Leaderboard

I'm Shantelle (aka Shorty) – long-time BMW fan and former E36 328i owner. It’s been around 9 years since I was last active on Bimmersport – life got busy! I sold the E36 when I had my first daughter, and since then, I've welcomed a second daughter, built a house, and finally found myself back behind the wheel of a fun weekend toy. I’m now the proud owner of a 2010 E82 135i with DCT – black, sleek, and such a joy to drive. First thing I did was give it a full paint correction using Meguiar’s products (I’m the marketing manager at Smits Group, so naturally, I’m lucky enough to use and market products I genuinely love). I recently picked up a set of 19" BBS CH104s – they’re not quite the right offset, but I’m hoping to get them machined and refinished. They're a bit rough (and buried under about three coats of black), so I’m tossing up a new colour – leaning towards bronze... but we’ll see where I land. I've already got coilovers ready to go on and have started the DIY journey – tackled an oil and filter change myself, and took the car to Juned at Manukau Vehicle Servicing for a DCT service, rear brake pads, and a new radiator (after a surprise leak – fun!). Mechanically it's now solid, and I’m really looking forward to getting out and enjoying it. Once the wheels and suspension are sorted, the car will be re-registered as LOWBMW – a bit of a throwback for those who remember my old E36 with the same plate! Keen to reconnect with the community and get inspired again – good to be back! First two photos are pre-paint correction, car had definitely taken on a grey hue. Also my drivers door has had a VERY terrible paint job - on the list of things to fix.

X5 is back up and running but the wallet did take a bit of a hit. Turns out those Denso units are quite uncommon and my mate struggled to find the correct brushes to suit. Had a few options but some weren't tall enough and others were too loose in the casing. Could have continued with the trial and error but was keen to get the thing back up and running ASAP so opted for a new unit instead. Denso units look to be discontinued, I was tossing up a Bosch one off Spareto which would have worked out to $480 shipped and an extra week of waiting but the same mate got me a trade price on a SparkShop unit which worked out slightly cheaper and I got my hands on it the same day. Bit of an unknown of a brand but looks decent quality, comes with a local warranty and a test sheet, plus it's 2.2kW compared to the 2.0kW of the original. Winning. Turns out the car is also sporting a SparkShop alternator, courtesy of the previous owner, and that's working well enough. Everything went back together quickly and without issues. Loving how easy the intake manifold is to remove and reinstall on these. Started up effortlessly on the first go. Job's a good 'un.

As per title . $1950 . comes with everything thats in the photos. Clutch line is for E36 "(SOLD)"

Me too - been on for months with very little enquiry apart from the UN making ~$9k offers without seeing it.... GLWS, but I fear the price if you want it gone this month is ~$10k

Lots of black grill hate around here. Im definitely not in that club. I like them.

All kinds of crazyness https://archive.org/details/bmw-accessories-configurator-v-12

Don't mint the fact that the grilles are black, it's the wannabe F-series slotted design that's utter cringe. Ohh I feel you buddy. Doesn't do much to increase its value these days tho.

Like today drove it to get groceries and back. About 15mins each way. Opened the boot about 10mins after arriving home and the fuel pump turned on for a split second. It’s as if it’s making sure there’s enough fuel pressure in anticipation of the next drive… The pump also briefly primes about 10mins after opening then closing a door. Has an error for the intelligent battery sensor so could be related. Rescued another one to restore and move on, think there was a post about it on here. Terracotta leather will look loads better in a black car, plus the oil temp gauge is helpful for track days.

Sharp price these days

Hahaha omg, yes we did, we've since sold it to a mate of mine - who still has it, drives it regularly I'm hoping we can liven up the community somehow!

Lol, the UN offers, sadly I know what you mean!

Nice car but priced like it's a manual, without a black grill.🤣

Mine also does this. Figured it was because it was a high performance machine lol. it also has always had a weird flat spot at about 2700rpm, even worse now with the karbonius intake, and can’t be at WOT otherwise rebuilt the vanos a few years ago thinking that was the issue, but didn’t really make a difference.

Do it, I’ll buy the diff off you

Some more tiny details that I've tinkered with recently. Did a few tweaks to the stock DME tune, main one being the thermostat target temperatures. Originally pioneered by @Eagle and I just followed suit. On my android headunit the coolant temperature display is always just 2 clicks away so I've been monitoring the running temperatures quire regularly. I believe they've always been within the norm but were constantly on the higher side, hovering around 99-100°C city driving and 101-102°C motorway cruising. With the below changes they've now gone down a tad to 97-98°C city driving and 94-95°C on the motorway. Eagle reckons some brand thermostats just run a bit hotter than others, in his experience he hadn't seen any M54's consistently run above 97°C so 102°C did seem a tad excessive. This tweak seems to have brought the temperatures down into a more comfortable range. Next time I change the thermostat I might give another brand a go, currently running a Borg Warner unit. Originally, both tables had identical values, as per the right side AC ON table above. The screenshot is halfway through the process with only the left side AC OFF table values modified, the AC ON values were then also modified to match. On the topic of exhausts, I stumbled upon a little titbit of information in Bryson's thread over on E46 Fanatics about the vibration dampeners on the stock exhaust system. Turns out automatic cars had two of them, both #4 & #12 on the schematic below, whereas manual cars only had #12. Mine being converted, I decided to unbolt the #4 dampener from the rear of the muffler. Can't say it made a discernible difference but it's now a tiny bit closer to a factory manual. The power steering reservoirs on these are notorious for weeping and creating a mess. Mine is still fairly new and hasn't succumbed to this inevitability but as a little piece of security from a potentially messy situation I got myself a cheapo wrist sweatband and draped it over the reservoir. Fits well and looks quite inconspicuous being all black without any tacky logos. The idea was of course blatantly stolen from Garagistic but cost me a fraction of the price.