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I'm Shantelle (aka Shorty) – long-time BMW fan and former E36 328i owner. It’s been around 9 years since I was last active on Bimmersport – life got busy! I sold the E36 when I had my first daughter, and since then, I've welcomed a second daughter, built a house, and finally found myself back behind the wheel of a fun weekend toy. I’m now the proud owner of a 2010 E82 135i with DCT – black, sleek, and such a joy to drive. First thing I did was give it a full paint correction using Meguiar’s products (I’m the marketing manager at Smits Group, so naturally, I’m lucky enough to use and market products I genuinely love). I recently picked up a set of 19" BBS CH104s – they’re not quite the right offset, but I’m hoping to get them machined and refinished. They're a bit rough (and buried under about three coats of black), so I’m tossing up a new colour – leaning towards bronze... but we’ll see where I land. I've already got coilovers ready to go on and have started the DIY journey – tackled an oil and filter change myself, and took the car to Juned at Manukau Vehicle Servicing for a DCT service, rear brake pads, and a new radiator (after a surprise leak – fun!). Mechanically it's now solid, and I’m really looking forward to getting out and enjoying it. Once the wheels and suspension are sorted, the car will be re-registered as LOWBMW – a bit of a throwback for those who remember my old E36 with the same plate! Keen to reconnect with the community and get inspired again – good to be back! First two photos are pre-paint correction, car had definitely taken on a grey hue. Also my drivers door has had a VERY terrible paint job - on the list of things to fix.

Hi All, I'm just back into BMWs, this time with the might M6 V10. Keen to get to know people who may also have an S85. Keen to know the best workshops in Wellington. Also keen on tuning the transmission and possibly ECU. Was wondering of there are any local people who do coding for the basics like window control from key and the like. Cheers, bloody good fun and hope all is well

Speaking of 80s still have some Alpine gear. Few amps and equalisers from my e21 install circa 88. And have this set which is NIB from early 80s

IMO $15k or up to $20k if I'm generous. Not that I've seen the car but based on photo's and description my issues are (and I'm being picky, just because of the asking price) -Uncerted for coilovers so it needs to go through an entire recert (~$900). Coilovers in an E30 are not straightforward considering you need to provide weld certificate and NDT testing, so unless he has those and they are recent it would be a hassle -Cheap seat covers, trim. Like.. awful. -It's just a 318i with an M20B25. -Sure it's been repainted, looks great on the outside, though I'd be wary of it's quality. Mainly because the battery tray looks rough/rusted (could just be photo) but the obvious one for me is the fusebox is moved and remounted to the strut tower. And even more questionable is the sound deadening behind it has just been sprayed over. So if it was stripped down to a shell, surely you would have taken the 10 seconds to take off that small piece of sound deadening. My main gripe with this is thats a hot spot for rust, especially pre facelifts. How much of that firewall was properly sprayed if they didn't remove the sound deadening.. -Unoriginal color, not a major by any means but can see hints of it in the boot well (plus missing trims) and they didn't even spray the boot hinges lol. -Mould on the headliner? Or maybe something else.. Surely give it a steam clean or something. -Not a fan of the angel eyes, but they are better than the standard pre-fl lights I guess. Again, just being picky, which at that asking price I would sure as hell would be - considering it's not an original condition E30 or M325i, which should be the only E30's in the price range.

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.

Must be 1 of 1.

Converted 318i to 325i (48k) https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/325i/listing/5301567770 I don't think these can fetch that sorta price now. Plus its a conversion. IMO part of the appeal of mtech E30s is the history behind them. Nice car though.

X5 is back up and running but the wallet did take a bit of a hit. Turns out those Denso units are quite uncommon and my mate struggled to find the correct brushes to suit. Had a few options but some weren't tall enough and others were too loose in the casing. Could have continued with the trial and error but was keen to get the thing back up and running ASAP so opted for a new unit instead. Denso units look to be discontinued, I was tossing up a Bosch one off Spareto which would have worked out to $480 shipped and an extra week of waiting but the same mate got me a trade price on a SparkShop unit which worked out slightly cheaper and I got my hands on it the same day. Bit of an unknown of a brand but looks decent quality, comes with a local warranty and a test sheet, plus it's 2.2kW compared to the 2.0kW of the original. Winning. Turns out the car is also sporting a SparkShop alternator, courtesy of the previous owner, and that's working well enough. Everything went back together quickly and without issues. Loving how easy the intake manifold is to remove and reinstall on these. Started up effortlessly on the first go. Job's a good 'un.

