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Things took a turn yesterday, had to pass on the black 130i, but saw this last-minute and took another detour. The guy was genuine, knew his stuff, and carried out just about all of the major maintenance when he got it last year. Getting used to the 1st-2nd notchiness, otherwise awesome to drive. Will find out if it makes peak hour traffic any better tomorrow though…

On the "performance" side of things, I committed blatant sacrilege by throwing on some intake mods. First was a Bevinsee intake air scoop off Aliexpress. Wouldn't usually go for such things but it looked tidy, all black, no logos and supposedly helps with intake air flow and reduces intake temperatures by a few degrees so was worth a shot for the low price. The second was a Dinan airbox. I've heard of them mentioned over on the E46 fanatics forums, supposedly being one of the few intake mods that are somewhat of an improvement on the stock setup. I'd never be able to justify the price of it though so never crossed my mind actually getting one. I happened to be chatting to @Eagle one day when he mentioned coming into possession of one as a bundle deal on his recent purchase. He didn't feel like using it himself so kindly passed it on. Absolute legend. It's essentially just a different lid for the bottom part of a stock intake with a bigger filter fitted inside. Originally would have come with extra tubing which taps into the brake duct and drills into the bottom of the airbox, adding a third source of airflow. Unfortunately it didn't have that tubing intact but it's something I can just whip up as a DIY at a later point. The filter is an odd shape but the filter elements themselves look identical to the washable K&N filters. Supposedly these aren't washable and need to be replaced every 1-2 years. Unfortunately, replacement filters are stupid expensive, are out of stock in most places and the few places that do stock them don't ship to NZ. I dug around the forums a bit and found reports of people washing and oiling them with K&N kits for years without trouble though so that's what I did. Having taken it on one proper drive so far, the sucky noises do sound more pronounced, which isn't something I ever felt the need for but nice to have I guess. Whether it does anything beyond that in terms of performance, who knows. Does look cool though. I did discover a few new issues on the first drive post paint correction. The first one being a massive puddle that started forming right after parking up. The mind straight away jumped to the worst case scenario. Luckily, it needn't have. Windshield washer fluid. I had just refilled the reservoir as well. Didn't seem to leak when stationary but once the engine gets warm the fluid bubbling up and pissing out straight out the nozzles. Real weird one. Having talked to @Eagle about it he mentioned there's certain brands of washer fluid that are known to wear out the seals in the nozzles. Pretty annoying but what can you do. Will throw a pair of new nozzles onto my next order and will do some research on BMW-safe washer fluids. The second issue could also have been more serious but ended up being a simple solution. I'd intermittently get a trifecta of ABS-brake lights pop up on the dash, maybe once or twice a year. Usually happened after the car had been on jack stands so I didn't think much of it. You'd restart the car and the issue would stay away for another number of months. This time around in the span of 2 days and 200-something km's it must have happened a good 25 times. Something more serious was at play. Got so annoying I ended up killing the engine without stopping and restarting again on longer straights. Initially thought it must be a bad wheel speed sensor - some of the last components I've yet to replace - but having checked live data mid drive they were all returning the same numbers. Dug a bit into the engine bay having gotten home and discovered the positive terminal next to the ABS unit heavily oxidised and looking yucky. Cleaned it up with some wire brushes and contact cleaner, another 200km later and the issue is yet to return. Great success.

Credit to the photographers as watermarked.

The shadowline trims that go around the windows were looking real tired. The finish is somehow different to the vertical pilar trims, they were heavily oxidized and no amount of cutting, polishing or even wet sanding seemed to do much to improve the look. Ended up giving up and passing them on to professionals to get properly repainted. Ended up at Evan's Colour Works in Sydenham. The turnaround was quick, the price reasonable and the finish was mostly good, although did have quite a few dust bits stuck under the paint and a couple of runs. Ended up leaving one piece to get resprayed but the rest came out decent enough with a quick polish. Will have to get some 'after' shots later on. The roof rails were also pretty bad, with paint bubbling up and peeling off in a few places, as well the 3D printed plugs needing filling in. The finish was satin black so I felt more confident in taking these on as a DIY. I epoxied the plugs securely in place, carefully masked off the rubber seals, filled in the gaps around the plastic plugs and sanded down all the rough bits. I used 1 coat of etch primer followed by 2 3 coats of flat black enamel. Turned out mostly fine but I did a pretty poor job of filling in around the plugs so was left with a few craters. The spray nozzle was also pretty poor so ended up with a few drips here and there. Will sand it down at some point, fill in the imperfections properly and give it another few coats, whenever I've got some surplus motivation. I had epoxied one of the taillights back together a few years ago. Mucking around this time I noticed the other one coming apart at the seams as well so it also got the epoxy treatment. Whilst I was at it I also gave all 4 rear lights a cut and polish. Came out really nice, getting rid of the swirl marks and the yellow haze from the clear bits. Photo of a before and after of the inner lights below, no points for guessing which one is which. Finished them off with all new bulbs throughout and chrome bulbs for the indicators which made a surprisingly noticeable difference. Ohh, and I ended up swapping out for a slim black plate as well. Don't care much for personalised plates and wouldn't be able to justify the price of one, but for $200 I do love the stealthier look. Plus, it'll pay for itself if it does a good job of confusing a speed camera or two... Did get a new standard issue combination though, as a symbolic start of a new chapter if you will. Naturally, the plate holder plinths got trimmed down to size once again. Also, took off the towbar for now. Looked way too rusty for my liking so will give it a lick of paint before throwing it back in. Hoping to come across a towing module soon so I can wire that in at the same time. Another small tidy up mission were the rear arch liners. When having the rear guards rolled, the fella doing the job took a good few chunks out of them in quite a crude manner. Fair enough they're the part that rubs against the wheel as much as the guard lip itself but he took away way too big a piece either side, leaving a gaping hole for road dirt to get flung into against the chassis and inside the bumper cover. Not a big deal but has bugged me ever since. I picked up a pair of tidy ones and cut away the protruding parts in a more conservative manner. Then gave the bits some Carpro Perl treatment (the bumper and door trims got the same) and threw them in. Can now sleep a bit easier at night.

Congrats! Was this on TM? I don't remember seeing this one 🤔 What made you to pass on the black one?

Yes installing new parts is extremely satisfying. Such a pleasant experience compared to cleaning up old dirty parts!

So much fun getting all those little baggies of just the right parts in the post 👍 Looks like some fun times ahead !!

(possibly paraphrased).