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Hi All New in the country having moved here in January from South Africa. Decided to have my BMW E93 330i shipped and it's just arrived 2 weeks ago. Still has to go through the vehicle compliance and registration process. May need to fit new front and rear brake discs and pads before WOF. Here's a few pics.

Hi all, I finally bought my first-ever BMW: 2008 130i. I've been wanting to get a manual BMW for years and I'm stoked to finally own one. I'm sure I'll be posting a lot of tech help posts in near future Dan

Ah the old MSD80. once its got a tune on it the MOSFETS run at a higher voltage. Courier the ECU to me and I'll replace all MOSFETS with higher voltage ones so it doesnt happen in the future.

@promo will be able to help with the repairs. Based in wellington.

can get the mosfets replaced which is significantly cheaper than replacing the entire DME.

You will be fighting every BMW parts dealer in NZ unless they deem it too expensive. Why do you want a damaged one? To fit a lower budget? Damaged imports are tagged as damaged and these days take a huge amount of effort to get them complied. You are also liable for any issues for many years (7? I don't remember). If you are after the parts cars I would look at Copart in the USA. But the recent Youtubers rebuilding crashed cars thing has really changed the cost of everything over the last few years. I did see a 2019 M2 go for $15K USD that was complete and still driving. Moderate frontal damage.

Just got it back again, again, hose blew off top of waterpump... fingers are crossed. Yup woodhill, Im fairly regularly up there trying to not fall off. It shat itself right when I got into carpark, missed out on hero dirt...

Here's the reason that m5 is so rough: it sat outside with the window slightly open for about 3 or so years. Found it there 5 years ago and knocked on the door and the guy didn't want to sell. At that point it had already been there for 2 years i think because he said it wasn't running right. I told him to at least close the window but he seemed pretty grumpy.

Nice! more manual 130 people, we are smaller in number than the slushbox crowd, but have far better taste.

I went from BMW to VW (as an OLD school VW fan) for our family cars... Mrs has a 2006 VW Touran 2.0 FSI and I have a 2006 Touran that *was* a 2.0 FSI, but is now a 3.2 VR6 R32, manual, 4WD... from an R32 Golf... VAG cars are sh*t of similar vintage... compared to BMW (at least E30, E34, E39 vintage) and the parts prices are WAY more, sometimes several TIMES more... SCARY more from the dealers! I used to get BMW parts from the dealer at reasonable prices SOME of the time... but VW prices are mostly HORRENDOUS, so I tend to order them in from Spareto, Trodo or sometimes FCP. Generally, BMW parts were decent quality. It's surprising how often genuine VAG group parts are crap and aftermarket is better. Both are often cheaper than Toyota parts though!

While this thread's been dug back up @*Glenn* - here's a cool memory of my questionably styled Hellrot facing off against your NZ first Ti + M52B28 conversion (don't quote me on that) down Meremere. From memory, we faced off twice and had similar trap times and what a bloody good day it was. And another of you, @BM WORLD and I having a chinwag. Loved that 535i Brent! Good times.

Update: It seems my control arm bushings are shot.... Kinda irritated it wasn't spotted by either the alignment shop or the mechanic back in January but also glad I have a diagnosis. Have ordered new tyres too. That and a fresh wheel alignment and I should be good to go. Thanks Dirk

Welcome 👋 I see you have a Mazda MPV ... my daily is the Honday Odyssey. Maybe we need a people mover sub group 🤣

Just refreshing all the common wear items has always done me well. Stock is underrated imo because few people have driven when new\refreshed.

The e85 Z4 was BMW’s first attempt at offering electric steering and runflat tires together. I’ve owned two facelift 3.0si’s and they both had vague steering and both tram lined on the original run flat setup. Good quality non runflats helped a lot, including the ride, but the steering always remained vague.

Had a big scare on Friday morning. Was going about my business, got to a couple of km's from home and the car just died at an intersection. It would then start up, idle for just a second and die again. Video Got a mate to tow me home, fearing the worst. First time the tow hook's come out in my 4 years of BMW ownership. Feel like I've done pretty well. Only code I pulled was 44 Activation, Solenoid Valve, Tank Ventilation, which I didn't feel would be enough to stall the engine altogether but went ahead and switched out the EVAP valve, as well as the fuel pump, both of which had come from the 330i donor car, dated 2001. I put back the EVAP valve and fuel pump original to the car, dated 2003 and looks like the issue's gone away. So far so good anyway. Have now put roughly 200km on the the clock since the engine rebuild, looks like most of the niggly issues have been ironed out, bar one. When slowly coasting up to an intersection in 1st gear and not adding any throttle, when I press down the clutch, there's a weird rattle/thump coming somewhere from the drivetrain, seemingly from the rear. Video Only seems to happen when depressing clutch in 1st gear with no throttle input. Doesn't seem to happen at higher revs when accelerating to switch into second so a bit of a weird one. I suspect it could be the diff or the driveshaft. Not particularly enjoying the 3.38 ratio altogether, 1st gear seems very short for regular driving so could be a contributing factor. Was going to tidy up the factory manual 5-speed 2.93 diff and drop it in along with the refurbished subframe after I've gotten reinforcement plates welded in but might do it on its own before doing the whole refurb to eliminate the diff as the culprit. With the car up and running otherwise, I ticked off a few secondary little missions. Chucked on the front Whiteline strut brace I'd ordered a while ago. Quite well priced and contrary to the product photos, the bar itself is black so fits in pretty well with the rest of the engine bay. Really like the minimal design and lack of any sort of logos or writing, keeps it nice and clean. Also went ahead and switched out the cluster strip / automatic screen block out plate I'd received from some fellas over on the e46fanatics forum. Didn't notice it previously but looks like the US-version has BRAKE and ABS written out in words instead of using symbols. Funny little detail but not too bothered about it. The cluster will have to come out again at some point. Seems like when I was switching out the main big backing plate I slightly misaligned the tachometer needle. Was getting a bit concerned as the idle revs looked to be sitting at just 500 RPM. Hooked up the scanner and they're actually at a healthy 700 RPM so will need to bump the needle up a bit. Just clearing out the garage of all the accumulated spare parts / clutter and will jump onto refurbing the rear subframe and brake calipers.