All kinds of crazyness https://archive.org/details/bmw-accessories-configurator-v-12

As per title . $1950 . comes with everything thats in the photos. Clutch line is for E36 "(SOLD)"

Lots of black grill hate around here. Im definitely not in that club. I like them.

What a tool. No surprise its rolling on Hifly tyres either.

Not sure which thread to actually put this in but... "Downforce wing – subtle but sharp", an absolute requirement for the throttle controller - https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/130i/listing/5313034101

Do it, I’ll buy the diff off you

$7500 M54B30 with E39 Loom EWS deleted Manual DME ZF 5 Speed gearbox E34 Sump,pump/pickup & Dipstick E30 325 rear trailing arm assembly 3:15 M Coupe LSD Pedal set etc. M54B30 with E39 Loom EWS deleted Manual DME ZF 5 Speed gearbox E34 Sump,pump/pickup & Dipstick E30 325 rear trailing arm assembly 3:15 M Coupe LSD Pedal set etc.

Yeah i cant see it being worth even half that for a modified converted 318i, trying to recoup costs pricing. Who knows how good mechanically it is either as most of what he's listed is cosmetic stuff that isn't for everyone. As above nothing looks very meticulously done either which for the price isn't realistic even during peak covid times.

Prepped for cert. Drveshaft hoops installed.

With the amount of ideas they have stolen over the years i dont think anyone would care My SMG has both of them for a reference. I wish i didnt delete my exhaust flap, i have a feeling that would of help with my resonance in ~2k range. Im pretty sure all my have been Mahle ones on any BMW with plastic housings Getting flashbacks of VW's when going in for a simple bulb change. Liquid tape can help to some degree but its a bit messy. Re-wiring is the only proper fix. Must a be a wagon thing at the point, more insulated with exhaust further away?

Some more tiny details that I've tinkered with recently. Did a few tweaks to the stock DME tune, main one being the thermostat target temperatures. Originally pioneered by @Eagle and I just followed suit. On my android headunit the coolant temperature display is always just 2 clicks away so I've been monitoring the running temperatures quire regularly. I believe they've always been within the norm but were constantly on the higher side, hovering around 99-100°C city driving and 101-102°C motorway cruising. With the below changes they've now gone down a tad to 97-98°C city driving and 94-95°C on the motorway. Eagle reckons some brand thermostats just run a bit hotter than others, in his experience he hadn't seen any M54's consistently run above 97°C so 102°C did seem a tad excessive. This tweak seems to have brought the temperatures down into a more comfortable range. Next time I change the thermostat I might give another brand a go, currently running a Borg Warner unit. Originally, both tables had identical values, as per the right side AC ON table above. The screenshot is halfway through the process with only the left side AC OFF table values modified, the AC ON values were then also modified to match. On the topic of exhausts, I stumbled upon a little titbit of information in Bryson's thread over on E46 Fanatics about the vibration dampeners on the stock exhaust system. Turns out automatic cars had two of them, both #4 & #12 on the schematic below, whereas manual cars only had #12. Mine being converted, I decided to unbolt the #4 dampener from the rear of the muffler. Can't say it made a discernible difference but it's now a tiny bit closer to a factory manual. The power steering reservoirs on these are notorious for weeping and creating a mess. Mine is still fairly new and hasn't succumbed to this inevitability but as a little piece of security from a potentially messy situation I got myself a cheapo wrist sweatband and draped it over the reservoir. Fits well and looks quite inconspicuous being all black without any tacky logos. The idea was of course blatantly stolen from Garagistic but cost me a fraction of the price.

Keeping busy working on the m52 while the car is at the panelbeaters. Even managed to get some free labour, my girlfriend helped me over the weekend and we got the valve cover back on with a fresh gasket a couple dots of rtv and some freshly zinc coated oem hardware. Pulled the sump off, wire tied the oil pump nut. Realised I’ve got the wrong oil pick up, traded it for the one I’m after which should be here Friday. Chopped the rear sump oil pickup support bracket off the windage tray to make the front sump fit. Picked up the engine with the crane to get access to the rear of it and replaced the rear main seal. Back on the stand now, ready to sort out the sump situation. Just need to figure out what to do about the dipstick tube, the one I’ve got doesn’t look quite right. Also drew up and waterjet cut a little oil lever sensor delete plate out of some 10mm aluminium. Sealed on with some rtv, was too lazy to mill an oring groove. i do have a spare one of these as well if anyone is looking for a solution to the hole in their oil pan, oem version is NLA. Hopefully get some more work on the engine done this weekend. If anyone has the correct dipstick tube + dipstick for a front sump for an m52 let me know.

