NZ BMW

An interesting white E28 pulled up behind be at the intersection of Broadway, Manukau and Great South Road this morning on my way to work. Looked to be in good condition and had been lowered. Is that anyone here?

True AMG from the 1980's in that condition is worth it IMO. You have to remember that this was a time before AMG was a division of Mercedes/Daimler. So there are much less of these around and AMG was more of a bespoke tuning house.

:rambo: Thats a stick-on lip front and rear by the looks of it.

Seriously, who loses the key to their car and then tears the dash apart to drive it... Only good for scrap now.

I drove the 525 and 530 back to back when buying, the 530 had more low end power and is more effortless when passing on the open road. Mine is maily driven out of town on the weekends as I ride the train and the bus mostly. Hence why I got the 530, I was also keen on the anniversary one I ended up getting. They are both good I would lean towards the 530 as it has just a little bit more power where it counts IMO. But if you're going to be sitting in traffic all the time and rolling round the city then the smaller engine might be good. All in all there is almost no difference between them under normal (light footed ) driving.

What's the brand and size of the tyres on the 5 series ones? How many mm left?

If this is the one which looks like a mini SLR then I think they look the business. Why not go onto one of the US based Mercedes forums? Should be lots of info.

Or could it be that it looks Ascent?

From what I understand in Europe there are some quite sophisticated organised criminals who steal cars to ship them to Europe and the former USSR. The CEO of Daimler used to be driver around in an armored limo which was stolen from outside an office building. http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,1404659_page_0,00.html But once again they may have used a tow truck. In NZ I would imagine that most cars are stolen for joyriding or parts. That tends to limit the cars that will get stolen to the easy ones and the ones for which people want lots of 2nd hand parts for. I'm more concerned about vandalism or a 'smash and grab' than I am my car being stolen.

Wow, looks amazing.

I was speaking more from a shareholder's perspective rather than a customer. Essentially every dollar a company spends on itself or retains rather than paying as a dividend is a dollar out of my pocket. The company needs to spend on some things but you don't want it to be excessive. Also when you consider that a minister or the PM is pretty much the same as a CEO and then look at the budgets they look after relative to the size of a company which might be in the private sector where the CEO will be rocking something better than a Holden/Ford as well as a multi-million dollar pay packet, along with enjoying a proper private life and not having to fight an election every three years. I also don't think these trips are holidays as such. Whenever I'm away from work people give me the "holiday" line. The reality is that you spend all day working, in meetings etc then night time socialising with customers/prospects who are not really your friends and then catching up on all the emails you missed because you couldn't get to them during the day. I never thought I'd die in a ditch defending politicians of all people but I think a lot of the comments here are pretty simplistic in their outlook because MP's are an easy target.

I would tend to agree - I hear this stuff all the time without any actual evidence. My last car was a Singapore import and seemed to be fine. However I have been told (and once again have no info to substantiate this) that in Singapore cars which are used for driving people around (large sedans, 7 series, A8, S Class etc) are prone to sitting and running while waiting to keep the cabins cool. I guess that could be a negative.

This was the point I was trying to make - I don't see how public vs private money is any different. Shareholders deserve to know that their money is being spent wisely. In much the way that a salesman would always expect a company car, laptop and mobile there are the things that come with the positions. Moral of the story is: Get to the top, and stay there.

I don't really think that an MP's personal worth is really that relevant and when it comes to "perks" they have to get to and from Wellington for their job. I don't know if you'd really call having to spend the week away from your family and drag yourself to the airport in the morning twice a week is that much of a perk. Also when it comes to credit cards, only ministers get those. I don't think their much of a perk, I have one at work and all I can use it for are things I would expense anyway. I think the trip is worth something like 158K when you think that a business class fare (they may even fly business premier, I don't know) return to London is about 10k and then there are internal flights to all of those countries. Add the cost of hotels and incidentals you'd hit that 158k pretty fast. I would imagine they would have staff going too. All I would say is that I think they're getting about what you would expect from someone who has that amount of travel as a requirement for their job and the quality of people who should be MP's (some don't meet that standard). If I were an MP I'd make sure I got my "perks" because people like yourself will never be happy until they all live in shared dorms and get driven around in a Mazda 6.

If you're not going to give decent salaries and perks then how can you expect good people to want to become MP's? Even if more than one in that group is not what I would consider of great value to the country. When it comes to the National Library example above National actually scaled back the plan from what Labour had earmarked for the project. At the time the Labour Party howled with protest that they were not taking the nation's heritage seriously. FFS.

I don't know what your ambitions in life are but you cannot travel to a number of countries if you have a conviction. From memory when I filled in an ETA to go to the US it actually asked if you have even been arrested. Not even convicted, charged etc but arrested. The more the world becomes connected and to use that cliche "shrinks" the more of an issue you will have being mobile if you choose to engage in that kinds of behavior.

On the rare occasion I drive my mother in the car anything over 2000 rpm is too fast and must be destroying the engine...

I live just down the street from the showroom - would it be bad form if I went and just looked at it on the weekend?

LOL so every police car would have a kit full of rags to stick in the fuel filler and a lighter stacked next to the firearms box?

They should send the cars to the army firing range and then upload the footage to the army Facebook page with the offending person tagged in the video...

I stand corrected.

Think he means Motorsport.

Personally if you're using it fortrips to the beach, I think the last thingyou want is a leather interior.

I'm not sure it's an AMG... this is a pre facelift car I thought the only AMG S class that was offered pre the face lift was the 55. Even then. In the S and CL it was the S/CL 65 with the 63 being the V8 offered in the latest batch of AMG cars too. Just saying as the door sills are not AMG and there is no picture of the AMG engine.

Just put in a claim, he'll be paying either way.