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240,200km Just returned from a school holiday trip down to Nelson. Ticked over 240k on the way and averaged around 10L/100km although it's not exactly a huge amount of km's from Wellington to Nelson but a nice open road drive with some hills and some twisties. Had terrible weather on the way down but lovely on the way home.

Hahahah I thought I'd be clever but someone already beat me to it. Inevitable https://www.carjam.co.nz/car/?plate=nnl573

I have the new 2025 release of the evo AU/NZ maps of any one needs it.. ( map only. - you will need lifetime FSC. ) PM me.

Ahhh, memories. Back in 1990 I needed a stereo for my Datsun wagon. Paul Money Car Stereo advertised in the Herald, I think I bought with a couple of phone calls, a fax and a cheque, and they sent to Wellington. Purchasing is so much easier these days with the web! I chose a Sanyo compact digital radio cassette that fit into the dasboard (twin spindles - volume and tuning) and something like 25 watts per channel, along with two way Alpine 6 inch speakers that were destined for the front doors. When it all arrived they'd sent me Alpine 6x9" 3-ways, so the plan changed and they went into the tailgate on a 10mm particle board baffle that I knocked-up. I ran decent power and earth cables to the unit, it sounded really good for what it was. I couldn't find anything to fit my constraints (the dashboard moulding) in Wellington (other than low-fi models), and nobody down here was doing the stack it high, sell it cheap model like Paul Money did.

Well, I motored down to Christchurch last week and had two business days there to get some things done. Before leaving Nelson I sent messages to every locksmith in Christchurch who looked like they could cut & code a new key. I only got about 4 replies; one couldn't do it, one could for $220 plus the key itself, one from Dan (https://lockncode.co.nz/) for $380 total, and one referring to Dan. Dan it was. I called him late on the first day & he said come to his lockup at 4:45. It took a while through the rush-hour traffic, and on the way the Engine Management Light came on... Once reaching Dan I said I'm not sure whether to go ahead with the spend now, the EML has come on. He said no problem, I'm plugging in the computer anyway, let's see what it is. Turns out it was a transient VANEOS error, may or may not be serious. Cleared it anyway. Then he said that the FRM module had a different VIN on it, and showed as being out of an E90. Maybe that's why the rear wiper & glass hatch don't work... Dan said he knows a guy who can reflash the module for about $250, I said I'll wait & see. So he went ahead & coded then cut a new key, tested it ok, then tried it in the door lock... That's funny, he said, there's no resistance. Then he realised he could turn the lock without fully inserting the key! I don't think there's any wafers in the barrel, he said. Maybe that's why the central locking doesn't lock this door... Another big discussion, Dan explained how to get the door handle & lock barrel out with one allen key, could probably get it dealt with in Nelson. The next day while I was waiting for the radio to be recoded (see https://bimmersport.co.nz/topic/69603-e91-ccc-fm-frequency-change-in-christchurch/), I called Dan & asked him for the contact of the guy who could reprogram the FRM module. He checked first then texted me back 'Chris at Vantage Auto Diagnostics' (https://www.vantageauto.co.nz/). I went along to Vantage & spoke to Chris; very helpful & confident it could be done without risk, but in the end I decided not to spend the $250 just yet. Anyway, job done, lots & lots of extra advice from Dan (free, he wouldn't take a tip). Super helpful and highly recommended! P.S. I spotted a superbike in the loft while he was cutting the key. Turns out his business partner is an NZ champion & that was his winning bike. They'd initially met through bike racing including sidecarting. Dan is the one who gets to hang out. Nutter.

That was a good send off for the old girl; 1600km and 4 nights living out of her from Auckland to New Plymouth, Wanganui, Wellington, Coromandel and back to Auckland. After ten years in NZ, I fly out to the UK today, been a pleasure Bimmersporters!

The top cars are still selling! Not surprising that didn’t last long.

