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///M325i sports have taken a ride on the coat-tails of M3. M3 is still high. Collector-grade ///M325i (how many are there - approx five in the country?) are rarely sold, so unable to suggest these have dropped. In the third division (not msport but high-quality cars), those who *need* to sell will take what they're offered. In the fourth division (what they call grade D in UK), there's dross acheiving good sales. We're heading into a recession, velocity will be slow. Consumer confidence is at it's lowest since 1990. I remember 1990 well, it was bloody austere. Accordingly, people will be leaving their hands in the pockets. Meanwhile those with really solid cars will simply hang on to them and enjoy them, while the market stabilises and either supply diminishes or confidence returns. This could coincide with a change of government next year. I've seen this happen in the 80's, 90's, 00's. Rumours of the demise of the e30 are greatly exaggerated. 😎 Unless all classics (including 80's and 90's Japanese sports, Australian muscles) have tanked, the e30 will still be firm, if slow. Cheers

$46k is a strong price for that car, it's a long long way from concourse and priced accordingly. IMHO.

I’m in too deep haha

M44 for sale . Was in a manual 318ti 120kms Pick up Wellington. 250$. Have a engine hoist here ready to load up .

Yeah bloody phone autocorrect, textar. Original CSL's were good, but I'd prefer slotted discs. And if I'm changing discs, may as well do it properly. Edit: didn't mention above, CSL discs are wobbly and I don't want to skim them.

I'm guessing Textile = Textar... BBK just because? Or do you have trouble with the CSL setup?

Aren’t we all…?

Given the amount of your "hard earned" invested in your project Sammo, you have to say what you have posted. 👍

It’s the buyers that set the value at the end of the day. M325i sales I’ve seen in the last two years: Lachssilber Tech 2 $40k (auction) very nice, would go for significantly more now. Red Tech 2 $64k (auction) stunning car Black Tech 2 $50k (low 50s I think) (auction) very nice, not perfect My Lachssilber one $34k (high kms) Silver Tech 1 that a dealer is trying to flick $42k (auction) Bang for buck isn’t a consideration buying a slow 35 year old project car.

@Bandit that red MT2 went for $62k, after that a couple of charcoal ones with over 200kms went in the early to mid 40s. I think there’s submarkets… MTechs are in their own. That silver MT1 sitting at reduced price down from $70k is a dealer flip I think, he paid around $45k for it in ChCh if IIRC, did nothing to it (including rust on bumper, patched seat trim repairs etc) and took it to Auckland. So far noone has fulfilled his expectations

There is a tremendous difference with all this hyperbole around "asking" price, "market" price, and nett received price. From memory the last 325MTech 2 to sell for strong money was the white coupe that hung around Auckland for ages ohh 18 months or two years ago, went down into the South Island, then came back up to Auckland, sold for the buy now $35k. And there was a lovely red Mtech2 in the Wellington region, low kms, owners and largely original sold for quite strong money, may have been just over 50k, think this car started all the chatter, and there was a cosmos black or delphin gray car too. Subsequent cars marketed on TradeMe are / have all fallen short of the sellers expectations, a classic example is the largely original 2 or three owner MTech 1 in silver that has sat at Arrow Toys for nearly a year, and slid in asking from $69990 down to $48950, still unsold. Of course there may be cars changing hands off market, we rarely hear about these. In the writers opinion the E30 is just not in 2022 worth anywhere the money that some of the posters above believe is "fair" market value. Within the BMW brand there are three or four models that, by comparison to the E30, give far more "bang" for your motoring buck. When I was growing up way down south, a well worn family saying, always directed to me because of my proliferate ways, (especially concerning fast cars) " A fool and his money are soon parted" And when I gaze at a E30 325i on the market at more than $20k, this always springs to mind 😉 Discuss.....

