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It's good to be back. I recently picked up this E36 M Sport: I had no intention of owning this, I saw it in a carpark and told the owner I liked their car. Next thing she's giving me the keys and said if you still like it at the end of the month, you can buy it. It definitely felt too good to be true, but here we are. The two owners in the last fifteen years are her and her company. 160,000km and New Zealand new, the '328 S' plate has been with the car since '95. It's an unfamiliar starting point for me since it works, and I don't want to break anything. Suspect rear main seal is leaking, so there is that, and then I'll work through the typical E36 things, but to be honest I just want to give this thing a detail and drive it. I can't say I ever progressed from a bucket and sponge, but I recently started watching: AMMO NYC - YouTube and I'm keen to learn. Sing out if you're local (North Shore, Auckland) and have some wisdom to share, or just want to go for a drive (when I've fixed the oil leak).

I guess its been 10 years since I sold my M325i and like house prices, they have gone up 500% in asking price, regardless of condition or history. E30's were great as a cheap fun car but WTF are people smoking to pay this much money for them?? Kind of wish I kept mine in storage now, not because id sell it but because I could in no way conceivably justify spending the price people think they are worth now? Who is buying them? Wealthy hipster kids and boomers I expect?

Just widening my net on this. Have had it on Trademe for some time now and I am getting bored. 2009 Maserati Granturismo S 4.7. Big ticket items taken care of (Clutch, variators). Mechanically pretty reliable cars. There's a couple of minor things that the new owner might like to look at, mainly a few bits of sticky interior left, and a couple of switch modules. Looking for offers over $40000, which is pretty much bottom of the market for GranTurismos, and certainly the cheapest 4.7 by a long way. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/maserati/granturismo/listing/4285901138

Receiving beer for fathers day enabling me to have a beer every night after work this week. Spring temperatures. No need for a jacket walking to work today. Sun up earlier meaning waking to light and birds. General vibe at this time of the year.

Looks like a great example to refresh. No doubt she regret the cheap running costs if she somehow keeps the 4 series for 15 years.

Straight up. She gave me a key and I drove it home. Test drove it until the end of August, took it to VTNZ for a WoF to see if that was going to be an issue or if they would dream some up. Nothing. Took it to my mechanic and the mechanic she uses, went through the service history and noted the oil leak. I can tell she really loved the car, so I'd swing by and grab a coffee with her and her husband. She'd always kept the E36 garaged and their reason for selling it was now parked in its spot, the new 4-Series at a glance. It was a pretty awesome experience as far as buying a car goes.

Back from overseas, dug straight into sorting a few issues before even waking the car up from its 3 month slumber. When replacing the diff, I noticed some oil dripping out from the bottom of the CCV valve, running down the return tube and onto the oil pan. Was making enough of a mess to be worth addressing. Hard to tell what the main failure point was as 2 of the 3 hose connections were covered in oil as well as it looking like the diaphragm housing had split at the seams and oil was weeping out from there as well. Due to it being the highest up saturated area, I suspect its the latter and the oil just ran down from there, although the bottom return hose also seemed to wobble around excessively so might have been multiple failure points. Not awfully happy about it, being a brand new part that failed after barely 2,000km but it is what it is. Had read a bit of negative feedback on that particular part from FCP Euro and it being a bit sketchy how they don't specify who their "OE SUPPLIER" is but figured I trusted them enough to give it a go. Guess the internets were right on that front. Went with a little "hack" I'd read about on E46 Fanatics - buy a genuine BMW Cold Climate Version of the CCV. The cold climate valve is just a regular one in a foam jacket around it, you can just remove it and end up with a genuine CCV with two additional genuine hoses for around half the price of just a regular valve alone. Not sure how the pricing makes sense on that but it has held up for a number of years now so a good tip for anyone looking to do a CCV refurb. Figured it wouldn't hurt keeping the jacket on for the occasional morning frost we still get around here, summers don't get that awfully hot here either so figured there's no real downsides to some extra insulation. A much tighter squeeze installing it with the added padding, definitely not a job I'd want to do with the intake still on the car. Will monitor how this one holds up, I do have a bit more faith in it being a genuine BMW part. Hopefully it was just a faulty batch and not an underlying issue with the engine producing excessive pressure or something like that. Another bit that annoyed my was the way the lower intake boot sat. No matter how I tried to align it, the smaller offshoot going to the ICV just didn't want to sit right and looked like it was caving in on itself. Decided to replace the Febi hose I had with another genuine part. The quality of the rubber feels better even just looking at it and it does seem to sit straighter. For now anyway. Did a slight mod changing the temperature buffer on the cluster to make it more accurate and informative of potential overheating situations. Basically, with default programming, the temperature arrow pointing straight up indicates quite a wide range of temperature and doesn't give you much warning of the temps going up before it being too late. With very simple coding you can change it to what it is below. Lastly, replaced the front indicators, both the headlight side markers and the fender ones. Of the front ones, one side was cracked, the other kept getting condensation buildup inside and both the fender ones were foggy and faded. TYC brand ones looked to have good reviews and were cheap enough from Spareto so I ended up getting sets of both clears and ambers. Put the latter ones on for now to switch it up a bit, quite like how they break up the monotony up front. Will see which one I end up sticking with long term and will sell on the other set. Boxes of new parts keep stacking up in the garage. New additions are an AC compressor, condenser, drier, expansion valve and a full set of O-rings, all ready to get the AC back up and running in time for summer.

That kit wouldn't be the original it came with, being PreFL it would have Tech1 (like the skirts / spoiler). The rear bumper is either modified or a fiberglass rep to fit PreFL rear arches (Tech2 bumper is longer).

Car has been going great guns through the miserable winter months but with the nice change in weather got out on a few rural backroads with @Cement and @elias on Saturday - Dave and I having to navigate a pretty decent swathe of semi' precarious gravel roads, so here is a rare dirty picture of the old girl! Next project is a cluster refurb and tart up and then a refurbished steering rack before the next WOF. From there will just be dirivng the wheels off it and saving up for some rust repair and full respray next winter.

Upgraded the work (and play) from home office as I decided the E30 wasn’t enough of a money pit. As close as I’ll get to driving Group A DTM E30 M3!

Celebrated the summer weather and Auckland water restrictions being relaxed and gave the gar its first two bucket wash in 6 months. Was so nice outside, decided to slap on a coat of CarPro Elixer while I was at it - so nice holding a hose again haha

Alternator died. Got house. Lost job 1 week later. Water pump died.