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Engine and transmission have been repeatedly sprayed in degreaser all week in preparation for pressure washing which I did yesterday. Block was filthy with grease and dirt built up over the last 37 years so now will be good time to repaint the block and do the seals / gaskets that I haven’t already got to. Got the engine back inside today and stripped it down to begin prepping for paint. Finished up with the input and output shaft seals on each end of the trans as well as the selector shaft seal along with new selector joint. I had already put a derlin carrier bushing in along with derlin linkage bushings / new shims so should make a huge difference in shifting feel once all back together. (I’m running the z3 shift lever). Replacing throw out bearing, pivot pin, clutch fork / pin and slave cylinder while it’s out. The plan is to paint the gearbox in a nice bright aluminium colour. overall making good progress while everything is out of the car, just need to finish up a final few things on the body before I can start putting everything back together.

Car is for sale maybe ?

I used to run 235/40r18 and 265/35r18 ps4s on my e46 m3. Would get mine via tire rack.com and brought about 4 sets of tyres for the e46 from them. Prices imported were similar to nz prices. I think I just needed to register for importing goods more than $1k. It’s a good alround combo. Hardly ever got traction light flashing. Found the rears would last no more than 40,000 kms. scroll down to ps4s. https://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSearchResults.jsp?zip-code=13489&frontWidth=235/&frontRatio=40&frontDiameter=18&rearWidth=265/&rearRatio=35&rearDiameter=18&performance=ALL

It looks like simple pulse counting of a hall effect sensor monitoring RPM. More likely he is simply intercepting some of the sensor inputs. Was quite common with old piggy back ECU's.

My main issue when ordering bulk vehicle parts in NZ(more so as retail customer) is the lack of online ordering systems. Ordering from overseas is so much efficient for anyone accustomed it. Sending big parts lists to the dealership for pricing\availability creates too many issues unless you dont care about pricing and\or delivery schedules, not to mention extra work for the parts guy.

“Rip off” is a bit of a strong and emotional term, especially when you are not comparing all the facts (one example out of how many millions of part numbers?) nor comparing apples with apples. It all comes down to economies of scale, and how costs are spread across the supply chain. FCP Euro would probably have a bigger parts turnover than BMW NZ, let alone BMW North America who would be the equivalent point. As mentioned above NZ parts can be reasonable for fast moving volume medium cost items. If it’s a larger, low volume item that has to be ordered in especially then unfortunately the costs won’t be comparable with the US who is still probably buying exponentially more per year. This then gets into a “chicken and egg” situation as more people buy on line from the bigger vendors. The issue then is supporting the local businesses in terms of time scales, yes most things can be sent over-night, but this then gets tricky for larger parts like bumpers for crashed cars, wheels, Lithium batteries (dangerous goods), etc. If the significantly increased freight costs (post Covid) are then passed on insurance companies will soon up the premiums to recover and more cars will get written off. Would that it was possible for FCP to be a supplier. However, you might want to ask Toyota Aussie and Toyota NZ how they ended up with fake parts in their supply chain and the $$$s it cost to sort that mess. Is there room for improvement..? Always. Will systems evolve over time..? Most definitely. Will people still claim “dealers charge 100% mark up” .? We shall wait and see. *Purely my personal opinions as an innocent bystander, any resemblance to persons dead or alive are purely coincidental.