I'd not seen or heard about the red coupe. That truly is - in my opinion! - way over-priced. Surely there must be something else about it for it to command that sort of money. Rusty, needs an engine - rego on hold? When listing our car, I tried hard to ensure it was priced a little below the market as we did - do - want to sell, and not just test the market. It's not simply a 'want to sell' - it's a 'can't use it so have to sell'. And given it hasn't sold, at a price below what the current market seems to suggest is an appropriate price, I have to question how many cars are actually selling for even close to asking. Might just be our car, of course. Or location. Which would be very sad for us.

That's sort of the point - I feel the 4 door is not nearly as desirable, so while the build cost may be 30k getting that back may not be viable.

I think some of the prices are blown out of proportion. Not sure some of these things sell what they are listed for

if you can build an immaculate 4 dr 325i for under $30k, do it!

Just went from Dunlop Sport Maxx 050+ (non rft) to Hankook S1 Evo2 (RFT). Honestly not much difference in ride quality at all.

15x7 ET24 4x100 - the ones everyone wants - on Facebook to avoid Trade Me fees. Sold my set of 5 recently inside a few hours for $2,250 plus a bottlecap spare with new tyre on it (my weave with the spare had a 20 year old tyre that didn't hold air) They were in pretty good condition - I would have refurbed if I were to keep them though.

I think we're through the FOMO stage of E30 price rises, meaning that while some prices remain high, only those items which are genuinely excellent will realise $BIG. This means that sale prices of items (as opposed to listing prices) will start to vary more. Really good stuff has always, and will always, realise high prices, but we may be entering more of a buyer's market instead of the seller's free-for-all that we have seen. YMMV, opinions differ, etc.

Not to thread jack here but are weaves going for this price? I saw some on TM 5 or 6 months ago (14s) and they had something like a 1K price range. I was thinking, good luck with that (recalling that people were struggling to sell them for $400 bucks 5 or so years ago). But seeing your quote here, maybe I should see what the market says for a 5 x 15s....

Mine had one in *exactly* the same place! it developed very slowly over about 7 years to about half of what yours is. I got it attended to by the panel beater while it was in for minor damage repair (a small dent and broken tail light). Had ours 10 years now, not parting with it any time soon!

So true! I'd love an early-ish Defender... but one bad enough that would cost "only" $15K, is about the same condition as my '97 Disco 1 V8... which cost $1600... Well... "was purchased" for $1600... 🤣

Thanks team! @E28E30, @freaknout, @balancerider. Plenty more work to do on it. Tacho was misbehaving on startup yesterday, working like a switch (1500 --- 2000 ----1400...) until the car had warmed up. Time to get the cluster out, go through and re-flow all the joints, replace the cluster batteries. Next month it's time to go through my parts inventory, and get through some M42 planning. The things rattling around in my head (in no particular order): Order new exhaust in preparation. I have 3M caulk for replacing internal plastic weathershielding behind the door panels, and get the plastic. Still need to make my mind up about the M42-purple tag conversion hose/pipe setup from UK. Maybe paint the 4.10 diff and get new seals for it. Get the exhaust manifold blasted and coated, clean up and paint a valve cover - Silver or black? And get a bit more prep for Coil-On-Plug setup. I rather like the idea of a valance and extended bolts to retain the BMW valley cover with Coil-On-Plug, so there's a bit of research to do there. And I still need to get a Barina/Corsa linkage, and get a local driveshaft shop sorted for doing the work to make the purple-tag to Corsa linkage. I also have sound deadening to do in the rear, and install the late-model parcel shelf & hi-stop brake light, and the premium rear speakers. Put the FL RF door trim on, in place of the PFL one that's there at the moment. Source fabric for upholstery refresh - it'd be good to get rid of the ugly seat covers. Finally put a BMW Car Club sticker or two on it. Figure out when the right time to put the iS sticker on. PS: driving a 32 year old car with a silky-light clutch, very good brakes and handling, zero rattles or clunks, is very satisfying.

It's been a pretty quiet time lately. Winter, and recently Covid, have slowed me down. A sunny day yesterday in Welly, I thought I'd take Grey Thunder to run a couple of errands (recovering from Covid is taking some time), and I'm glad I did. I grabbed a phone shot of it parked in the sun, sporting the recently-acquired 15's. I think it's looking pretty spiffy! The extra half-inch of track is useful too, my initial impression is that the 15J7 setup better suits/matches the 14.5mm rear bar. Happy days. Now, to keep on with Covid recovery. Nasty business.

