aja540i

I like how you consider 2007 to be a "modern car" !

Leaky cooler?

I got mine from BMW, about $65 IIRC, not sure if they will still have them though, I think 2015 was the last version on DVD.

Throttle actuator? The M5 did something similar when one of its died, not sure if the V8 ones are a common fault or not but the V10 ones definitely are.

I would be very surprised if one $20 bottle of octane booster would increase a full tank of gas from 91 to 95 octane, and if you need 2 then it's only $10 difference and a hassle!

I did an exercise many years ago when I had a Mitsi Legnum VR4 and ran it on the different grades of fuel, both with and without octane boosters for a period of time each and carefully measured the economy of each, 98 with no octane booster ended up being the cheapest option, ($ per km) of course the prices are all vastly higher now than they were then but it is possibly still the same result. I'm not prepared to run the M5 on anything but 98 and the Leaf doesn't care how much petrol costs so I won't be repeating the experiment.

I have one from Super cheap ( i think its branded as a tool pro) That i use on my big petrol water blaster and it works very well, I also have a small ryobi water blaster and the small ryobi foam gun that fits it, it does work but the foam is a lot thinner and more watery, it runs off the car a lot quicker, I suspect this has more to do with the lower pressure and flow of the water blaster than the design of the foam gun. I can also water the snow foam mix down quite a lot when using the big foam gun, but I have to use it neat in the smaller one to get any kind of foam.

Could have been for a kill switch or hard wired radar detector or similar.

What are you on about, there's yellow plastic tape everywhere!!

I can't see them ever offering both at the same time. Having said that, the new M3 is probably no smaller than my E61 so I could possibly live with it, not that I am in the market for a brand new BMW anyway.....

Terrible news! I assume this means no M5 wagon in the future. ?

Fuel economy in the 540 wagon is a bit on the high side too, mine used to sit around 14l/100 km but the noise was worth it!

Not enough mud on it, try again!

It has a few glitches, crashes the music app on my phone occasionally, a bit clunky to navigate using the idrive controller, and if I want to use the CD player I have to open the glovebox and switch it over, but it does everything I want and it is a fully reversible installation if I ever decide to take it out. The price wasn't too bad, I bought direct from the Dension website.

I got a dension adaptor for my E61, not perfect but it gave me what I wanted and kept all the factory functions as well.

Got some floating centre caps for my birthday, I suppose that means I have to get my ass into gear and refurbish the wheels.

Picked it up from Continental BMW, diff out, all new seals, back in again. No more oil leak! BMW club membership paid for itself and more, approx $300 off the total bill, happy with that.

12k ono? ?

Possibly done during compliance in NZ.

Ah, with that chrome sMg badge on the centre console it is DEFINITELY worth 70k!!

Sometimes you see an M5 wagon on trademe and you just don't have any choice....not often, but it does happen!

If you are mainly working on aluminium you can get specific ones with a bigger gap between the teeth that helps stop them from clogging up and lets them cut faster. Those ones should be pretty good on steel ( new ones are always good) but will probably clog pretty quickly with aluminium. You can also get longer shank versions that can be useful for porting.

It's cheaper to take the M5 to BMW for the WOF than to VTNZ, and BMW wash it as well. No brainer.

Go to BMW and buy just the rubber inserts for your wipers, expensive for a little bit of rubber, but last a lot longer than most aftermarket stuff and you don't have to butcher anything to install them! I get new ones every year (+/- 12 months!)

I spent about $7K all up when I had mine done, including a few other bits and pieces, which I thought was pretty reasonable for the peace of mind you have after it's done!