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Picked up a 330e today after thinking about getting a Prius PHEV. 2016 with only 18k on the clock, it's almost new! Not an M-sport so it's missing a few options and has black wheels which I don't like, but it is in immaculate condition. $27k plus on road shenanigans. Very well rounded package with plenty power, diesel levels of torque, and manages 4.5l/100km from Otahuhu to Hamilton in peak hour. Electric range seems to be about 25-30kms which is plenty to get me around Hamilton and offset my weekly trip to Auckland. It's also nice to have only BMWs in the garage

I see that I didn't make a post about the end result. 1998 B3 3.2 switch-tronic saloon manual 6 speed conversion. The 4 saloons which were built in RHD were all switch-tronic so I thought why not. Except for the steering wheel, everything is oem spec 3.2 manual. Sam at Hellbm completed the conversion for me, with my supplied parts including various new bushes, bearings etc: -M3 evo 420g, C.V driveshaft etc -New e36 m3 clutch, dual mass flywheel etc -New Alpina shift knob Sam completed the work smoothly and quickly which was awesome. In my tarting up of the driveshaft paint I had painted over the white alignment dots, and there was a bit of a thumpa thumpa at 90kmh which I attributed to this. Dots found, realigned and still thumpa. I took it apart again and lubed the splines up, checked preload on CSB etc. reassembled and vibration mostly gone. Maybe anything remaining is the rear wheel balance?? Clutch engagement was near the floor. Clutch pedal disassembled and found to have flogged out bushes/material which I rebushed and for the small amount of slack which was removed, the clutch engagement improved drastically. Darned plastic pedal... Alpina used the US spec Siemens MS41.1 which is half OBD2 and half OBD. INPA etc over usb identified EWS, KMB and ABS but would only access EWS for me to change from auto to manual. So I just removed the trans fault bulb from the cluster. No issues anyway with idle or rev hang, as evidently the Alpina DME don't have auto or manual allocation. I'm sort of curious whether the KMB fuels differently when pulling away from standstill between auto and manual, because I do have to focus a bit more than I recall on manual BMWs I have owned in the past. I still have the switchtronic steering wheel and will likely keep it out of sheer laziness, unless I can source an Alpina stitched airbag and have a sport wheel restitched to match... End result I'm really happy with.

A special car just got a little more special!

Cavity wax is a great shout. Just called Spraystore, they've got the 3M stuff in stock, will pop by and pick some up today. Kept tinkering away at it last night, peeled back the sound deadening & seam sealer in the boot floor, luckily looks like that panel ends in front of that bracket and doesn't sneak under it. One annoying thing is that there's a spot weld right under the bracket overhang but I might be able to drill it out through one of the openings in the top of it. Back into it tonight, weld-in-beam mission is all go.

All mods, especially aesthetic ones, involve a lot of subjectivity, don't let what others think sway you too far from your preferences. I've added some small details to mine, I'm satisfied that I like them. You have BMWP pedal covers in case you didn't already know; a reasonably common 'upgrade' but an appreciated one nevertheless.

It's been a while since I've owned a BMW, been in company cars for a while with a urs6 and mgbgt to play with. Anyway picked this up a while back and have been returning her to spec- hence my advert seeking standard hellrot wing mirrors and an Alpina rear spoiler instead of the m3 items. She is a 3.2 Switchtronic, which is basically a tuned 5 speed zf auto with buttons on back of the steering wheel, Effectively always driving in sport mode, then using the 's' position as manual mode(normal s function is not available)