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Stop / start doesn’t make it any slower to get away, you lift off the brake and by the time your foot is on the gas the engine is running, it’s that quick (well it is in a new bimmer anyways). If it’s Auckland traffic, the car behind will be either texting, looking at Facebook, watching a movie, doing their make-up or eating breakfast anyway. Normally takes them ten seconds to realise the car in front has moved, it’s why the traffic is so sh*t.

I take it you are referring to the BMW having been built 3 decades ago..? The same is very much true of the Japanese cars as well. I would love to see some stats on vehicle reliability, not the JD Power rubbish which factors in customer expectation, but proper failure rates per 1000 vehicles for instance. Having worked with, and owned, brands from UK, Europe, Japan, US and Aussie there are horror stories and problems behind the scenes for all of them. There is a class suit against Toyota in Aussie at the moment due to vehicle issues. Worst two cars for problems I have owned were a Mitsi and Subbie - both Jappers! There is so much more equipment on modern cars, that has to be developed so quickly, that there are much higher chances of things going wrong. Doesn’t matter where in the world it’s made though, situation is the same.

Our GS is about to turn in to an LS. Good cars.

I do really like the first gen IS-F - a shame the dashboards are made from plasticine and they have that horrific infotainment / climate combo...

Know anyone in Tauranga? https://www.pickapart.co.nz/webpage/WebPage.asp?Ref=10381&VehicleID=170837&SeriesID=141

IS, GS, or LS.

I wasn't expecting Japanese levels of perceived reliability. Was just lamenting my bad luck :p

Get a Lexus!

Hey everyone, this is my Mum's car. It's an incredible daily but she feels it's too big coming from an E91 335i Touring. I'm looking to get her into a 1-series. Let me know if you're interested. There's some flex on price.

Haha, I'm going to run out of BMW money soon and off to Europe for 5 weeks in September, so things will have to slow down a little!

Retrim is in progress, all OEM fabric arrived and looks amazing (interestingly same pattern but a different hue to the Relicate fabric which looks a little blue by comparison) Very glad I went with the OEM plus matching bolster fabric (with fresh vinyl for outer bolsters etc - OEM style). As it’s going to take a few weeks, I still wanted to be able to use the car a little so here she is in all her stripped out glory, along with a very tired vinyl comfort seat - no corners for me for a while. Its going to be a great contrast switching out to welded, resprung, refoamed and upholstered sport seats with brand new seat shocks! Will shampoo the carpet, repaint some interior plastics and add a little extra sound deadening while the interior is out too.

Continued tidying up the daily by making the interior somewhat habitable. Stripped out the seats and gave the carpets and floor mats a good clean with some drill brushes and a Bissell spot cleaner. Some real nasty spills and stains on both but cleaned up rather well. Also gave the leather seats a wee refresh with a deep clean and some moisturiser cream to bring them back to life a bit, as well as ripping out the remnants of some dodgy old aftermarket alarm system that wasn't working anyway. Will get onto destroying my fingertips through stripping the rubberised finish off all the scratched up centre console plastic bits next.

And for all of you "big bore" exhaust fans... meet the master blaster Cleared for takeoff ?