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Since I'm on holiday, I finally have a bit of time to do an update on my E34 540i. To be honest, in 2022, I didn't do much to the car. It took 3 months for it to get a new windscreen so sat around until April. By that point I was occupied with my W8. It passed it's WOF first try in September! - the first time it had done that, and then almost caught fire that night when the alternator regulator failed and charged the battery at 19V. As you can imagine, the battery didn't fare well. So with an alternator rebuild plus a new battery (alternator got so hot it melted itself so had to be rewound), my wallet was quite a bit lighter so didn't drive it a tone, especially as I soon bought the Porsche. However, just before New Years, some parts I wanted came my way so the motivation to get some things done has returned. I went for a routine trip to Pick-A-Part to get a stock exhaust off an NZ New 540i they had just got in. Out of habit I spun the rear wheels to check if it had an LSD... to my surprise, it did! So that was coming home with me! (2.93 Ratio) I also scored some 95' spec leather door cards, and a few other bits and bobs I needed. A pair of manual grey sports seats came up - just what I wanted as seat twist is just painful, AND I got some E34 skirts - off an M5 even! Need to have them colour matched, although its quite cool that they are still the two tone M5 colour. Gave the E34 Sports Seats a decent tidy up: So anyway, I've started dealing with my interior. Wet Vac'd the carpets and installed the new seats. Carpet was pretty grotty but have it looking relatively good. Found a couple 5 cent coins - 1 from the early 80s! Will have the driver's sports seat re-upholstered at some point. Didn't plug anything in because I don't trust the seat heaters on the 30 year old seats, and to my understanding E34s don't have seat occupancy sensors... I then noticed that the electric mirrors wouldn't work, so I realised I had to pull the memory module off my original electric drivers seat and now they work just fine. I also got to the bottom of my weird climate control issues - a connector retainer clip meant one of the module connectors wasn't in properly which caused AC to not work, rear defrost to not work, and the driver to get no air blown at them. Very annoying issues. Also have swapped a couple door cards but still lots to do. Next on the list is: - Exhaust - LSD installed - Need to find M-Tech front springs (if anyone has some PLEASE sell me them!!!) - Side skirts painted and installed - Blower Motor Change - Change Head-Unit to OEM BMW one. - Put some more Ks on it! Hope to have all these done this year. In terms of driving the car, in the last ~6 months its done a trip to Taupo and I also organised an E34 meet in January this year, so it has had a few long runs. E34 day was a great day out, a few forum members attended. I even had the pleasure of driving @Simca's 535iS and @e46v12's BEASTLY E34 "546" Touring.

The Topaz Blue 540 is now sold and off next month to its new home in Christchurch. I painted the rear bumper again myself and the result came out good.

Don't think it'd crank at all if it was the EWS, the starter needs a signal from the EWS to power up, don't think it does anything else. Must be something simple like a loose connection/dodgy fuse or such.

@Kees those Style 216 rims really suit it, prefer them to the standard 17/18's. LMB is the best colour I think. With a new bumper you shouldn't have much trouble moving it on.

One year on and I'm dragging this thread up again. The car is running mint and I couldn't be happier that I did the valve stem seals last year. I've just done my annual oil change, the previous one was done just prior to the VSS job. I clocked up 4000k in the year prior to doing the VSS's and off the top of my head I think I had to put somewhere in the 750ml-1000ml range of oil in to keep it topped up over that year. Unfortunately I didn't keep records of those top ups and I'm regretting that now, but I did regularly see the oil level on the i-drive sitting below full. This year I've done 3800km in the car, and I've put exactly 0ml of oil in over that time. It's always been sitting on full on the idrive oil level indicator right to to today when I did the oil change. At my previous warrant it barely passed with comments about the smoke, I think the inspector possibly felt sorry for me. This year, not a mention of any smoke! I'm super stoked there's no more oil consumption, and I no longer have a feeling of dread when the lights turn red and I sit there idling, no more thinking "how big will the cloud behind me be?

I've had my E34 540i exactly one year. Thought I would put a few photos up showing the before and after on the car and how it's changed over the last 365 days. At some point I might make a proper thread for the car detailing everything I've done, I'm the iPad generation so Forums were a bit of foreign territory for me so I've got a messy collection of discussions instead of one big one. Anyway here is the before and after from the day I picked it up (17/11/20) to today (17/11/21), Before: After: Before: After:

