jeffbebe

I'm ordering some stuff from Dinan that I hadn't planned to do for a while but they have a 20% sale on all E39 stuff (and quite a few other models). Not sure if combined shipping will save that much but if anyone's interested in getting anything let me know and I'll be happy to add to include in my order. Need to hear asap as the sale ends tomorrow.

The rear diffuser is very cool on that one. Buy this one and the black one and make one absolutely perfect 840!

Think you're right. Here's a piano black centre console and you can clearly see the wood grain. Gloss black paint or wrap will have none of the grain and will be very 2 dimensional unless you include a pearl or something in the paint.

Very shiny! Not quite what I meant though - I meant your paint would need the coloured fleck/marbling to look like the OE piano black.

For the M5? S/W ones are probably easier to find. Here's a sedan one on ebay - pretty cheap but shipping doubles the cost. Does list the BMW part# though which might be helpful: http://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-E39-Rubber-Car...e88&vxp=mtr

Pretty certain 'piano black' was an option (maybe Individual) on E39 trim. It's not actually just gloss black - it was a very subtle almost marble grey/blue fleck in the black but not easy to see on photos. If you painted or wrapped gloss black it would lack the lustre and 'luxury' of the genuine piano black trim.

They're beautiful wheels, why would you want to paint them?

I do indeed and aesthetically thinking less about lights when they're on scaring possums and more the colour the yellow bulbs give the reflectors. I'll pop 'em in and photograph over the weekend to show. Just bulbs, the lens is clear but the bulb colours the reflectors.

+1

Because they're all at the stage in their lives when they start to go expensively wrong.

Good deal

I do occasionally drive at night though so would like my headlights to be legal and useable. The yellow looks nice, but looks can take a back seat if they're not legal as far as I'm concerned.

Auxiliary ventilation? I checked both timers were switched off but noticed this morning that there were a couple of patches of unfogged windscreen, suggesting the car had been up to something overnight. Is there another way to switch it off?

Ha! Car park comes with my office - which is 5 mins walk from home - crazy not to use it and a garaged car is a happy car! Was always my intention... I just forgot. Fortunately, it will be a long, long time until we can afford for the family to go back to Europe. About time the rellies visited us!!

No, I was mainly trying to prevent my four year old from climbing into it and driving off, so I barely got a chance to take this pic!!What was interesting is that in both the UK and France I saw thousands of bimmers but very few that were older than E90s and E60s. A few E46s but very few E39s and I only saw one E30 (a mint green convertible in Paris). Guess the climate and cheaper costs mean people don't keep them as long as we do. Couldn't help thinking some of the very well kept older members' cars on here would be great desirable over there!

Found some other posts about yellow lights but they were mostly for tinting entire headlight. I found some yellow high beam H4s kicking around and think they'd look quite good on the E39. According to the NZTA website white or amber lights are acceptable. Just wondering if anyone knows how yellow they tolerate for amber bulbs (in the US for example they refer to amber traffic signals as yellow)?

Came back this week from our triannual trip to Europe to see family, etc. Spotted this in France. Oh dear. Saw a lot of these new 3 series GTs in France. Don't like 'em. Our tiny Fiat 500 hire car got upgraded to this in the UK. Pity we only had it for 2 days. The weather was like this in England (that's an E46 M3 in a traffic jam in front BTW). Saw this ludicrous 'toy' car in Selfridges. It's a proper miniature car. Saw some arabs seriously considering it for their little prince. Saw this ludicrous toy in the McLaren store. I could live with it.

Supply and demand. E92s are new and still expensive so there isn't really a market yet for cheaper parts. Once they're 8-10 years old and cheaper to buy so the demand for cheaper parts will grow. You'll get more reps on the market that are cheaper and re-sellers will offer OE parts for (a bit) less.

Will do. If it's a simple re-code that Ray can do, it might not be too pricey. A tune starts getting into the 'nice to have' category. I'm not really doing it for HP gain, more because the holey cat is likely causing some issues and only going to get worse and new cats are expensive!!

The boat from Germany does take a while to get here

Insurance is with these guys - haven't confirmed decat procedure is okay yet, just that trans upgrade and stage 2 tune is NOT! They may say no, anything to avoid paying out! That said, the most they'll pay on a 13 year old car is $2.5K for repairs anyway, so if it's something catastrophic - head gasket, transmission, etc - it ain't gonna cut it.

Cosmos black to be precise. This would make a lovely addition to my garage, then I just need to borrow your M5 and find a nice black E38 740 to complete the late 90s-early 00s V8 set!!

Hey Darren. Did you go ahead with this on the M5? Exhaust system is on my list and moving up the list as other planned mods (tranny s/w, stage 2 tune) will void my mechanical warranty. There's a hole in one of my cats which I suspect is causing some minor performance issues and I can't really afford to replace, so thinking of removing instead. Catching up with Ray next week anyway, so will ask the sage for a bit of advice on the matter.

+1

Great looking cars. They don't look quite as tough as the E46 IMO but more of a sports car.