M3AN

Cause: "Honey, we need a new family car." Consequence: F10 M5 Can I marry your wife too?

No, that's "confidentiality". "Privacy" relates specifically to people and personal information. Sorry guys but the distinction is really quite important.

Great to hear things a looking up Matt and power to you and your family. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that your sacrifice will pay you all back many times over. Be proud.

Yes, lots, regardless of the model. About the only things the same is the stuff in front of the A pillar, assume the rest is different. The other thing that's important to note is that convertibles are fat, heavy and flexible. BMW should never have put an M3 badge on the back of them. ?

Yeah, Google fed me this today, I spewed a little in my mouth.

Well my point was, specifically, that the PPI scenario has nothing to do with privacy... whether wre like it or not. ? Privacy only relates to people, not things.

Nothing to do with privacy, it's not about a person... but I understand the commercial constraints of (re)sharing the report.

Yes, I overlooked the "reserve not met" bit...

Seems like a bargain to me if it's reasonable order.

I had to Google that, first result was where I work lol

Yes, I considered a wrap for the roof if that didn't come up well (but it did). My thinking about the bonnet is that I wouldn't do it in fake CF... the roof maybe because it's not so in-your-face but the hood just screams "look at me!" and if you look and it's fake then that's an instant soft-on for me. Any solid colour wrap would need to match the guards and nose and I don't think that will be possible without doing the whole car. I think my only practical options are a) live with it, b) paint it, or c) replace it. I'm not sure how much b or c would cost though.

Clay bar, cut, polish and ceramic seal completed today by Hayden at http://www.mobilecarspecialists.com/car-detailing.html... 5 hours, I certainly don't have the patience to do that myself! Hayden was both professional and a good bloke, I'd be confident recommending him to other Bimmersporters. He did an excellent job to my inexperienced eyes, the car's really shiny. The oxidation on the roof looks about 90% better but the bonnet really needs a repaint, it arguably looks worse now because the surrounding areas are so black and clean! Lots of minor scratches removed and all the sunscreen-style hand prints are gone as are the rough surfaces (suspected over spray or industrial contaminant). If you take the bonnet out of the equation I'd say the exterior is a solid 7 out of 10, perhaps even an 8. Pretty much every other blemish except for stone ships is fixed. I might consider a repainted bonnet or perhaps @HELLBM or @BM WORLD will have a good condition Black Sapphire hood I can grab in the future (although I'd also need them to dispose of my existing one... lord only knows how one goes about throwing away a bonnet). I'm a terrible photographer but here are some 'after' pics... glass. There's a bunch of before and after pics if you want to play with URL's - just increment the last number from *49 up to *69: https://www.davesanthology.com/public/images/automotive/e87/130i/Exterior/Detail/IMG_4549.JPG And if somebody knows how to auto-generate an index.html with folder content links for an S3 bucket let me know (e.g. a list of all pics in a folder), folder browsing is disabled and I don't want to enable it.

I know nothing about 118's but that red one seems expensive for what you get. As for the white 130, well I'm stunned it hasn't sold, if I weren't already smitten I would have gone down to have a look. What's the worst that could happen, the car is crap but you get to spend a day or two around Queenstown? I could think of worse fates. You're much closer than me, if I lived in Christchurch I would have already driven it. But that doesn't make it a good car. Check the service logs, get it inspected if you can, at the very least check for oil leaks under the engine and transmission (you have to take the bottom cover off to check this properly). Either way, $7k for the car, expect to need to replace suspension, brakes and bushes so budget $3k for repairs and maintenance, and you've got a 130i manual for $10k. Bargain every day.

VANOS solenoid... taking bets...

Dude, that sucks balls. Did it throw codes? Or was noisy? Any prior warning?

Holy crap that's awesome.

I think plasti-dip would be my preference over paint but it gets tacky when it's hot so it might actually be a terrible idea for an interior. There's black plastic under that rubberised coating so, as @hqstu suggests, I might try and remove that coating. The problem is there's just so much of it but the cup holder(s) are somewhat discrete so trying there (back one at least) is probably low risk.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SBNHGZ7/

Oh dear. Although it does reveal that the glove box isn't sagging (which is what I thought was the problem). I've not seen a cover fall off like that before.

It is true that I accumulate coins at a fraction of the rate that I used to. It's not really a big problem for me but the convenience of the one in the e36 (door pocket version) is a nice to have. Once every six months I'd accumulate enough for a Lotto ticket. Still keepin' coins.

Well, now I have nowhere to store coins so maybe I just chuck them out the window so they don't get lost/jammed anywhere? Having removed the centre console and looked below it's obvious there's enough space for a better design with more storage, including for coins. I never drink in cars so I'm looking at options to repurpose the cup holder for coin storage.

I installed the storage tray replacement for the front ashtray today, happy with the result. Before: During: After:

I've just installed a similar unit in my 1'er, they'll all pretty much clones. Don't pay that amount though...they're in perpetual sale at Avin for US$329. https://avinusa.com/gps-multimedia-systems/bmw/3-and-4-series.html Now, I'm not recommending Avin 100% because they sent me the wrong unit but they have been responsive to support requests and did send me the correct unit that I swapped in yesterday and it seems fine. My car is a Japanese import and I replaced the existing CCC 6.5" screen. It uses the existing iDrive controller although mine is 1 button so I can't speak to multi-button iDrive (CIC) units. To be honest, except for the hassle of exchange I'm pretty happy. Navigation with offline maps (or tethered or with a SIM) works flawlessly and BT for music and calls seems fine. Make sure you add the external mic to the bundle. The screen itself is awesome. Others have had positive experience with different brands and Alibaba specials so I'd base my decision on price and support expectations, they seem to be the only differentiators. Happy to answer any questions I can.

Difficult to know what to show...

I'm happy to report that the new Android unit is far superior to the last. It has the 4/64GB as described above but also had a later build number by a whole version (2.x -> 3.x), although both are Android 9. The new version comes with only one skin verses the previous five but it's the most modern one and default on the previous unit. Bluetooth works really well, the connection is quick and stable, it seems I can use it for calls now Some quirks with the iDrive controller seem to have been addressed They threw in an external mic for my trouble and it's so much better than the internal one, highly recommended As a result of the ext. mic calls and Google Now (voice assist) have worked flawlessly so far The Avin WiFi adaptor works fine with Torque but not Carly (I didn't expect it to but it was worth trying) The splash screen has changed from "BMW Connected Drive" to "AVIN" and I need to explore how to change this Device is pre-rooted ($ prompt) which is ideal for me Physically it's the same unit and I just swapped over the base and screen rather than pulling the existing cables, except for adding the mic, which was easily accommodated between the unit and the instrument binnacle. My original box said 4/64GB and the unit said 2/32GB (which I didn't look for until I suspected something was wrong), this box says 4/64GB as does the label on the unit and the info screens. Having played around with it for an hour or so I'm much happier now than I was a few days ago, it pretty much works as I hoped it might. The one thing that it doesn't do elegantly is radio. It relies on the OEM radio unit (accepted) and as a result there's no real integration and when listening to the radio Android nav (audio) and phone don't work so well.