Leaderboard

Is the owner even still here?

On Tuesday January 18th BMW announced it will cease building V-12 engines, for BMWs, in June this year. Rolls-Royce also uses BMW V-12s, and production of those engines will continue. BMW have offered a V12 since 1987 and the E32, and there will be a special 'Final V12' version of the 7-Series M760i xDrive, which will be offered with first refusal to customers who have previously bought new V12 7-series cars. There will be very, very few options on this car - it will simply come with everything as standard. You can choose paint colour, leather options, and whether you'd like grey or black wheels... The engine is the same as that in the current M760i xDrive: 6.6-litre twin-turbo V12, 600 hp and 627 lb-ft of torque. The M70B50 in the 1987 E32 7-series produced about half of that. As the V12 will be gone, the most powerful new 7-series is likely to be the i7. Mercedes-Benz are likely to offer an ICE V12 until 2030 when they go fully electric; Audi has already dropped the W12, and the rest of the VAG group is likely to do the same by the end of 2026.

Hi there I have a persistent airbag light on in my dash and was wondering if anyone knows of any good service centers or dealerships that can resolve the issue with a price ballpark of how much it would cost. car is a 1999 e46 320i, located in south Auckland

I noticed it after my brother sat in my car one day. found out that the passenger seat hadn't been secured properly, missing a bolt on the back and the other bolt in the back wasn't fully in. im located in south auckland thanks.

A little more investigation has found the problem - the barrel is perfectly fine and still works. I've extracted the barrel and found the interfacing system consisting of a muck-metal cast rod/cam/flange that connects between the ignition switch block and key barrel has sheared in half at the narrowest point. Replacing this might be possible by getting bits from the wreckers but I suspect it's a weak point that could fail again any time and old donor parts will probably have a limited life. Have decided not to bother trying to fix this and will go down the engine start/stop button route. Now to find a security device. I already have remote lock/unlocking as part of the alarm system so just need a discrete security fob type device to replace the key to enable starting. By drilling out the spring that pushes up the steering lock mechanism the steering wheel is free. However, I've noticed the small sheet metal activator thingy that locks the steering is very free and slides up super easy when pushed with a long screwdriver. I'm a little uncomfortable relying on gravity to keep this activator inactive and will glue it down so it can never lock the steering. It would be disastrous to have this activate mid corner on a big bump - probably unlikely but better to be safe than potentially dead. Now, to find a suitable donor vehicle for a security enable system and figure out how to transfer the electronics... Fabricating a PCB with the logic sequencing for ACC, RUN and START is the easy part.

I may have missed the bit where the owner even wants to go faster.... 🤣🤣

Not sure I can agree with this, if a 135i is too fast for most NZ drivers then we should all be driving 1.3 Corollas. 135is are quite manageable and the big boost in mid range torque makes them easier to drive in some respects. Driver control is the key whether is 400hp or 200hp. When the 130i thread popped up on here I was intrigued so I went and drove a few as I really like the looks and thought it was time to replace the 335i. I was then and still am a wee bit underwhelmed by them especially in direct comparison to a 135i which I also drove. I drive a lot of twisty country roads to get to where I live and there was no difference in handling between the 130 and 135i but torque out of tight corners made the 135i auto both quicker and easier to drive than the 130i which you had to get up it to make it fun. I guess like others here I had a lot of high HP cars so my Stage 1+ 335i never felt anything other than nice. BTW I have had one speeding ticket in the last 15 or so years for going 56 in a 50k zone, I was driving a Toyota Highlander.

Spotted this lovely e38 in Rosedale today.

The “poor quality fuel” option SA858 is no longer required for NZ, and hasn’t been for some while. Pretty much everything has some form of knock sensor to adjust the fuel and timing maps to adjust for fuel quality. Most models are “recommended” for 95 but “minimum” 91, with the exception of M Cars that are 98 recommended, and 95 (IIRC) min.

I can't imagine that. I moved my Austin 10 on Sunday and the pinion seal let go from excitement