Allanw

10 hours ago, aja540i said:

no, the 540 was Biarritz Blau, this is Orient blau, quite a bit darker. Yes the Mrs is distracted by her Lamborghini for now, but I suspect this will come up again in the future!!

Have you finished the Defender yet?

Ummm... no. These things take time ?

Is that the same colour as your old 540i Touring?

Also, you didn't tell everyone that you got out of trouble for buying this, by letting your Mrs buy a Lambo ?

Works for me though - I can keep the Defender a bit longer, right? ?

2 hours ago, B.M.W Ltd said:

Another anniversary. 10 years today. The last two years have been the hardest two years in my life and I'm still a non smoker. I'd hate to be addicted with the cost of those products these days. How many other achievers are there out there ?

Technically, this post inspired me to START smoking?

I just vac packed about 4kg last night!

Well done though - 10 years!

On 9/17/2020 at 5:46 PM, Navin said:

Direct injection motors just need it done properly imo. 

^^^This!

I ran 3 or 4 cans of varying brands trough the Mrs FSI Touran over a week or so... then stripped it down to clean out the intake. It appears the sprays did sweet F.A.

A litre of petrol, a bit of speedo cable in a drill, a plastic scraper, and a suction device had it looking cleana nd running smoother. There's one way to clean it out with sparays, it appears. Regular use *may* help, but I suspect it'd have to be so regular that it would bankrupt you.

Pretty much any E39 you buy can EASILY eat $1-2K in parts - and that's if there is nothing "wrong" to start with.

We had a manual 525i sedan. The fuel consumption between the 525i, 530i and 540i IF driven similarly, isn't that different at all. The V8 uses a bit more around town, but not that much really.. It CAN use a lot more, but it goes places a lot faster if you do! The auto 525i is working a bit harder, so probably actually uses more in town the the 530i, and the 520i (even the 2.2 M54 version) is a waste of time really - the only advantage is usually the lower purchase price - it's certainly not going to save you any fuel, while it's hauling around the same weight of car (which is the biggest determining factor of fuel consumption in practical terms)

www.bidbud.co.nz

8 hours ago, Contrails said:

judging by the amount of half evolved Chimpanzees driving on the road these days, even Vehicle licence applications should require a Psychologist and Basic hand-eye co-ordination assessment.

Bare  minimum; You should be required to spell your own name correctly.

That should remove 30% of the current "drivers" from the road!

I fitted a GP2 by Speedbuster to my VW R32 VR6 powered Touran...

It's adjustable via phone bluetooth.

I did it to REDUCE the throttle sensitivity,, because I struggled to control it smoothly =- it was either 100% nana, or full on launch!

The advantage with the GP2 is that it has a custom setting where you can set your own curve - it doesn't apply it instantly at startup though - I turn on my ignition, press the throttle to the floor, and it's set.

Your way would be so bad though, as it would get more sensitive as soon as you started driving.

It's sold as the Speedbuster GP2, the MAD Go Pedal and mine was actually supplied by TMC motorsport, though it was ordered via a speedbuster website:

https://www.tmcmotorsport.com/power-pedal-accelerator-tuning-phone-controls

M54's need to have time-serts fitted when the head comes off for the gasket - Torqueing up head bolts straight into the head regularly fail - They don't need to be overtorqued at all.

You may still be able to fit time-serts now, assuming the holes haven't been screwed too much. They drill out the holes, and thread the time sert into the head, then the head bolts screw into the timesert.

23 hours ago, hunter said:

pretty sure they are "active"

 only opening when needed? and aren't broken... yet

Fixed that for you ?

Mine had factory fitted Celis, with a 3A.

A 4 will be better though, as there were more options, like turning off angel eye LED cold checks.

You'll need the version to match the headlights your car came with;  halogen/xenon.

44 minutes ago, huff3r said:

Drove a Pinz for the first time in nearly 3 years this morning, and taking it off road next week!

Definitely a life is good moment.

Did you nip down the servo, for a pie?

13 hours ago, Young Thrash Driver said:

Can you provide dyno defore/after figures?

You've already got one... It's just painted with black stoneguard

They're good as a reinforcement for stopping the shock towers mushrooming on rooted shocks.

"That's a NO, from me"

Thermostats are one thing I tend to buy OE or OEM. It's not worth trusting a cheap one.

Having said that... they are a pretty simple device and precision isn't one of their strong points - they do creep open and closed, so the speed at which you increase the temperature can dramatically affect the measured "open" temp and "closed" temp.

I had shocks from the UK arrive in under 2 weeks (July 19th to 29th) - out for delivery today, though might really be tomorrow, Via Fedex.

Leatherhead to Standstead, to Feltham, to Standstead, to Memphis, to Honolulu to Auckland and onto Whangarei today ?

Also 2 items from China... one posted April 4th (!), once posted July 16th. Both arrived in the Country June 26th, the April one delivered today, the July one being processed in Auckland.

Now, if only the Russian one from April would arrive! It's important distillation parts!

The germans have to comply with their greenie laws of using a whole heap of recycled plastics - that's why so many of the German plastics disintegrate early. Even the underbody trays etc start going brittle and weak.

I tend to replace them with alloy versions were possible.

In reality - once the plastics are on their last legs, you'll usually find half the rubber pipes aren't much better - especially those on the hot side.

I had a 6 x 7.2 garage build on the gable end of our house, with a 1.2 eave that extended and matched up perfectly with the roofline of the house.

It was the closest we could get without having to actually extend the house (which looked to be about twice the cost!)

Versatile quoted a horrendous amount of money for a half-arsed suggestion and were still not even including the options I wanted.

SKYLINE here in Whangarei were AMAZING, came in cheaper, even with the mesh in the concrete, perfectly aligned roof and it integrated into the house, exactly like it was supposed to have always been there. I'd 100% use them again.

I don't know if the other Skyline franchisees are they same, but these Whangarei guys are  superb!

On 5/22/2020 at 7:22 PM, gjm said:

I got a tax refund.

So did I... $4.78!

I spent it on tools... along with several other hundreds of dollars ?

My neighbour had the floor of his tilted slightly, so he could wash his cars out of the sun, wash underneath while on the hoist but even in the garage bays, so he can hose them out if required.

The hoist bay is walled off from the other 4 bays, it it can be wet as hell in there without it getting on his other toys.

He also painted the floor, so it's easy to wash away the Austin Healey stains ?

It's not factory manual, which I guess devalues it as a full-on collectors item... but it looks to be a tidy car!

https://www.gsparkplug.com/1x-ngk-copper-core-spark-plug-bkr6equp-3199.html

Nearly half price. 8 of them, shipped to NZ (VAT is taken off when shipping to NZ) is 51.66 pounds.... NZ$13.50 each.

"Different", like "rare"... does NOT automatically equal "desirable" ?

If you are looking at the 1.4TSI... it's NOT as reliable as the GTI, depending on the model.

Certain twincharged 1.4s are notorious for destrying pistons.

Make sure she knows that and "makes" you get the GTI.

As a former E39 owner, moved to 2x VW Tourans... VW parts are generally MORE expensive too. Weirdly.

But the BMW ones are freakin uhg-leeeeeeeeee