a13antichrist

Happy Birthday man You (or we) could give some thought to throwing a second party somewhere near Taupo, right in the centre that everybody could mission along to.. Biggest BS gathering ever :cool: Though ya proba;y wouldn't escapte the yardie..

OK I very definitely have tri-colour stitching round the steering wheel. Does that make me special?

Won't matter, it's going to the bodyshop in a week anyway to take the spoiler off

Heh easiest money you'll ever make, right? If you take it off I'll buy it off ya, sure why not. Can stick it to my laptop if I don't ever decide to put it on the car..

It has tri-colour stitching and an ///M badge as well.. Actually don't quote me on that, not 100% about the stitching but it does definitely have the ///M on the steering wheel as well.. http://202.21.128.20/photoserver/66/13462066_full.jpg

Hmmmm. Well will debadge & see how I like that for a start. Yeah I live across the road from the town hall, often have it outside over the weekend. What did ya reckon about the wing in person? To be honest it's growing on me a little...

Hmmmm. I guess ebay is the wrong place in Australia to buy them though, huh... How much does a set of OE wheels cost, anyway? Guy selling those ones on the black coupe in my first post is asking $2k canadian with the tyres 225 front / 255 rear Kumho 712's. Also, anyone know anything about these?

I hear what you're saying and I certainly wouldn't put an ///M badge on a non-M-spec, or an M3 badge on a non-M3, but since it already has the ///M side badges on the black Motorsport mouldings I figured it would be more along the lines of completing the picture rather than claiming to be something it's not. I mean would you go as far as to remove the M badges on the mouldings on an M-spec-only model?

It is an ///M... but Gus knows that so I figured there was something against the badge in principle...

Ahh true. Well that makes it easier then. What's wrong with an ///M badge?

I'm thinking about taking the 328 badge off the boot and replacing it with a standard ///M badge - are the holes going to be in the right places for the new badge or will I still be left with some bogging & repainting to do? Also where can you actually get OE M badges apart from the stealer?

It feels like there's a dead hamster stuck inside the transmission gates or something. I mean it's really hard to convince people of the superiority of German engineering when it lurches forward on each gear change. Frankly it's embarassing, I might expect such behaviour from a 20yr old bomb but not from a next-to-new BMW.

Could be worth a look.. TradeMe

I'm wondering.. because in the US you can get all sorts of replica wheels for a fraction of the cost of OE equipment from the stealer... but does that do you any good if you then have to ship them from the US to NZ? Does is still work out a better deal? Or are there places in NZ who have decent buys on OE and/or replica wheels already? And what's the deal with replica wheels anyway? Are they ALWAYS not as good as the OE gear, and are they ALWAYS heavier, or can you get high-quality wheels at good prices, and can you ship them to NZ? Anybody have any dealers/shops etc to recommend?

What do you define as "stock"? The M-spec E36s are "stock", in that their kits are all fitted at the factory, with no owner mods whatsoever. Now, if I bought a nicely specc'd car I wouldn't be tempted to do any mods at all; I don't want anything blatant either but a totally stock E36 is a really ugly-looking car. Modding isn't about preferring stock or non-stock; it's about minor tweaks to remove or improve the looks of certain aspects that you feel weren't quite as attractive or useful as they might have otherwise been. It simply makes no sense to say that you prefer the look of "stock" models over modded vehicles because sometimes a stock car can look far more "racy" than many "modded" cars. Unless of course what you're implying is that you don't like the principle of owning "a car that's not exactly how you bought it". In which case, fine, to each their own.. but do you change the wallpaper on your computer to a photo of your own?

They cost more new, yeah, but they're a lot rarer and people buying that car prefer manuals so they're more sought-after, and hence command a higher sale price.

hmmm.. could be. It was doing it before the service though, not jsut since. Apparently the trans in these are due to be serviced at 80k..

Was just in for a service last week, report says "checked/replaced topped up fluids as required". What exactly would I look for when I "check" the transmission fluid?

OK this is my second E36 and I've had it two weeks and a day. It's now doing the same thing my first one did - first gear sounds & acts like a dead cat. It doesn't pull quite like it should and when it changes to 2nd, it seems to hang for a couple of seconds and then jerks its way there. It's especially bad when cold, though I can minimise the jerk by being very restrained with the accelerator until it changes to 2nd. Once it's warmed up it's fine & it doesn't jerk, but my last one eventually developed that behaviour even when warm, if you tried to push it relatively hard in first. So I'm guessing the new one will go that way too eventually. The question is: is this the start of something bad, or does it just need a service? Two of the three other E36s I test-drove showed the same behaviour; the other one was already warmed up at the time so it may well have been the same. Do I need to worry about this and can I sort it out myself? THe car's only done 70k, and the last one was showing it at 55 already. Cheers

Yep I do all mine at Page too.

The stacker has to be able to read the data on the disc, so the head unit won't help you there. However you -can- use an MP3 stacker with a standard CD head unit.. usually.

It's the boot lip spoiler that does it

Yeah spoiler's going for sure, just sorting out the best way to go about it. I don't mind the wheels but the solid bit in the centre doesn't excite me too much... I've always liked the Style 135 and they do look sweeet on the E36: Aren't that many of those around but I'm still tossing up between those and these two: These just look MEAN Not a great shot but they look great too. M V 72. As much as I like the look without the spoiler, I'm also thinking of getting an E46-style rear lip spoiler - they look quite at home on the E36 too. This isn't the best picture but you get the idea... Also discovered today that it will cost 25c to swap my old personalised plates onto the new car so will do that this week rather than wait for my euro plates to arrive from Germanplates... :cool: Guys from Abtec coming over to put in the Mongoose tomorrow.. damn State Insurance saying that the alarm was part of the car & I couldn't remove it, even though they made no adjustment to the insured value because of it.. damn b*stards. Oh yeah, and the drinks holder I bought for the last one will go in sometime soon too

What does it say on the inside of the left wheel arch under the bonnet? If it says Montrealblau there I'd be pretty trusting of that.. As far as I know Oriental Blue didn't exist until the E46.. and montrealblau isn't available on the E46. If you compare the bostongrun on the E36s to the dark green (don't know its name) on the E46 there's a HUUUUGE difference - there's a very obvious brightness/hue/reflectivity difference. The blues might simply be the same colour, just renamed for marketing purposes.

It'll be the orange corners that's putting you off.