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.

After a fair amount of procrastinating, I finally bit the bullet and took the car for cert. I used Jody Thompson from Two Six Installation and fabrication in Rolleston - He is fantastic to deal with and I highly recommend his services. The list of mods up for cert are as follows.. Brakes BMW 325i discs front; BMW 325i calipers front, Larger (51mm) 325i front strut housing, braided brake hoses front & rear, manual pedal Steering BMW E46 purple tag rack and pinion Suspension Lowered front and rear; Ride heights: 335mm F, 320mm R +/-5%; Ride heights measured from the centre of the wheel to the bottom of the guard while empty and on level ground. Wheels & Tyres Rim size: 15x7 front and rear; Tyre size: 205/50 front and rear Engine & Drive-train 2494cc BMW In-line 6 cylinder DOHC fuel Injected (M20b25) with BMW 5 speed manual gearbox (Getrag 260) Jody didn’t have the correct category to certify the purple tag rack so he applied for an extension with LVVTA, this took sometime but he was granted the category extension, and we were able to go ahead with bump steer test. Bump steer test results As I had used factory bolt on parts for the manual conversion and engine repower, I didn’t need driveshaft hoops.. I was very happy about this! Booked in to get a WoF this Thursday and then ill be road legal

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/z4/listing/5313079861?rsqid=008a05ff07ee45d798c2d96fd6c42d2e-002 Car audio trip down memory lane: Screens in the boot lid Flip up headunit H701 processor Crossovers on display DD Linear speakers Single din centre speaker Must have cost a fair bit of coin when installed

Like today drove it to get groceries and back. About 15mins each way. Opened the boot about 10mins after arriving home and the fuel pump turned on for a split second. It’s as if it’s making sure there’s enough fuel pressure in anticipation of the next drive… The pump also briefly primes about 10mins after opening then closing a door. Has an error for the intelligent battery sensor so could be related. Rescued another one to restore and move on, think there was a post about it on here. Terracotta leather will look loads better in a black car, plus the oil temp gauge is helpful for track days.

Sharp price these days

Hahaha omg, yes we did, we've since sold it to a mate of mine - who still has it, drives it regularly I'm hoping we can liven up the community somehow!

Lol, the UN offers, sadly I know what you mean!

Nice car but priced like it's a manual, without a black grill.🤣

As above. Looking for an e30 manual pedal box, doesn’t need to have the master, have a new one already. Also interested in clutch hardline, interior trim/rubber boot, prefacelift windscreen/seal. also looking for a zf 328/m3 (e36) driveshaft cheers.

Mine is now listed on Trademe also, the free listings today gave me the necessary kick in the arse (and rewarded my procrastination). Bimmersport members should contact me here first if they're interested. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/listing/5313134381

Made some more progress, engine is starting to look like an engine lots of bits back on now. Front sump swap done, new lower temp thermostat, waterpump, waterpump pulley, thermostat housing, tensioner, idler, belt. Power steering pump and oil filter housing back on too, as well as knock sensors etc. Will be deleting throttle heater and using the feed port from the head for the e30 dash temp sensor, have one with the correct e30 plug and m52 thread pitch. Just need to find some shorter bolts for the crank pulley now that I’m not using the AC pulley. car is still at the panelbeaters for a week or two but they’ve made some progress which is good. Next up to figure out the whole intake manifold assembly with icv, pcv, Evap etc.

Mine also does this. Figured it was because it was a high performance machine lol. it also has always had a weird flat spot at about 2700rpm, even worse now with the karbonius intake, and can’t be at WOT otherwise rebuilt the vanos a few years ago thinking that was the issue, but didn’t really make a difference.

Can't be too many transversely mounted V8's out there! (maybe a few american FWD oddities) I always heard the big Volvos had the turning circle of the titanic as a result.

Volvo's... Always sort of liked the c30 r. I take a look every now and then but can't say I've ever seen a manual for sale. I'm assuming there are a few?

Dipstick tube should work. Mine looks similar and came off a 728i, so they are different to the typical e34 ones.

I've always preferred those mouldings look better colour coded. Black cars you get it by default. Silver and white cars always look way better colour coded than with the standard black trims. My preference for e46s and E39s anyway. I don't really look at much else.

