willis

Another E39 here. I'm with SKT174 though, the standard filter is fine for me.

Hello all, thanks for your replies. I appreciate your advice. My car has the standard 16" rims on it. What sort of changes to the ride/handling compromise are there gonig from 16" to 17", and from 16" to 18"? e30stz: "oh dear - please tell me that wasnt bought from Newport Imports ? that first pic look suspiciously like their typical foto. " Err...yes I did buy it from Newports...why? I found them quite good to deal with. 318Touring: "PM me" I don't know what "PM" means but anyway, sorry the tyres are not Continentals but are a brand that a discerning owner such as yourself would not be interested in :-)

Hi, I've recently bought an NZ-new E39 528i that has standard 20-spoke alloys (style-33 in the OEM brochure posted elsewhere on this site), the ones that look a bit... flowery. I'm interested in replacing them with some other BMW alloys, such as the M5-style. The first picture attached is my car with the current wheels, the other pictures are examples of what I would like on it. Does anybody know where I can find some second-hand rims for sale? I've searched the NZ internet pages as best I could, and visited the local BWM-specialist wreckers (I'm in Wellington) but no luck. I don't want to fork out lots of $$$ for new rims, but a nice set of used ones might just do the job. Are there any NZ websites I can check? Maybe the local BMW club can help, but I thought I would check here first. Cheers.

Nice one, SKT174, thanks again.

Thanks SKT174, I thought the same but have a road test by Motor magazine (Aussie) from 1996 that states five speed auto in the text but the specifications panel has 4-speed listed (might be a typo), plus on trademe.co.nz a question on one of the 528i auctions regarding how many gears in the auto was answered by the owner as "4" (might be ignorance on their part). But it was enough to make me wonder.

Hi there, I'm considering buying an E39 528i and have been doing some reading-up on the specifications. I've found conflicting information regarding how many gears there are in the auto transmission - is it 4 or 5? Were they originally launched with a 4-speed box and later upgraded to a 5-speed, or were both available but for different markets (NZ vs. UK vs. Japan)? And where does the Tiptronic transmission fit into the picture? Also, was the engine equipped with VANOS from the outset or was that introduced at a later stage? Many thanks for replies.