About time I told you something I guess. The 330i daily got its WoF with just a few minor hiccups - one number plate light was dangling off and both the horns were shot so switched those out with replacements from Pick-A-Part and she flew right through. With that sorted, I then proceeded to spend a good few weekends getting her up to standard. Replaced the oil pan, oil filter housing and valve cover gaskets, as well as the noisy alternator and blown engine mounts, and did an electric fan conversion. The interior got a thorough clean too, seats out and all, shampooed the carpets, rubbed off the scratched up rubberized finish on the plastics and cleaned & conditioned the leather seats. Pretty happy she doesn't feel the need to take a huge piss in the middle of the driveway every time you park her up for the night anymore... The garage also got a big cleanup, put in some additional shelving so that all the various parts scattered across the floor are neatly tucked away and you can actually fit a car in to be worked on. Gave the lighting a bit of a spruce up with the sad old pair of halogen bulbs getting replaced with a couple of neat LED light strips so it feels less like a bloody cave. Being able to actually see what the hell you're doing does come in pretty handy. Much better place to be and work in now. With those tangents out the way, finally got to concentrate on good ol' Barbara. Haven't been having much luck trying to find a new cylinder head since the one off the donor engine turned out to be too soft to use. Had a few leads I was chasing that ended up not materialising for various reasons, so finally decided to box on with the head off the current engine. That's been just about the only agenda item this past week. Having stood there for a few weeks since the last drive, Barbara had seemingly gone into hibernation and refused to start up at all now. Endless cranking without any go, so had to call a few mates around to push her up a slight incline into the garage and started digging in. The fatal issue became apparent straight away... Bingo! The coil on cylinder 3, the one that the codes suggested had been misfiring, came out all sorts of discoloured compared to the rest of them, suggesting that had been the culprit. Normally, I'd have been inclined to throw on a brand new set of coils I've already got sitting on the shelf and get her going again, but we're past that point now. Otherwise, all seemed in decent nick. A few minor oil leaks from seemingly the oil pan gasket and rear main seal, the expansion tank had somehow managed to drain itself of coolant at some point, the ICV had gunked itself up completely but overall, nothing catastrophic. Also, seemingly found the cause of an annoying metal rattle I'd been experiencing occasionally. Exhaust is now off, although it was a struggle at times. Managed to squash a few of my fingers trying to overcome a few stubborn studs. 2/4 ain't bad I guess. I've had a few gripes with some of the PO's handiwork but credit where credit is due - that is one bloody clean engine. Out of the 4 M54's I've worked on, this is the highest mileage one, yet is by far the tidiest. Mightily impressed. Almost a shame pulling it apart. Bit OTT on the RTV though. That's about as far as I've gotten to up to now. Most of the auxiliaries are now off, both manifolds are ready to come off, then onto the VANOS, camshafts and the head itself. Plan is to get it into the machine shop early next week, then can continue with dropping the rest of the engine and gearbox and concentrate on a few other tasks. Have received my big packages from Spareto and earlier today from FCP, still waiting on Schmiedmann and RockAuto to come through, as well as a few bits from BMParts, but have most the bits necessary to start reassembling the engine once the head's been given the all clear from the shop guys. Will try and ramp the pace up a bit now. The boxes of shiny new parts are a good motivation.