Yeah its a bit of a story actually. I passed WOF first try which I was rather happy about as it was the first time the car wasn't going to cost me any money getting a WOF. Literally on the way home from the WOF place my ABS light came on and my radio switched off for around 5 seconds. I thought a fuse or something must not be happy so I checked everything, made sure all the fuses were pressed in properly and then took the car to work that night. Car performed flawlessly. After work I decided I'd take the car for a motorway loop to see if it would play-up because if it did, I'd book it in with my mechanic. Anyway, I started on the shore and went out West. When I got to Avondale I could smell an eggy smell, similar to Rotorua. My stuck-up North Shore self initially thought that was just how Avondale smelt. 😂 However, by the Greenhithe bridge I realised it was definitely my car. I pulled over and smelt literally everything. I thought maybe some of my mates had hidden some food in it as a prank, and with the doors and windows open the smell quickly dissipated. Started driving again and the smell came back even worse, I pulled over again on Constellation Drive because I knew there was something properly wrong with the car. It was at that moment it clicked in my brain - battery in my E34 is under the back seats. As soon as that crossed my mind it all made sense in my brain. I'd been wondering why my plug in FM transmitter had become really interferency! I touch my rear seat cushion and its really warm. F***, my car isn't spec'd with heated rear seats... Pull the seat cushion off with my fire extinguisher ready (not that it would really help an electrical fire), and my battery is hissing and fizzing, with acid coming out the top. At that point, given it was also a Tuesday morning at roughly 1AM, I called the fire department because I didn't really feel like touching battery acid trying to disconnect my battery. It's funny actually - one of the fire men I'm sure a few forum members will know. I think his name was Jerry, and his BMW collection at the time was an: - E46 M3 CSL - 635 CSI - X4M Competition - M235i And he said he owned many, many other BMWs prior to those, which was neat. He also knew my mechanic well as my mechanic had race prepped one of his previous track cars. So to conclude: It's very lucky the battery is under the back seat otherwise I wouldn't have smelt my battery turning inside out, and it could have ended in my E34 becoming a very hot E34 which would have been quite bad.

That regulator failure is something. Motorcycles do it a bit but cant say ive come across the failure on a car.

Yeah came on the LEs, got sweet lemon yellow interior bits. were actually more common than standard Msports Cool though, definitely rare here.

Yeah I think it should be quite an attractive car once the front bumper is sorted. The wheels are nice to distinguish it from basically every other 1 series you see, must be quite a rare set? I saw they came on a limited edition 130 sold in the UK.

Weird that its chewing that much gas, not normal, unless you are driving like a total animal Scanned it? Fuel trims or something might be all up the pish

Ok so its been a week with my 130i. Gave it a much needed clean a few days ago prior to going on holiday and will be doing a paint correction once I get back. This is what I've noticed about the car so far: 1) I'm guessing its probably one of the thirstiest stock hatches you can buy... because I have minimal self control once its warmed up, I'm averaging between 13-15L/100km LOL. 2) The sound system is awesome! 3) The car is very well balanced, handles great. Steering has a nice weight to it, aside from the fuel economy I understand why so many of you daily these! 4) Seats are very comfortable, and the lumbar is great - can have it tight for spirited driving and relaxed on the motorway. 5) I think its been enthusiast owned - found some Poly suspension bushings in the boot. The wheels have grown on me a decent bit, and I think the Le Mans blue looks awesome. Just need to find a front bumper, its a pretty tidy car aside from that bumper! Still undecided on what to do with it - will probably end up selling it in a couple months as I can tick the 130i box so if anyone could be interested in a cheap 130i, let me know!

Some finishing touches (for now), apex stud conversion and hub centric spacers, as well as boot trims back in now.

the cheaper 2nd listing is probably a scammer profile that is looking to scam some poor person out of a deposit or more

Cage and interior almost entirely done now!

Yea fair enough, the kms are very low indeed! Looks very smart in silver/black too. Check that the expansion tank is still in good condition as thats a common part that fails and also the plastic intake pipes tend to crack around the metal clamp and cause air leaks. Cheap plastic maintenance items.

Now it wears stickers again Swapped out the 90SHa bush for a 75 one, now only shakes like a dog in reverse at idle, and no more wheel hop.

If in Welly John at Auto38 always used to be the go to 04 979 6678 I got a set of houndstooth coupe door cards for a reasonable price, also rear seat (both bench and back) free to a good home

Took car in to get my clutch / driveline vibration looked at properly - has been bothering me a bit for a while and seems to be getting worse (or me becoming more OCD about it). Was assuming a clutch related issue as its mostly through the pedal and goes away as soon as pedal is depressed. Shop reckons it is actually the gearbox - an input shaft bearing? (think thats what they said - there has also been a light rattle at idle in neutral with the clutch out). Still there overnight (safely inside) awaiting the view of an expert who rebuilds a lot of these boxes... Does not sound like a cheap issue 🙁 At least the interior is nice!

yes iv got roof liner, A pillar trims and visors available . pls pm, thanks,

You can tell US style FTPs as they have orange indicator lenses. The Euro style are ‘tinted’. As this is a NZ new it should have the euro style ones, which are way better IMO. Looks like the ones on this car maybe US type or are aftermarket - but I’m not aware that they are available as aftermarket. Here’s a pic of a couple nz new examples for ref 😎