Time for some decent audio. This is something I've always been big on, maybe not to an audiophile extent, but life is too short to listen to stock car audio. My first car, my ford focus, was when I first got my feet wet with car audio. Just a bluetooth single din head unit, front components and a little active 250W sub in the rear. My last wagon, the white 325i e90, was a touch more in depth. It came with a mechless double din, most likely just for the bluetooth and reversing camera aspect, definitely a japanese addition. The stock e90 base audio is pretty sad, 4" door speakers all the way around with 6.5" woofers under the front seats. the front doors and underseats share a channel which is just a joke really. All 4 door speaker were then replaced with 4" kicker coax units, with the tweeter disabled for the rear doors. Adding a 4 channel Pioneer GM-D8704 amp to split the doors from the underseats helped massively. Between the headunit and amp HP and LP filters I managed to high pass the doors from 250hz and cross the underseats from 80hz to 250hz. Throwing a 10" 400w sub box in the rear then filled in everything under 80hz. Onto the latest wagon, I told myself I was going to hold off on doing audio for a while and learn to deal with the stock tunes, that didn't last long. The biggest hold back was the headunit, to get a wireless carplay double din headunit the entry cost is around $700, seems absurd campared to the $140 I paid for the single din in my focus back in the day. Anyways I bit the bullet and bought a Kenwood DMX7522S, the cheapest wireless carplay headunit on the market with active crossovers. Step one was mounting, some 3mm C channel kicking around in the back of Dad's garage got chopped up into right angle and shaped to make some brackets to fit it into the stock position. Step two was to wire it in, with this one I wanted to make an effort not to butcher the stock wiring, instead opting to make an adapter harness. An aliexpress fakra quadlock extension loom was butchered to join up to the kenwood harness. Temporarily the constant 12v and accessory power were connected to the terminal 15 pin in the quadlock harness, which means that the headunit has no memory and has to be switched off manually as terminal 15 takes 30 minutes to time out. This is fixed later on. And for carplay to function the gps must be plugged in, the centre dash speaker location is ideal for this. I printed a piece to bolt in where the speaker goes and stuck the gps onto that. And we have liftoff! This concludes step one of the process for the car audio upgrade. This has already taken some time to write up. I will carry on in my next post with: mounting amps, running new wires to all the speakers, powering the amps, making new rcas, replacing the doors speakers and underseats and adding tweeters.

Now, is this mod #9, or just an aesthetic "fix"? I don't know but I hate these obnoxious labels... So, some research determined that I have the necessary elements in my garage (and kitchen) already, and some time on my hands, so let's get into it... Rear as well... And after about 90 mins (that included a lot of waiting) I'm happy with the result. I could easily do it in 40 mins or less now, I wasted much time by using IPA that too much alcohol had evaporated from, and I spent too much time fruitlessly trying to get rid of the resulting ghosting/shadows. I don't think you can get rid of the residual shadows, even acetone makes no difference. But it's hardly noticeable, and far less obnoxious, than the bright stickers... and a lot less expensive than buying new ones without stickers! You need IPA that's a least 91%, mine is 100% but I used the residual I had in a spray bottle and that had evaporated to the extent that it did nothing and I was about to walk away from the effort until I tried it straight from the original bottle and that worked fine. The key is to leave it on long enough to dissolve the adhesive without dissolving the actual label (or you'll spend hours picking off the tiny bits).

Come on guys. back in the mid-80's when an Alpine Cassette head unit was king, they were running around NZD750 before you added a graphic and an amp or two. A Nakamichi was more like a grand or $1200 - and god did they sound good. Here's a 7273 from 1985 - if you had this, some amps and decent speakers you were - worried every time you parked your car! (stolen without permission - tried to link. Thanks to http://magnitola.org/attachments/golovnye-ustroistva/1272233d1553761180-Magnitola-Avtozvuk-img_0086.jpg ... And in '89/90 and a good CD deck was a grand - yes A Thousand Dollars with an amp, installed... and it skipped on bumps on the way to the mountain, needed an external amp just like yer Nak tape deck did. The TD1200 - OMG. $900 for a Blaupunkt in today's dollars? Not a lot, really. The phone in your pocket is probably worth more than two grand. Then there's the KMM-BT408. The Kenwood mechless decks actually sounds good if you feed em WAV files. Cost buttons, really, to boot. Just a thought @deedub - those guys doing bluetooth conversions on old gear probably charge more than you're expecting because they need to make sure it works for you for a good while.