Got the newly acquired e39 running and driving again! After an oil change, radiator top up, replaced the seized fuel pump and new filter, drained the old fuel out and got some fresh stuff in it fired right up! Did find an air leak pretty quickly, but fixed that easily enough and took it for a test drive and runs like a dream. Gave it a good wash in the weekend to clean all the moss and spiders off and out of the door jams, and is in need of a good cut and polish. took it for a wof today, and just need to sort the abs issue, which is a code 48, faulty valve, rear right, brake shudder, which I’m guessing rotors need skimmed/replaced, broken side mirror to replace, and sort the fog light that points skywards due to an Ill fitted bumper trim. Not bad for sitting for 7 years! Needs a few other bits to tidy it up like dash cluster bulbs replaced, passenger mirror glass is all foggy, and was going to swap the stereo over for an android based one that looks almost identical to the old one, but has a heap of other features that will actually work, unlike the tv and navigation is currently has. Oh and maybe upgrade the 16s to something more exciting…

MTOY is now TIER. I had this plate on another car for a while, but time for a change. I like 4 letter plates. Also has a new water pump. Plans are to actually drive this car; it has travelled around 1,000kms the past year, and barely any of it with me driving. Next up replace the brakes. It's running CSL rotors, calipers and textile pads but they're getting a bit low. Likely going to do Stoptech bbk.

"Once a vehicle is 14 years old, components of the frontal impact protection system can be removed, provided that the seatbelts for any affected seating positions are replaced with brand new seatbelts." https://www.lvvta.org.nz/documents/infosheets/LVVTA_Info_01-2020_Removal_of_Front_Seats_Fitted_with_Side_Airbags.pdf

227,8XXkm Well, looks like Barbara's on her last legs. Showed no signs of trouble coming to work yesterday, on the way home however, the engine felt really rough and sputtery right from the go. Sure enough the yellow engine light soon lit up. Somehow managed to limp home without having to get a tow truck but car is essentially undriveable in its current state and it doesn't seem like a quick & easy fix either. Suspected her to have a vacuum leak somewhere, but now with fuel cutting off as well, it could instead be a fault with the injectors/fuel pump or any number of other issues. With the new engine in the process of being built, it doesn't look like chasing down the issue is worth the hassle, so might be time to park her up and start prepping for the engine swap. Was fun while it lasted. Managed to squeeze a whopping 13,000km out of her in my ownership so far. What a solid return on investment. f**k me. I've been guilty of taking dragging this project along at an overly relaxed pace up to now, was honestly due a good kick up the ass. Unfortunately, a few weeks back I we decided to use up all of my remaining budget on some silly, childish endeavour of getting all the windows double-glazed at home. Something about the cats being cold in the winter and whatnot. Ridiculous. Still a few weeks out now before I can order in the rest of the parts on my shopping list, but do have quite a bit to sort out in the meantime anyway. Long weekend will be fun. Just hoping the new 330i won't need much for its WoF this month, otherwise I'll be left with my pushbike...

Jeepers, it's raining oil!! And people mock British cars 😅

Ordered a new set of rubber all round in the end. Went with Dunlop Sp Sport Maxx 050+ off Hyper Drive, 225/40R18 front, 255/35R18 rears. I wanted the same tyres all round and these were one of the few options they had both the fronts and rears in the right sizes. Reviews seemed decent enough so will see how they go. In preparation, spent a good 6 hours on Saturday scrubbing the living daylight out of the wheels. Cleaned up really well with just a few minor black spots that I didn't want to go too hard on in fears of scratching up the top coat. With my wrists and back absolutely killing me, sat down for a minute scrolling through FB and... stumbled upon these. Typical. Haven't seen a set of these pop up locally forever and suddenly there's two sets in one week. When it rains it pours... Went to check them out and was blown away. Apparently had come off a new car having done all of 800km and have been sitting in boxes ever since. And they certainly looked it. A couple of tiny marks but absolutely no kerbing. The original set I bought looked really good as is so the difference is very marginal, but the difference is there. And since I'm getting all new rubber anyway, thought I'd pass the other set on and someone might get use out of the newish fronts instead of them going to waste. So if anyone's after a clean set of Style 193's... Funnily enough, just like the first set, bought these off a guy that got them to go onto his 130i only to discover the fronts stick out too much 😄 They look so good that I'm now looking to get them ceramic coated before going onto the car. Anyone have any product recommendations in that regard, and if it's even worth going the DIY route on? Might also just wait until I switch to the 330 brakes with new ceramic pads as the current ones produce more dust than a bloody steam train.

