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“I am trying to sell the car dear, it’s on TradeMe and everything, just not getting any interest”..?

Got it back after some face work. back this this: from this:

Couldn't agree more, if there's nothing seriously wrong that's a steal.

Sold for $6.5K. If there isn’t too much wrong with it I think that’s a decent deal someone got with enough room in the budget left over to give it a decent tidy up.

bought a pack of digestive digested biscuits

Changed my Tierods in the weekend (the locking plates are a bloody stupid design - nightmare to hammer on with no space to swing a hammer??) and my leaky power steering hose and fluid flush. Couldn't get to my alignment booking as I'm in isolation now (wife positive, I'm negative) so will use this free weekend to catch up on a bunch of other jobs on the car: New plug wires / distributor cap and rotor Coolant temp sensor and level sensor Drive door hinge repair (busted bushing causes excess play) New driver door 'stop' and will clean / lube / tighten / dampen window mechanisms while I'm in there New Pedal rubbers Clean sunroof drains with wire and air compressor Frustratingly I have a clunk over speed bumps after installing my new control arms and end links despite torquing everything 3 times now (yes, I did tighten bolts with jack under the ball joints) will need to get my mechanic to check them out when I do my WOF recheck. Seats are still wobbly (small play in hinge itself / rails?) , but are better and fully secured - will give them another going over when I'm installing the new seat shocks and perhaps my upholsterer will make further improvements when I get seats retrimmed. Hard to know when to say 'when' on an old car! Sounds like a doom and gloom post, so here's a pretty picture.

Was pleasantly surprised by the interest in my last post on my recently acquired manual W8 Passat. Thought I might make a small thread detailing things I do to it while I have it for anyone interested. Not sure how long I will end up keeping it. A friend of mine has named the car Franklin as she thinks it looks like it would be called Franklin. I dismissed it at first but then I went through the owner's manual and found the car's original purchasing receipt from Giltrap Volkswagen. To my shock, the first owner's surname was Franklin! So the name Franklin it is! My 540i failed WOF again today because of a leaky shock absorber so I spent today giving the Passat its first clean so that I could get a better understanding of what condition its in. I started off with a decent wash as the front of the car was caked in bugs from my drive up from Wellington over the weekend when I picked the car up. There was heaps of tar and other road grime on the car which indicates it probably hasn't been washed in quite a while. This notion became a bit more obvious later on. I probably spent a solid 2 hours just doing general cleaning of the wheels which had a bunch of baked on brake dust (some of which I'm still yet to get off). It's a bit of a shame but the wheels are quite significantly curbed so I'm not sure what I'll do about that. Probably will have them all refurbished at some point because they are probably worth a decent bit of money as they are factory 2-piece BBS. In the mean time I might just get some curb protectors to stick over the curbing because its quite an eye sore. Drying the car was not a pleasant experience. The paint is crying out for a polish and wax or ceramic coating as it feels really rough and was hard to dry as its not overly hydrophobic. I then discovered that there is trim over some roof gutters where one might mount a roof rack or something like that, and of course they were filled with grime. This is what really started to show me the car hadn't had a decent wash. I then cleaned the gutters around the windscreen which were also filled with grit. My attention then turned to the door jams. After giving the sills a wipe down, I cleaned all the hinges and then lubricated them all to displace any moisture and stop them from squeaking. Attention then went to the boot. I cleaned around the hinges and blasted out debris that was blocking the water channels past the rear lights and around the rear window. I then moved to the door cards. Wiped them down with some Turtle Wax leather cleaner. Surprisingly, the W8 has some really nice materials in it, reminds me alot of my S8, its just all the materials are shaped in a way that is very early 2000s so it does look dated. Door cards cleaned up really nice. Anyway, after cleaning the door cards, dash and centre console, I gave the car a quick vacuum. Following this I polished out some stubborn sun-screen marks with some Meguiar's ultimate compound. Over the weekend I would like to hopefully wax the car and wet-vac the carpets. The car has a strong cigarette smell which is particularly pungent when its been parked overnight with the windows up. I also need to source a couple centre caps for the wheels, find some boot gas struts, and then try sort the boot lock actuator which isn't working so the boot has to be opened with the key. Also want some new tyres because wtf are "Black Lions" lol. Passat isn't really a car to tear up a backroad so some Pirelli Dragon Sports like I have on my 540i will be just fine I reckon. Want to have the headlights polished ASAP too!! Want to have it serviced soon as the coolant is grotty and I have no idea what weight oil is in it. Apparently keeping clean oil in the W8s is extremely important.

My old man recently passed away. He has owned this E55 since near new. Previous owner was a friend of his. I decided I would buy it from the estate pending a go over. He always loved this car and we have spent many hours towing around both my previous E30 series car and the current dormant E34 race car over the years. I enjoyed driving it so I thought I would keep it in service. Probably not the smartest move with the price of petrol about to drive the cost of living to near Switzerland levels. So off on my Mercedes journey I go.

Most customers are aware of the situation, but there are some really entitled twats out there as well. “You want to know exactly when it will arrive Sir? Certainly, I’ll just phone the people in Ukraine that we are waiting on and see if they can hurry it along”

I can sympathise with suppliers. it is a complete clusterfudge at the moment. I am losing more hair and going white by the day. being the middle man sucks now,

They eventually replied to my email request today after 6 days. They are cancelling the other items and supposedly shipping the rest today. Will see how long that takes them.

Been in the same boat, ordered back in March and a lot had to be ordered in. Two items didn’t arrive and are now back ordered with no eta from BMW, which I finally got told that after 2 months of waiting. Items canceled from order and money was refunded, still waiting for rest to ship though.

Some nice ones on FB marketplace

The principle of parsimony (Occam's razor) suggests you check that the arch liner itself is properly positioned and secured before getting too deep into the mechanical side of things.

Just got the typical "pop a skid" while driving through Milford main street in the 4-Motion W8, what a simple minded plebeian. At least he said my car sounds nice.

At least it will make your E34 look like a Corolla in maintenance costs