They arent commonly sold but ive seen them for sale as low as 12-13k before covid\2019-2020. Hard to say exactly what its worth with no information about the car. 20k may not be a bad buy if its got proper service history and a pre-purchase check comes out decent. Its certainly not a bargain given the very low demand for these, very hard to sell. Cars like these only makes sense if you financially comfortable enough that you can pay someone to handle the repair and maintenance costs, or that you are skilled and knowledgeable enough to buy parts and perform required work yourself.

Stumbled across this today.. NZ new too..

Have racked up about 1500kms since the camshaft surgery and all is well. Great car to drive, rewards smoothness especially with the clutch. Penrite synthetic in the gbox has significantly reduced the notchy shifting. Wof and rbf next week then Hampton Downs on one of 2 dates end of month that isn’t expecting rain.

^ Nice! Later on I got a Sony CDX-M9900 (shown in the article I linked above).Bought it from a place in Mt Smart road that had a mocked up car interior in the showroom. Big english guy ran it - had gym equipment in the workshop. Installed in my white 1995 Celica gt4. Had rca inputs on the back and you could take screen grabs from movies etc.

116's are unreliable. If it were a 6 cylinder if it would of made it.

Well, I motored down to Christchurch last week and had two business days there to get some things done. An online search led me first to https://soundworks.net.nz/. Greg was very helpful, although his guy was away for the week, he knew someone else and would check for me. In the meantime a further search turned up this promising result: https://protechsolutions.co.nz/products/bmw-ccc-radio-conversion-from-japan-to-new-zealand?_pos=2&_sid=64a66e6ba&_ss=r Exactly what I want, so I booked them first thing next morning. On arrival they stated 'No play, no pay!', so I said go ahead! After half an hour Greg phoned back & said he'd found someone who could do it that day - I said thanks, but it's being done right now... Well, turns out that while they could extend the FM band from JP to NZ, they couldn't get any reception - apparently some of the code had already been messed with, so the usual fix didn't work. While they were undoing their attempt, I called Greg back & said 'Help!' He said come & see him after lunch. In the meantime I headed to Vantage Auto Diagnostics (https://www.vantageauto.co.nz/) for another issue (see https://bimmersport.co.nz/topic/69604-e91-key-fob-required/), and quickly figured out this was where Greg was going to send me after lunch. When I saw Greg later, sure enough he said go straight to Vantage - since I'd been mucked about already, he didn't want to clip the ticket as well. So back to Vantage, where young Christopher seems to know the BMW computers inside out, and he got stuck in straight away - with a quote only 2/3 of the first attempt! 40 odd minutes later he was done, only one issue - everything worked as desired, station names and reception perfect, except the manual tuning mode didn't show the full NZ frequency range. Apparently some of the code had already been messed with, so the usual fix didn't work fully! I departed happily for the city, wandered around & had a coffee. Went back to the car about 3:30, started the car, and - no AM or FM functionality at all. Bugger. Long weekend about to start... I drove straight back to Vantage & luckily Christopher was still there. I explained the issue and he wasn't too happy, but he hooked up his diagnostics & went to work. Half an hour later he said it was all done, even better than before. Because apparently some of the code had already been messed with, he'd bitten the bullet & done a full reflash of the 5 CCC modules. Now it all worked perfectly, even giving me SW and LW alongside MW. I was so pleased with his work I paid him the extra 1/3, and headed for the hills with local stations blasting! Honestly I can't recommend these companies highly enough for there willingness to help out at short notice. Top guys!

Pretty sure I was served an excellent Negroni in here... just can't remember where, and the lighting was easier on the eyes...

Jeebus.

Loving the content James is making since leaving Donut - quirky, weirdly informative, a tad cringe at times but always funny and entertaining. Find myself craving an X3M40i all of a sudden.