You could soak those flanges in something like Evaporust, and then paint them. Might be easier than trying to get a wire brush into the crevices. I wouldnt bother stripping the diff down myself, its easy enough to wire brush the housing and paint it. You could remove the rear cover and check the condition inside.

Ohh goody, oh goody, Christmas is here! Was sipping my morning coffee at work when I got a text from DHL that my manual conversion was finally out for delivery, so I rushed straight home to greet it. The package came in looking all sorts of beat up but luckily everything in it seems to have remained in one piece. Looked a close call though after taking off the wrapping as the box was barely hanging onto the wee pallet it was perched on. A couple of scuffs here and there but overall nothing significant and all the bits seem to be there. Bit of rust here and there, which isn't surprising coming from the UK. Will be treating and refurbing everything regardless. The diff seems particularly bad so I'm thinking I might look into just swapping the 2.93 internals into my tidy 3.38 instead of using the current casing? Not sure if it's possible but will do some research on it. If anyone knows their way around diffs, some guidance on that would be very much welcome. The slave looks a bit tired and has the shaft missing, but at ~$40-60 for new ones, I was going to get a new one anyway. Same with clutch, flywheel, pressure plate etc. The one thing I forgot to make sure would be included is the reverse light harness, but I'm hoping it won't be hard to just wire together. Otherwise the kit looks to have everything I need. Will be doing all the bushes, rubbers, detents before it goes onto the car so will be a wee while before it's all together. The 3.0L engine is now at the machine shop and will take a while as well. At this point, I'm hoping to have everything up and running sometime this winter. So, all in all, the conversion cost £850. I also added the manual 2.93 diff on top of that and with shipping everything came out to £1,550. That would have included the front part of the driveshaft. I looked into how much balancing the driveshaft would have cost locally and after getting a quote of $300+GST, I transferred the guy an extra £80 to ship the rear part of the same driveshaft separately as well. It was too long to fit onto the same pallet because of the size restrictions. The purchase went through PayPal and I made sure to check prior whether Buyer Protection would cover this type of purchase, which gave me the assurance to go through with the deal. I used Wise to convert currency instead of just going with the bank rate, which saved me a good $150 on the conversion rate alone. If you're sending money overseas for whatever reason, it's definitely worth trying out. Not sure if I just lucked out but everything came through without any duties owing, so didn't have to pay anything on top of the purchase price. All in all, with the exchange rate at the time, the whole kit cost me $3,300 (or $3,303.15 to be precise). Looking at the $4k+ asking prices on TM and such, I'm well happy with that. Timing wise, I transferred the money on the 25th of January, the whole thing was on a pallet a week later, took another week for the shipment to go into transit and it was on my doorstep this morning, so exactly a month later. Well happy with that. If anyone's keen, I can pass on the details of the fella I dealt with. Great guy to deal with, communication was always prompt and on point and was happy to help out with and advice I was after. He's not a massive operation, just an enthusiast pulling cars apart and usually has 1-2 manual kits at the ready. There's a few folks importing boxes en masse now but I figured I'd cut out the middle man and go straight to the source. Would definitely go back to him again if I ever need to. In the meantime, I also pulled apart the whole rear end and borrowed a press and bearing plate kit to start pushing out old rubbers and dig into refurbing the subframe. Plenty going on. Just need to carve out more free time...

Do like where this is going. Interestingly my first E46 touring (also Jap import) had rust in exactly the same place - under the scuff plate on R rear door. Took it to a paint/panel place - they dealt with it for <$100, although that was 8-9 years ago...

