Leaderboard

Just for you Matt

Not so much of a what I did, but what I diagnosed/happened... E46: Now misfiring... a lot... moving it on the drive is now painful 525e: had my uncle who's a mechanic from way back look at it. His suggestions as to what it's ailments were: Fix the exhaust leak Fix the ICV that currently does nothing The bearings in the gearbox are stuffed. Inspect/replace the engine mounts Inspect/replace the CSB Inspect/replace the driveshaft guibo Look into a vibration dampener for the drive train. Then come back and diagnose further This is going to be fun... Annoyingly the "daily" e46 whilst only having one problem is going to be the hardest to figure out. Also having 4 cars and not being able to drive any of them kinda sucks.

The silly ones buy a BMW to fill that spare time with. ?

#BMWlife have two in bits and the other one needs pulling to bits What the hell do Toyota drivers do with all this spare time they must have is what I want to know

LOL you go for it and rebuild one

Had a fun weekend cruising in my E34 about Auckland, the traffic is getting worse every time I visit! Any reservations I had about the intelligence of the purchase are slowly disapating, it's an awesome cruiser with plenty of poke for over taking, running, like a pig, but it's running, it looks great now IMO, I'm going to try spend the time to restore as much of it as I can. Can't wait to open the exhaust up and remove the ugliest god damn exhaust tips I've seen outside of a Supercheap store. Need to have a look under the back, but I'd love left and right double tips, maybe square upswept dtm type.

As above. I need a pair of Xenon headlights in good condition. Not Ebay Taiwanese ones

I installed my own intercooler, charge pipe bov, plugs coils etc , but harder stuff I have payed workshops to install. Even the easy stuff I get them to do now as I just dont have the time. All the aftermarket stuff can't be sourced here ( LSD , downpipes, upgraded LPFP) so I I pay them to install when I bring down and I have used places I know do great work. I am pretty sure I havent insulted any of them but I will double check

Are you joking? If I pay someone to paint my house but supply the paint am I insulting the painter. I am paying him for his time and labour. Thats why I said take it to one of these non precious BMW Techs

sure can, give me a buzz on 027 4444 233. I can scan the car, bring up live data, decode, recode ecu's and remap ecu's.

misfiring should be pretty straightfoward to sort out. You've a good mind for understanding systems, and the fuel and ignition systems - whilst having more inputs/sensors than your e28, can all be understood and diagnosed accurately. Get the codes, go from there. I still have a couple of coils you can borrow, gimme a shout. I'm picking air leaks or coils, based on little more than past experience and a little intuition. Third would be coolant temp sensor, based on it reading wrong when it's faulty and riching up. Face it all head on, don't let it get you down mate! Plenty of folks here to support/help.

Dam Elijah - sounds frustrating. Sounds like you need codes read for the E46 - should give you a good steer. @promo could you help with this? Priority has to be getting this one sorted. FYI Jon at Auto38 will free code scans for BMW Car Club members. I've had misfires on both the 545i and M5 and it was coils both times... Looks like there's plenty on the to-do list for the E28!

Take a peek at tyres on some random parked cars whenever you walk past some... you're not wrong. That and heaps of people run the cheap Chinese crap.

They were new when they went in and didn't last very long only about 13 track days, mind you I hit a few ripple strips and ran over a truck tyre that threw me in the air lol ?

watching an episode of Wheeler Dealers that I haven't seen before: BMW Z1! I still like the Z1, those door mechs are awesome. You don't hear much about them these days, and they're pretty low-tech with M20 running gear. Anyone got one in NZ?

Looking sweet! thanks!

Typically not easy to rebuild - a disposable unit, in effect. I had a long chat with @crunchy about these - it can be done, but parts can be tricky to find and the cost can easily outweigh just buying a new unit.$ I was very fortunate with our car as another forum member had a new (not Chinese! ) unit from the UK that he wasn't going to use, but the ex-BMW price is $2k+. However, don't be blindisded by claims that the turbo gives up after 100k kms. Not true - ours ran well through 400k before starting to show any sort of problem. Servicing is key.

Auckland.

Was it the dealer you bought it from that did (or organised) the service? Ask them what they used, and if you're not 100% satisfied, then yes, put some decent oil in it. It won't be cheap but worth it for peace of mind and better long term reliability.

