V12 ones. Thanks Team

We bought a second hand Mazda 6 wagon and until recently were putting 33K km a year on it. It cost us about 12K 5 years ago and is now at 288K km. It's 2.0 engine returns 8.1L/100km and servicing costs have been trivial. It required a replacement steering rack (apparently these do that) at 250K km but other than fuel tires and scheduled maintenance hasn't cost us anything. We both still like driving it, it's a very nice modest "just does the job" vehicle- and it isn't a Toyota.

The tyres could be different sizes, but mounted on the same width rim.

yes, and also my other cars,,,,,,,,when i was younger i never thought about cars going up in value. I bought the 1974 Dino GTS for $3500 in 1977 because it had a dent in the left fender. I sold it two years later for $2500 because back then a Dino was considered a Fiat and not a Ferrari. i think if i had just parked those cars in a shed i'd make millions selling them now.

yes headlights dip down and up if i start the car. they used to do it if i unlocked the car.

Nice work, I think these look absolutely sensational with hardtop up in a dark colour. Hate to think what your old Dino GTS might be worth now!

Yes I agree (i thought it looks very sexy ) but that's not something i can say to my wife (since it was designed by two women). lol

Isn't there an option in the idrive menu for flash on lock/unlock?

I saw the title and thought "Why not?" Lovely car. I even like the looks, which I know some people don't. Rims look like E9x Style 230, but I thought they were 9x19 all round.

At the moment, the possibility of a Lexus IS350 is being investigated... Biggest issue is going to be the amount of use it gets. Upwards of 50k kms per year.

It really sucks about all the issues you have encountered, but this shot right here should make it all worth it. There is just something about an E46 wagon.

they probably want you to turn up in this https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/honda/accord/listing/3409828742?bof=JWOZbkQf or the tourer https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/honda/accord/listing/3332452852?bof=JWOZbkQf

I think that is a commonly held idea here in NZ. Having owned both a Subaru and BMWs here I wouldn’t say there is much difference. Labour rates and pricing for most franchised dealers are pretty much line ball, and genuine parts for Japanese parts can be up there as well. If it’s a used car, I guess the servicing would be at a reputable Indy garage, ring around and get some indicative pricing for him to compare?

I feel like a child and its the night before christmas. Since my last update, many parts have been ordered, I finally got a wheel alignment, the Z3 rack was installed and the car has disappeared into the paint shop for a few weeks. The shop called to tell me that she was all ready to be picked up, but I wasn't around and they all wanted to get out early for the long weekend so I will pick it up on Tuesday. Im positively brimming with excitement. I'll post more photos once I get the car back, but for the m oment. Before After While its a bit hard to tell in this photo, the dents are all gone, the car is a uniform Sterling Silver and all of the stone chips are gone. It should look the part once I get it back and can take photos of it completely reassembled. What blows me away is that this car lived outdoors in a driveway for almost a decade not getting used, and it has no rust, anywhere. I feel that I lucked out with this one.

2023 G70 M750 twin-turbo V8.

So today was the day. My iX build order is in and confirmed as BMW New Zealand order number 32! Currently looking at a May/June delivery. Pretty excited, not going to lie! My order specs are below: * Xdrive 40 MSport * Mineral White Metallic (A96) * 22" Aerodynamic wheels 1020 Bicolour 3D (1LD) * Amido Black Leather Interior (SCHA) * ENHANCEMENT PACKAGE - Sky Lounge Panorama Roof (407) - Soft Close Doors (323) - Laser Lights (5AZ) * Active Ventilated Seats (453) I had the option to forward purchase a dealer demonstrator but that car has the crystal interior appliques which I really don't like and lacks ventilated seats. I figured I'd be better served just ordering the spec I want. A few pics from the configurator are attached.

Cool, its probably not a bad time to buy right now, being summer and with quite a few people trying to 'cash in' on the market - a lot more choice than when I was looking in October / November. E46 sold in a few days fortunately and is currently funding the E30 project. Absolutely loving the E30 life - car needs plenty to get it to where I want it but is still really usable and fun as is and it certainly doesn't hurt when random people yell out "nice car sir" / take pics of it 🤣

Typical 90s Auckland scene

It should be do-able, we have an e46 on full coils, but on an authority card. There is nothing specifically excluding a full coil swap. But, I imagine appropriate tower and strut mount reinforcement will be necessary due to significant more loading of those areas Ring the LVVTA technical team, and then if they say yes, ring another certifier for second opinion. I would recommend Danny McKenna 0272401291 he is a good bloke with a firm grasp on reality 👍

Good score on the painting gear! Paint looks good too, nice work. Looking forward to seeing some outdoors shots.

Nice, I've been looking at getting some painting gear myself but good 2nd stuff is hard to come by

I have a set in Hamilton but they aren't for ABS cars. I'm guessing yours has ABS.

@aramoana pretty sure you can get 45mm struts in high performance varieties (Koni certainly do); look for 45mm Bilstein B8 if you can't find 51mm housings, and you'll sell your 51mm easy enough. If you're changing housings, you might as well refresh the wheel bearings while you're at it. Mine was also pretty grumpy when I first got it - esp when cold. Plugs, cleaning up the leads, coolant temp sensor all helped a lot. HTH PS: pleased to see my project thread is useful, thanks 😀

Finally fixed one of the more worrying previous repairs carried out on the old girl, at some stage someone had damaged the section of the drivers door card that covers the airbag, and decided to turn it into a home made Claymore mine by repairing it with a good solid layer of Araldite! I shudder to think what this would have done to me if the airbag had ever deployed!! As you can see there is some silicone in there as well, just in case. Replaced with a good door card from Pick a part, unfortunately it was from an electric seat car so it has the memory buttons which mine has no need for ( manual leather heated seats for the win) so I will keep an eye out for a correct replacement, but in the meantime this one won't cut me in half if the worst happens!