Just a few minor things to report on. Have mostly been busy with dismantling the donor engine, which I've been documenting in a separate thread here, so the bulk of the progress was made on that front. With the car itself, all I've done is clean up and swap over the rear door cards as well. The new ones do have a few marks and dings themselves but do look tidier with the leather inserts instead of the sagging fabric. The leather rear seats are still sitting around, biding their time to go it. Still hoping to find some tidy Msport black leather front seats to match them up with. If anyone's got any leads, shoot them my way. Not looking beyond the South Island at the moment as shipping would take it beyond what I'm reasonably willing to pay. Annoyingly, whilst I was at it, I discovered a patch of rust peeking out from beneath the rear right door sill. Not really sure how to deal with it as I'm always hesitant to mess with paintwork but probably worth cleaning up and addressing somehow. Just don't trust myself to do a tidy enough job with it. Product recommendations very welcome. Also, the window tints are really starting to annoy me now. I do like having tints, but the current ones have way too many defects that let the car down. Will probably ponder an action plan for those for after the new engine and transmission is all up and running. Otherwise yeah, she's still kicking on, seen here pretending to be a grasshopper.

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...

May '21 216,6XX km I did notice a wee puddle forming under the front of the car whilst it was parked up for a month and a half, but was too preoccupied with other stuff to think much of it. Now it was in my face. The radiator was leaking from the top side right where the plastic connects into metal. To the seller's credit, upon sharing this with him, he refunded $200 to go towards a replacement, which he absolutely did not have to do. "What a top bloke," I thought. To his discredit though, once I'd received the parts and bought a few jugs of genuine bimmer coolant and started digging into the task... I'm by no means an expert, nor a qualified mechanic, but from what I've gathered, the weakest parts on these engines are the rubber and plastic bits comprising the cooling system, and any piece of advice or best practice guide you will come across will tell you to replace all the cooling system components, if not done so already. So when the sale add started off with the bold claim that "anyone that knows me, knows how OCD I am about maintenance and preventative maintenance, so she has been maintained really well," and stating the cooling system had been overhauled, I was fully confident I'm buying a car where this aspect had been comprehensively addressed. Little did I know that a "cooling system overhaul" apparently means replacing 20-year-old rubber cooling hoses with 20-year-old rubber cooling hoses pulled off from parts cars. Little did I know it would also mean I'd find a rusted up water pump dated 2002, an expansion tank dated 2010 and a thermostat dated 2012. What even is preventative maintenance? What even is the meaning of words, man? At this point, all I could do is just laugh. I'd been had. All well and good getting refunded a couple hundred bucks when it was increasingly becoming clear I'd overpaid by a grand or two in the first place. Looking back, you start understanding why some of the sales photos were taken from slightly funny angles, angles that conveniently left a glaring defect just out of sight. You start noticing things left unsaid or worded a certain way. The funniest thing for me was the bit about oil changes, stating: "regular oil changes with Castrol Edge 5W30 and Hengst (the best) filters". What a random thing to mention a brand of oil filter, I thought. What an even more random thing to lie about. Hilarious. My laughter grew even louder not even a week later, when sitting at a red light this started happening: "At least she's solid mech... f**k." Basically, nearly every time you stood still behind a red light or at an intersection with the car in Drive for longer than 20 seconds, the gearbox would go into limp mode. You'd turn the car off and on and the problem would go away, until you stopped next time. Annoying as hell, but the way I figured out around it is to just switch the car into neutral every time I'm stuck behind a red light. I did read it's sometimes as simple as a sensor cable coming loose from the top of the gearbox. An absolute bastard to get to, as it sits on the upper passenger side of the box in a tight spot between the body. The clip did seem a bit loose. Managed to take it off, clean it as best I could with a brush, clipped it in securely and cleared the codes. No luck. It's been the workaround since then. Having not even driven 3,000 km, the thought of selling up and cutting my losses did cross my mind, but I knew full well that even without those issues I'd be taking a loss of a few grand at least, and I couldn't in clean conscience put it up for sale without disclosing all the issues, which would attract all manner of low-balling opportunists that I didn't have the mental capacity to deal with. I could call myself spoiled I guess. Having had my coupe for a good part of 2 years, and having done all the preventative steps right at the very beginning, I had enjoyed a few years of absolutely trouble free motoring, with the myth of BMW unreliability well and truly purged from my mind. This was a rude awakening. Like it or not, I was stuck with her, for better or for worse. In all honesty though, would have been a bit boring if she didn't have issues. And I had a handy backup for when things inevitably went tits up, at least for the moment. Onwards & upwards.