The past few months have been real hectic, we've been too busy developing a new human for me to spend any real time in the garage so haven't made enough progress to warrant an update. Should finally have a bit of time this weekend though so will see if I manage to get anywhere with it. Coincidentally, yesterday marked 1 year since we bought it but it's no closer to being back on the road. The co-owner mate had lost interest in it and being parked up in another mate's paddock on the opposite end of town I've just had too much going on to take on an hour long round trip every time I wanted to work on it. So about a month ago the mate loaded it onto a trailer and dropped it into my driveway so now I can slowly tinker away at it whenever I have a bit of time. All I've done so far is disconnect the DME and inspect it. What I found was some oil on the main engine harness plug that had migrated along the wiring from one of the sensors/solenoids all the way to the DME, which is apparently a thing that happens... In our case it's just a tiny amount that I could see but the car hasn't run in a good 4 years now so it might have had more there and it's just dried out over time. In any case, I sprayed both ends down with contact cleaner spray, then took the DME out of its casing to inspect for any other damage that might stand out but all looked fine to my unscrupulous eye. That's about as far as I've gotten with it so far, am yet to reinstall the DME back into the car to see if that did anything. I want to again remove the intake manifold and give everything a going over before attempting another start, will then check/clean the ignition switch and try resync the DME to the EWS and eliminate that as a possible culprit. This car would make a nice base for an M54 swap but with a barely 3-month old daughter keeping us on our toes and being down to one income I won't have the time nor the finances to turn it into a proper project any time soon. So my hopes are to get this thing running well enough that I can daily drive it for a few years, then see how I feel about it further down the line. If I don't manage to bring it back to life soon then I'll unfortunately be forced to put it out of its misery.

Decided to revisit this issue since the frequency of it happening seems to have increased of late. I had previously installed new HID bulbs, which made no difference. Next up was the ballast, which I managed to grab a spare of. Fun fact - the E46 shares the same part number with the first gen (BMW-era) Mini, of which there was plenty of at Pick-A-Part so I nabbed a newer 2006 production date one. Seemed to work at first but a few drives later the issue resurfaced. I then dug a bit deeper and took the lid off the housing where the ballast connects to only to discover this: The insulation on the wiring had gone real brittle and was cracked throughout and one of the brown ground wires seemed to be crushed by the seal, leaving the metal completely exposed. Not even sure how to remedy this properly, rewiring seems like a mammoth task to get right looking at the way all the wires are intertwined. For the time being I just cleaned up the most obviously damaged part and wrapped it in electrical tape to at least somewhat isolate it. At one point I also scored a spare xenon headlight from Pick-A-Part when one eventually turned up. Testing it out it fired up straight away without any issues so I'm hoping the internals on that are in better state than my current one. Unfortunately, the casing on it is pretty rough and has several clips and tabs broken off so it's not a straight swap in its current state. I will need to dissect the light and hopefully make one good one out of the two I have. As of a few weeks ago, poor Barbara got kicked out of her cosy garage to make room for this ol' nugget that I'm still trying to resurrect. Ever since sitting outside I started noticing the problematic driver's side headlight also suffering from moisture buildup inside the housing and the issue of it failing to fire up has become noticeably more frequent, failing to light up at all on several occasions in the past week, no matter how many times I cycled the switch. I'll need to order a strip of butyl and reseal both headlights properly, and will combine that with swapping out the internals on the driver's side light. This project has all of a sudden bumped itself to the top of the priorities list, although it's not without competition. So as things stand, I've got a broken 316ti occupying the garage, a broken X5 occupying the driveway and a touring with a broken headlight relegated to street parking. BMW life in a nutshell.

A couple of times to get rid of an airlock on some Japanese stuff but found our work one fiddly and not worth the hassle to use normally. I don't see the value for $ in that kit for casual use on older BMW's which are easy to do. You can get those chinese vacuum\pressure tester kits for cheaper than that which would do the job well enough and a pressure tester is more useful to have. Draining then flushing\reverse flushing with hose or hose\compressed air is much better for dirty systems, even on clean ones id still prefer it for DIY given the long change intervals.

thanks @elias Looking forward to seeing how you progress once you get your car back from the shop!

