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Not much progress on the wagon in the last wee while, moved house and jobs so plenty on with all that. The new place has a garage! Pretty excited about this, a nice dry place for the wagon to live and a place to work on it too. Anyways, todays progress was a transmission service. Dropped the pan and valve body, replaced the 4 sleeve seals and bridge seal and threw it all back together with a new pan. Also replaced the mechatornic sleeve while I was at it. I used Penrite BMV which looks to work with Lifeguard 6 spec, will see how this goes in the coming months. The old fluid was very clean, I believe it was replaced before I bought the car. Was an interesting project having never dropped a valve body before this. Cool to see the inner workings of an auto box. Overall was a pretty easy job, dropping the trans brace and exhaust hanger helped to get to the mechatronic plug. Will give this a few weeks of driving before throwing an XHP tune at it, have heard good things about the tune, looking forward to seeing the results. Big thanks to Tony at TPD for coming in on a Saturday to use a hoist for this one.

Hey team, I’m in a bit of a bind and could use some opinions from anyone familiar with BMW diesels or who’s made the jump from a fun petrol car like a BRZ. So, I currently daily a Subaru BRZ. It’s been my first real car — properly fun, great driver’s car, looks good, and got me into the car scene. But as much as I enjoy it, I’ve hit that “I need more power” wall. It’s still a solid car and pulls enough to be enjoyable around town (0–70km stuff), but on the open road or longer drives it just lacks grunt. Now I’m eyeing a diesel sedan for something a bit more grown-up but still fun. I've narrowed it down to the BMW F30 — either a 320d M-Sport or a 330d. Here’s where the dilemma kicks in: 320d M-Sport Much easier to find in NZ, especially with M-Sport trim. Looks the part, still has decent torque. Cheaper to buy and insure. But… it’s still just a 2.0L four-cylinder diesel. Not slow, but might feel a bit “meh” after the BRZ once the newness wears off. 330d Proper power and torque. Feels like a real upgrade — you actually feel that inline-six grunt. Makes a great sound under load for a diesel. Some even sound jet-like with the right mods (yes, I’ve heard one under pull — addicting). Harder to find in clean condition, especially with M-Sport trim. Feels like most are RWD Lux lines or don’t have all the goodies Costs more, usually higher km.s, and insurance/potential maintenance will likely follow that. I’ve test driven both (not back-to-back, unfortunately), and the 330d obviously felt like the more “complete” car performance-wise. The 320d M-Sport is no slouch, but it doesn’t feel like a true step up from the BRZ in terms of straight-line speed. I want something that: Pulls harder than the BRZ (ideally 5–6 sec 0–100 territory) Is fun around town (dailying through the city with occasional open road bursts) Still looks the part and doesn’t bore me in a few months Feels like a proper upgrade — not just a sideways move TL;DR: Coming from a BRZ, I want more power and torque but still want something that turns heads a little. 320d M-Sport is common and tidy but might not be enough. 330d is rare and fast but harder to find in the right spec/condition. What would you go for? Would appreciate anyone’s thoughts — especially if you’ve owned or driven both, or made a similar transition from a fun petrol coupe to a quick diesel sedan.

Could be a number of things. Might be a random stab in the dark but one possibility is the ignition switch. Had that on my E46 a couple of years ago, would just intermittently not even crank until I cycled the key 4-5 times, became more frequent as time went on. Cleaned it out and has been fine since. Could also just replace it as they're fairly cheap. Haven't checked but fairly certain it'll be a very similar part on the X5, if not completely identical. Worth cleaning out regardless as they can cause a number of weird electrical issues, access should be pretty easy too, just need to remove the bottom cover from the steering column.

Looks similar. If it is that one then I think the last owner got it from rose city. Maybe rose city picked it back up (if it is the same one).

I thought the same thing when I first got mine and determined to do the same fix at some stage. But the more I've driven it the more I like it - up or down with either (or a single) hand. Not looking forward to going back to "normal" on a future vehicle now ...