Rant? I should coco. Here we go. NZTA f^ckwittery at it's best. 2pm on a Friday afternoon... First: SH1, looking from Dragway Road towards Hampton Downs: Absolutely no sign of anyone doing any work, or even the presence of a work-type vehicle, anywhere. Next, from the corner at the end of that straight bit, we can see the vehicle Chris ( @Jacko ) referred to: Yes - it was ablaze with orange flashing lights and arrows. It was also the only vehicle on the road. No sign of a single working person. Finally, the southbound straight that goes past the Hampton Downs exit: Further complete and utter absence of any sign of anyone doing any work during the prolonged drive along that stretch. Just over 4km of traffic cone storage. Which will be there all weekend. Then there is the subsequent 6.3km of further single carriageway... OK. Now factor in an overloaded whanau wagon never exceeding 45km/h along the entire trip. Stereotyping? I would be if it hadn't broken down about 50m short of Paddy Road, in the single carriageway section. I was 5 or 6 vehicles back, and we sat there... After several minutes I, and a couple of other drivers got out to see what was going on and all we could see was a silver Toyota Estima apparently parked in the carriageway ahead. Walking up, another guy knocked on the drivers window. The door opened and then reality ceased to exist. I kid you not. This is the stuff parallel universes are made of. "What's going on?" "It stopped. I don't know why," says the Estima driver. "So you've broken down?" "Yes." "And you're going to sit here?" "We've called for a friend to come and help us. He's on his way from Papakura." {Bear in mind that there is no way on this earth anyone from Papkura is going to get to Hampton Downs when the traffic isn't moving.] We get the bonnet open. Probably the first time in a very, very long time. It stinks of burnt toast. There's no visible water or coolant, no oil showing on the dipstick. "Have you thought of pushing your car to the junction ahead?" "Oh. Could you do that? I'd be ever so grateful." [Complete and utter disbelief from me and other people.] "You have some passengers. Could they help?" "I couldn't ask them to do that. It's raining." [Anyone know how to drive an excavator? There's a few up ahead... I think someone had to be restrained at this stage.] Eventually we persuaded the passengers to leave the vehicle. 7 of them. All huge, overweight and of.... Well, I'll let you guess the origin. I swear the Toyota breathed a sigh of relief and lifted about 5" from it's bump stops. We had to tell the driver to take the vehicle out of gear so we could push it. We didn't have much help from the passengers. The driver of the ute in front of me apologised to the rest of us for not being to get to the Estima, or he (apparently) would have used the bars on the front and shoved it firmly into the excavation trench, driver and all. Not a good start to the weekend.

I was part of that industry for quite a while so I fail to see why you are taking offence. As to just charging labour to fit supplied parts what else would you charge? A few ancillaries like some grease, zip ties etc might be appropriate but if there is no parts costs and its pure fitting then what else? As it stands you have made it quite clear you are not keen on fitting parts other people supply, So I have suggested the OP go somewhere where they dont have this policy. You dont want to do it so that's fine someone else will and as it's not really a BMW specialist job most performance shops will likely have no issues. Oh and the reason I get other people to work on my car sometimes is simple, opportunity cost, what I pay them to do the job is a lot less than I get remunerated to do mine.

swapped wheels on my M3 from the std 19" m3 ones to some CSL ones fitted some new wider tyres etc wider front rim and they still weigh a little less than the stock ones

Want to have a valve cover gasket replacement party? I need to replace mine at some point and rebuild the vanos.

Dried up the minor pond that had formed in the spare-wheel well... Blasted boot rubber seal has a tear in it I didn't notice till today. Pulled out a bit over half a litre of water.

Today, with the excellent help from Kerry of Mosen Euro Parts (Hamilton) we did the RMS, flywheel, clutch, gearbox oil, driveshaft coupling, shifter parts, and O2 sensors on my M5, plus a bit of cleaning etc as we went along. Six hours in total, pretty straight forward with all the right tools including a hoist and trans jack. The exhaust took a bit of mucking around to get off and on, one gearbox mounting bolt had rounded off and we had to get "creative" but all in all a great day - fricken cold though...

Picked up two new tires for the e46, overheard another customer looking for tires for their Pulsar or Primera... $270 each for Ecopias . Made me feel good about my $200 RE003s.

Moved to a brand new house this weekend - my old E39 did a Stirling job hauling the furniture trailer. Also picked up my parts car... what should I swap across first?