The M340i wagon is a superb bit of kit but there are better examples around for much less asking. And what’s with the plastic wrapping on the steering wheel..??

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360672275/car-fails-get-through-flood-waters

So close...

Hughes Race Engines did my M42/44 motor machining. High end setup in a small shop and pretty quick turn around considering how long machine shops often take. Would go to them again and would recommend.

Why is it designated an M2. When it is not. No S motor not an M car.

Extra spice for that one

I bought almost everything from FCP Euro. They were a mix of Lemforder, Febi, all sorts. Plenty of info on my build thread.

New neighbour has some toys

Right makes sense, unfortunately I’ve already got 80A poly engine mounts as they make mounting the m52 much easier/better. Will most likely do 80A poly for control arms, rtab, swaybars, and subframe then and oem rubber for diff and trans.

Isn’t the exhaust listed just a standard one?

GM has a silver metal pan. Zf has a black plastic pan.

Yeah it looks like Sachs have done the aftermarket special and merged all the versions at some point. Have fun compressing the spring.

M2 looks great with the M decals.Welcome to s55 ownership! Neither thought you’d replace the e36!

That is the correct part number I think, installed exactly the same on my e39. The strut is the same for Msport and non MSport but maybe not for all the 530 model years ? https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bmw-strut-assembly-front-e39-w-m-technic-suspension-556-834#fitment

Looks mint mate, I’ve also been keeping an eye on the market for quite some time now. When this popped up I knew it wouldn’t last. Congrats on the purchase

Same as my car. Love the color. Boston aka Terracotta.

239600km Diff oil service.

Fuel pressure regular checked swapped no fault, AFM tuned no change really. Vacuum leaks meticulously checked(not smoke tested but well checked and sealed). All new leads resistance checked, and crank reference and speed tested ok. TPS good. I think it has a lightened flywheel and hefty clutch, with a yuck rattle/chatter off throttle/coasting. Perhaps the lack of inertia could contribute to lumpy idle? Or maybe the timing belt is a tooth off?

Thats most peculiar, it received no bids on the Sunday and passed in at $19k, the opening bid from the auctioneer. The BMW 2002 sold for a strongish $41.5 the 1071 Mini Cooper at $20k, The E Type pulled $160, Alpina roadster $21k and the Rover $50 plus the Ferrari 456 made $90k all before the buyers premium of 15%, so 6 cars on the day. Surprisingly all the motorbike were marked as sold, some for strong money too https://auctions.webbs.co.nz/auctions/catalog/id/804

She's a beaut of an old girl! She's looking good mate! hope you're well bud!

Can be found in E36 diesels, E34's E32's and 4cyl E30's. PM me if you have one.

Disassembled the front seats in the E30 as there were a few niggles, sorted all excluding the stuffed backrest shocks, which will be replaced one day. The drivers side backrest bolster had broken and missing plastic piping and a split wide open seam for a few inches. I sewed a new run of piping using the original nylon core around some spotlight vinyl, then sewed that into the two parts of leather using the existing holes so as to not make a ‘tear here’ line(leather needles have a blade which cuts as opposed to separates the fibres). Happy with result.

VDO\Continental make a few different ones, not as cheap as they used to be though.I put a TR7412UB in my old Mercedes which matched quite well.

Yeah the cost of all those gearbox detent parts jumped up significantly not long after I did them on my compact. Worth doing imo, the ZF in my compact has probably the best feeling gear change of any car I've owned. I also have a set of the detent punches if you need them. Based in Beachlands.

Seems to have gotten around the country. This was taken with mine about 8 years ago in dunedin when a friend had it. Only hand like 40k in the clock then I think.

I’m extremely saddened to say a dear friend of mine and great contributor to bimmersport suddenly passed last week. To me he was Sanjay but you will know him as ssbmw. He had a wealth of knowledge on bmw stats in nz. He would eat, drink and sleep the brand and love to talk with anyone who shared the passion. Bimmersport was a great outlet for him to share his knowledge for which he was regular contributor. A huge loss to all.