Still April '21 Still 216,XXX km With the first bits going back on the car, I compiled a huge wishlist and went off on a scavenger hunt to Pick-A-Part. Pulling the car apart had been like peeling an onion - the deeper I went, the more it made me want to cry. Absolutely no clue how or why someone had felt the need to dismantle some of the bits previously, but the level of care taken was that of a rabid sledgehammer. The absolute majority of the interior plastic bits were either cracked, had clips broken off or were scuffed up to hell. Some of the stuff seemed utterly idiotic. Instead of taking a bit of care to check where the bolts and clips were, or, I don't know, going on YouTube and watching any of the dozens 2-minute videos on how to take every single thing apart without breaking it, it seems that the approach was instead "right, f**k it, brute force it is." So a long list it was. Turned out to be a whole day exercise. Buggered Gone Raped Shagged f**ked Meh Crap A bunch of the bits were touring-specific, and we haven't had many of those being parted out down this way lately, but did get quite a few other things ticked off. Got a new armrest, rear rubbish compartment cover, nabbed a fresher-looking gear knob as the old one was rather crusty, all sorts of clips, bolts, wee sensors, fasteners and rubber bits that were tired or missing. Also found a tidy driver's storage compartment and a tidier looking rear seat center armrest off a local fella. I did pick up some unbroken front wheel arch liners, but upon getting home discovered that the non-Msport ones had different air vent openings, so those were a no-go. Brand new ones are typically silly-money so ended up doing some zip-tie stitching instead. If anyone's got some tidy Msport arch liners laying around, hit me up. The underside of the front bumper was also well shagged and had fastener points ripped out, so again, zip-ties to the rescue. Actually lined up pretty well, and fixed the sagging issue to an acceptable degree. Not perfect but beggars can't be choosers I guess. Also installed the tow bar I had taken off the coupe (who puts a tow bar on a coupe!?). Didn't get round to doing the wiring just yet, but at least I could now lug some pushbikes around. Finally got the car to a point where I could actually drive it. Hallelujah. That's until a couple of trips to work later, the coolant light came on... f**k.

Bloody hell, was that thing screwed in there too? Will never understand why people do this type of sh*t. Akin to getting a tattoo on your forehead.

April '21 216,XXX km With the car still in bits, I got onto stripping the headliner of the nasty foam gunk to get it ready for reupholstering. That's one of those jobs that I didn't trust myself to do a clean enough job so opted to have it professionally handled instead, whilst doing some of the prep work myself. Nasty ass task, but actually ended up not being as bad as I'd feared. While the headliner & pillars were in the shop, I kept myself busy by refreshing the steering wheel. The wheel wasn't in terrible condition, I've definitely seen worse, but was showing slight signs of age so thought I'd get ahead of it. Went with a genuine leather wrap with black stitching from Mewant to keep it clean and minimal. After a few hours of mucking about and stabbing myself a good number of times, it came out looking a solid 4/5. The slight added thickness was definitely noticeable, but really only a problem if you want to be super picky. Also figured out why the airbag wasn't sitting properly - a simple matter of slotting the airbag wires back into the wee groove on the top side of the wheel. Also took apart the mirrors for a good clean and to check if there was anything obvious causing the issue - no luck. Nothing stuck out as being missing or out of place and the infamous ribbons all seemed to be intact. Really not keen to have to shell out for new motors... Yikes! Did clean up a few spider webs tho. Had no luck with the dashboard either. No amount of scrubbing or blasting it with steam did anything to get rid of the bloody "footprint". I guess I can live with it for now. Whilst demolishing the interior, I came across a whole bunch of wiring that seemed to be either unconnected to anything or not doing much regardless, likely some old stereo system or the sort from it's former life in Japan. Won't be needing any of that anymore. Finally got the headliner and pillars back. What a difference! Absolutely chuffed with how it came out. The folks at Cover It did a bang up job, would never have gotten anything close to as good a result with my own crooked hand stubs. Onto the reassembly.