Went 50-50 with a mate on this spontaneous project car a few months ago and so far have been struggling to pinpoint what the hell it is that's wrong with it. And just to save everyone the trouble of pointing it out - the engine is what's wrong with it. I know. It's an absolute dog of a 4-banger. Hoping to narrow it down a bit from there. Wouldn't have touched it otherwise but what it's got going for it is that it's got 3 pedals from factory, so that brings the score up a bit. We've (seemingly) tried everything to get her running and are pretty much at our wit's end so hoping the wider hive mind might have some helpful ideas to try and save this ugly duckling. BACKSTORY She's a rather gutless little 316ti with the dreaded N42B18 engine and 165,330km on the clock. All we know is around 3 years ago it developed a "rough idle" and was parked up. A local rally shop owner bought it from one of his clients with the intentions of dropping an M54 in it and turning it into a rally car but never got around to it. After 3 years of sitting it now wouldn't fire up at all so having lost interest he decided to get rid after some quick attempts to get her running didn't lead to anything. I was alerted to it by @Eagle, recognised the name of the fella selling it, quickly got in touch and snapped it up. One other historical tidbit is that in 2018 at 160,700km it got brand new timing chains, guides, tensioners and a bunch of associated seals & gaskets, from Christchurch BMW no less, so it's got one of the 3 big ticket items taken care of at least. WHAT WE'VE DONE Started off by giving the car a good wash, chucked in a battery and read the codes. Checked out the VVT motor only to find the lead not even plugged it. In addition some of the sheeting on the wires was damaged that got fixed with some electrical tape. Plugged back in, cleared the codes, the car will crank and crank but won't start. Checked the fuses, checked fuel pump relay all seemed good. No sound from the fuel pump with the ignition on so sounded like it wasn't priming but seems like these cars operate in some weird, different way, more on that later. Left it there and came back another weekend. Hooked up the battery, tried to start it more out of blind hope than anything and to our massive surprise it fired right up after a few cranks. Even held idle nice and steadily. What a weird little thing. Drove it from the paddock into the garage and onto the hoist. It drove fine but it was stuck in limp mode, still due to the VVT (valvetronic motor) and wouldn't rev above 2.5k RPM. Up on the hoist we unhooked some fuel lines, drained the remainder of the old fuel from the tank and put some 10-15L of fresh 95 in there. Dropped her back down only for her to refuse to start up again... Cranked away for ages but no dice. Removed the valve cover, checked & cleaned the eccentric shaft sensor, swapped in a spare valvetronic motor from a newer 120i, hooked it all up, ran the stop limit adaptation procedure with a scan tool - all ran fine indicating the valvetronic motor and eccentric shaft sensors were both operational. Buttoned it all up, still crank no start. Good thing is no VVT-related codes have come back since, suggesting the fault being to do with a faulty old valvetronic motor. Only code remaining in the DME is for the ambient temperature sensor, which is inconsequential. Decided to check compression and found ~50 PSI across all cylinders which made no sense since the car was running earlier that day. Having read about it potentially being due to the cylinders being flooded with fuel from all the cranking, getting washed down and not sealing properly, assumed it was that and left it there. Came back to it a few weeks later and checked compression again before trying to fire up and risking flooding the cylinders again. Found 170-200 PSI this time around, which was more like it. Also checked fuel pressure. Not sure how these cars operate but with ignition on fuel pressure remained at 0. Only after starting cranking it spiked to 45 PSI then dropped down to 40, and kept falling gradually. After a whole heap of cranking we managed to get her running again just the once. Fuel pressure remained steady at 45 PSI at idle, then dropped with the engine turned off and went all the way down below 20 PSI just 20-something minutes later, indicating potential leaky injectors. So we got the fuel rail out to check. VIDEO Weirdly enough, with the injectors unhooked the car actually fired up for a few seconds and sounded pretty good doing it, much to my mate's audible surprise. The spray pattern seemed roughly consistent and we couldn't note any leakage afterwards with the ignition off either. Spark plugs were completely soaked and reeked of fuel so we swapped in a spare set. Also swapped out some coils for newer spares, checking spark prior to dropping them in. Crank no start. Decided to try another weird experiment by dropping the sparks & coils half way down into the cylinders, which did look quite cool. VIDEO Not sure what this actually tells us apart from maybe that the firing sequence looks weirdly random and inconsistent? The Pattern should be 1342 but it looked like it it skipped one or two cylinders nearly every round. Maybe that's just because it's not all sealed perfectly tight, other than that no idea why it would be off. Bolted everything back on but still... Got fuel, got spark, got compression. Crank no start. Our informed approach has since descended into a crude exercise of 'throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks' with nothing seemingly sticking. We've since swapped out to a good second hand fuel pump, swapped out fuel filter & regulator, swapped out injectors, swapped out the crank sensor... Haven't been able to get the car running again at all ever since the trick with the injectors. And it got some fresh oil somewhere along the way as well. LIST OF POTENTIALS Take apart & clean out ignition switch Check DME connections for oil contamination Check fuses in DME box, swap out DME relay Update DME software? Borrow timing tool & check timing (probably should have been the first thing to do, although would it have run at all if it were off?) But yeah, that's where we're at. Sorry for the long waffle but thought I'd best lay it all out there. Good thing is that if we were to turn around and part the poor thing out we'd still easily break even so we haven't crossed into silly-territory just yet. As frustrating as it's been at least all we've got to lose is our own time. At this point we're trying to get her running more out of curiosity rather than some pressing desperation but we're quickly running out of ideas. She's a nice wee car and would be a shame to strip it for parts. The compacts aren't the prettiest things out there but I do quite like the look of it in full Msport trim, especially after seeing how well @Harper's one turned out. Was hoping to get her up and running to compare and potentially swap it out with my Swift Sport as a daily driver since it's still a much nicer and more familiar place to be rather than the Suzuki. Other idea was to swap in an M54 but at that point it becomes another weird project car that neither me nor my mate need, nor is there any market for if we were to build to sell. As fun as it would be with a 6-pot it'd be a dumb idea for a daily driver since it'd never get anywhere close to the 7L/100km I get in the Swift, and I already have my "fun" M54 car. Anyway, any thoughts, ideas, words of wisdom much appreciated

