M3AN

We punters only get to see answered questions. The benefit of the doubt would be that the seller didn't know how to use the Q&A section, they have zero history so perhaps. If you don't have enough experience though I don't think you should start with a $50k auction. It's still rude, at the very least you'd say "I don't know but will get back to you.". What pisses me off is that people don't realise the Internet is real life too. What if somebody inspecting the car personally asked the same questions and the seller just blanked them and walked away? No sale. It's like a listing that says "If you don't know why it costs this much it's not for you". F' off dickhead. /rant

$50k and not answering questions? Hope it doesn't sell, that's poor salesmanship and rude to boot.

Just because the topic title is relevant... Bump, Edge 5w40 is currently 40% off at Repco in 5l. The M3 shall be getting some golden love this week.

Looks good IMHO.

The final result looks very good, can you provide contact details?

That guy can't see over his steering wheel! lol All things being equal, I'll bring it along on Sunday.

It's gone...

You purchased the wrong $1600 part? Ouch. But GLWS, that looks like sweet kit and Gruppe M stuff is the business.

I did spin a near new XR8 across 4 lanes of highway, down a 3m bank, through a wire fence and 20m into a paddock full of cows. Tyre marks were less than 2 feet from a lamp post too. Every panel, roof included, need to be painted. Cops (lots of) turned up. The motorbike cop was sceptical of my claim that surface flooding caused instant loss of traction hence the spin... wandered off to check with his foot, put his boot in the water and it came over the top and in, wetting his sock. That's close to 400mm, in a lane, on a 100 km/h stretch of road. Only other vehicle to stop was actually the car in front of me that did a u-turn and came back. Even the semi that was coming the other way and I missed by only a few metres spinning in front of didn't stop, wtf? It was George Bolt Memorial Drive back in the day (pre traffic lights) on the route to the airport. Bummer was I was going to pick up the folks, in dad's 1 month old obsession, from their 2 week overseas holiday. Suffice to say he wasn't too impressed regardless of what the cops thought. No cows were harmed in the making of this incident, just a little pride.

Wut? We don't want to have to solve a puzzle, just jump down and give us the details dude.

What the f' is up with the E46 M3 owners and their sick kids? ? That sucks bro, hope your little boy's heath improves and you get to spend more time with both him and the car!

Nowhere to use them really... the plastic expanding rivets are probably best for where I have them, they're not load bearing and the holes are smaller than nutserts would require. I'm tending that way also (although I broke those velocity splitters so would need to get more) but the big win here is the potential to make a mould and now that it's secure we also know how to mount it properly. Now, if it were raw carbon fibre with no gaps I'd certainly prefer it for show/meet type events. In the end I got this for a good price and as a bit of an experiment. I'm pretty confident I could sell it for what I paid for it to somebody that wants one. Especially now that fitting is secure. I suspect it would be great at the track and only takes 5 mins to fit after the extra holes are drilled in the factory bumper (4 of them).

Installed the splitter today in a secure, drivable fashion. I installed it without the factory lip this time and it still has gaps, they're the same with or without the factory lip. A casual observer wouldn't really notice them but any enthusiast would. If we are able to make a mould you'd remove the gaps at that stage I'd think. It's secured at 7 points now, three at the front, two at the rear and I used two plastic expanding rivets to close and keep the sides in. It's not going anywhere unless I hit something. All of the extra holes I drilled into the bumper are either out of sight underneath or covered by the factory lip when that's installed. Standoffs Expanding rivets Gaps

Red is better IMHO...

Dude, that sucks! Hopefully it gets sorted quickly and satisfactorily for you. Welcome by the way... I'd normally say 'enjoy your first BMW' but...

You've probably seen it already but if you want a view of what an absolutely sorted rear subframe looks like see here... I'm not suggesting that's necessary in your case but it's a great example of an 100% absolutely certain job, for street or track.

Nice one, thanks Ray. ? That's certainly not going to hurt the chance of a sale. The M3 is a beast, the CSL needs a tune up. Edit: because I did suggest 'discuss' for those that are interested a good E46 M3 with an exhaust and intake will make around 195 rwkw some more, some less but if you're getting 195 then you're probably going to be pretty happy. 208 rwkw is monster power for a 'standard' M3, very few ever get there. So this one is solid for sure. A stock CSL should be pulling 210-215 rwkw but that doesn't take anything away from this car given it doesn't have CSL headers or cams... imagine if it did! Maybe the next owner can? ?

I didn't give him a hard time in the first place. Had anyone else posted such an incredible claim without any evidence they would have been torn to shreds by many others before me. This isn't about Tom or his obviously difficult personal situation, it's about a car. Let's keep it focused on that. Great, it shouldn't be difficult for somebody to post the plots if so many people were there. It's clearly not a secret so let's get the results out there and discuss them, it can only help to sell the car. It's amazing. That's the problem, the sum of the parts doesn't seem greater than the whole at all in this case. Don't get me wrong, it actually sounds like a very, very well sorted car. But to claim it's more powerful or better than a CSL requires some physical evidence don't you think? It's 30k after all. I wouldn't worry about this car at all and if it ticked a few more of my boxes Tom would already have his 30k. I'd be more concerned if I were the CSL owner to be honest.

Approved. Great colour too, congrats on the acquisition! ?

If that is the site @_ethrty-Andy_ is referring to it fails at the first hurdle, it's not local, doesn't reflect stock or prices in New Zealand and won't deliver to New Zealand... so, pretty useless. So Andy, willing to provide the link to your mystery site? It certainly doesn't seem as obvious as you claim on Google.

lol calm down. If you'd included the link to this mystery BMW NZ online parts catalogue that nobody ever talks about or mentions in the first place I wouldn't have had to ask.

A link would be great!

I did spend some more time with the splitter today before beer o'clock and made a couple of standoffs for the rear to provide more bracing. There are a couple of indents on the splitter on either side at the rear (the ones we discussed @qazwsx) that happen to be exactly 50mm from the underside of the bumper when installed and I don't think this is a coincidence. So I got some aluminium tube I had lying around, cut it to length and threaded the inside of both ends, added a couple of stainless cap screws and two panel washers at each end and I think I have satisfactory rear supports. But damn it, my Dremel isn't working I thought we paid for brand name tools because they lasted forever... just won't power on... I'm sad. So I had to cut the alu tube with a hacksaw... and I only had a wood saw blade lol. The idea is to clamp the bumper between the washers at one end and the splitter between the two at the other end, that should keep everything at the correct angle of attack as well and firming it all up. Access to both cap screws is easy so there's no bumper-off requirement. That'll sort the rear, I still need to consider the sides.

I think for the sides I might be able to use plastic pop rivets but I want to secure it front and rear first (see below). It's difficult to tell how the "factory" install goes just from the pics I've seen. I just can't imagine it being strong enough across to top if there's no factory lip to support it... at 200km/h it would just bow down in the middle, tear off and get spat out the rear end I reckon.

You'll need to do your own research on insurance... perhaps ask other students or at the student union?