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.

Honestly it was sort of a rush job that came out way better than I expected. Had a couple aerosol cans of 300/0 BMW Alpine White III mixed by Smits Group, paint match turned out to be really good. Not much prep, didn't even want to sand them because they had a slight surface texture to them that I didn't want to disturb. Just gave them a decent clean and primer, paint, clear coat. I figured trim pieces are pretty forgiving in terms of needing perfect paint, but by blind luck they ended up basically perfect. Way prefer the colour matched look over the strange silvery grey colour that was original.

I mean to be fair, if you were to recreate what was done there (strip down to bare shell, rust treatment & full repaint, interior retrim, adjusties etc.) you'd probably end close to a similar figure, so I don't see it being as egregious as some out there that are asking $30k+ for cars that need another $10k+ spent on them. Looks to be a very tidy and well sorted car with some subtle mods. Doesn't mean it's worth what he's asking to someone out there but I don't see it as a blatant flip or a cash grab. For example, my E46 genuinely owes me close to that figure at this stage but I'd be lucky to recoup a third of that if I were to ever sell it...

I've got no regrets after chopping the centre muffler resonator section out of the compact. Made the car maybe 10% louder and just sounds a bit throatier and more low speed burbles. I'm not sure how different the 325ti rear section is though, totally different shape and smaller than the 330 muffler so maybe that contributes.

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.

What about this... this can't be reasonable, can it? https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/m3/listing/5026630209

^ 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.

Fistpump 👊 and a bump for a good deal S55. Now that I'm an owner I have a much better appreciation for this epic platform. Worth noting that the aftermarket mods on this one are best in class (Bootmod3, VRSF, BMS, H&R) and worth well over $6k installed, and that's not to mention the Competition parts. That stage 2 is like 500+ hp right? GLWS, with the included M3 goodies that's a lot of car for 70k.

Replacement bonnet got given the same treatment as the rest of car. Before After

Had a decent go at cutting and polishing. Lots of trial and error along the way but getting the hang of it… Test area to see how hardy the paint is. On to cutting the fr guard. Then the sides and the roof, which I never thought would come up well, lots of deep scratches. Gave it a wet sand first. After cutting the sides and roof I expected this sh*t to appear under bright lighting.. Up until now i’d been using a rotary polisher so i switched to a DA and got rid of most of it. Happy how it turned out Got the hatch and bumpers to do. Won’t bother with the bonnet until i can find a straight one with saveable black sapphire metallic paint.

Manuals seem to be super uncommon, from my recent introduction to volvo ownership/fb groups/trademe searches. Performance Volvos are somewhat scarce already. Like mine there was ten sold over 4 years, and a further handful imported.