Mark

It's a normal deep red colour, it's just the photos that make it look pink. Car in real life will actually look like this:

Woah that Honda is a piece! hahahah!

E30's overheating is a very common problem. Have a search around and see what you can find here and on other BMW forums. Could be all sorts of things. Water pump, radiator, viscous fan coupling, thermostat, split hoses, head gasket etc etc.

Just to help out here... you're after a 16" Style 29 cross spoke. Like this: E34 fitment if possible... Ray / Brent / Mike can you help?

Yes it's an earthing problem. Have you run your speaker cables and power cables for the amp down separate sides of the cabin?

Take your catfight elsewhere ladies. Don't make me warn you Simon!

Spotted outside my house a pretty cool E46 Ti. Purple, lowered on gloss black 17" Breyton rims, AC Schnitzer kit, single tip aftermarket exhaust, purple accented dash bezel and gearshift surround, alcantara upholstery and some yellow calipers peeking out from behind the wheels... not sure if they were just painted or were performance brakes. The car had a subtle Dinan sticker on the rear quarter window. Was going to take a photo but was rushing off to Saturday's meet.

Whereabouts are you in the country Dominique?

DCH Motorsport in Chch do a drive-in drive-out 2.8 conversion for $7000. That includes the fully reconned 2.8 M20 and ECU upgrade/tune. So yep, it's expensive unless you're awesome at rebuilding engines.

I have to disagree. I love all the little touches of originality. Admittedly if the car is a rustbucket I won't care, but if an owner has looked after a car well and it has all the little extras like a full toolkit, first aid kit, glovebox torch, original purchase receipt and owners manual etc then I will buy that car over one exactly the same with none of that stuff and I may even pay a premium for those things. Look at the number of American muscle car owners who cream their jeans over cars that have original AM radios with 8-tracks etc. As our cars get older having one with little rare extras will help keep values high.

We didn't get any US spec cars over here. And if someone did happen to bring one over it would highly unlikely the engine ended up in your car. I wouldn't spend any time worrying about that and instead check the things others have mentioned in their posts. If you're not au fait with M30 engines a quick trip to a BMW garage to talk to a mechanic would be your best bet for fixing the problem quickly.

Your rough idle problem could be overfueling. I had the same thing happen on my E30 (running rough and cutting out at lights) turned out to be a faulty thermostat tricking the ECU in to thinking the engine was cold and needed more fuel. Nice purchase BTW... you got quite the bargain.

Haha... Atta's got his eye on these i see!

2 hours to go and we're at just over $16,500... I reckon everyone is on the money picking it will go for $18k. The number of views has shot up dramatically since mid-afternoon.

I couldn't be stuffed farting around with a soldering iron and LEDs etc so I just bought a whole new unit from the States. Cost about $25USD.

I wouldn't bastardise a good condition M535i. They're worth a decent amount especially in manual. A repower would be very expensive anyway. E28 M5 engines are pretty much non existent, and any engine swap is going to cost you $$$. Perhaps sell your car and buy the E28 M5 listed on Trademe? Would almost be the cheapest option. Oh BTW, we need to see pics of your M535i.

You can buy BBS centre caps from here: http://www.purems.com/products/product.php/II=77

With a 520i auto that must've been a very long road to get up enough speed to do that sort of damage! Wheels were RK's.

Everyone throw your keys in the bowl and let's all swap cars! Time to change your sig now Sam. Best of luck with the touring... sure it'll turn out awesome.

Was just in at DCH picking up the car and had a chat about to the guys about you Atta. Graeme was being a funny fella... kept saying there's no better engine for an E30 than the 2.8 M20. He just couldn't agree with what Sam had done. Sure she's a belter mate, looking forward to a ride on Saturday.

Bump Auction closes Thursday... and reserve is met at $15,995... if you're keen keep an eye on it!

Just found the issue of Total BMW that has the E46 compact buying guide. As has been said, it's pretty much all the same as the other E46 models. Rear wiper motors can fail, rear springs can potentially shear at the bottom coil. The bodywork doesn't share a single panel with any other E46 so look for one in good nick as panels will be harder to get hold of than others. The same applies to the interior door trims and boot trim. The rest of the interior is pretty standard E46 stuff.

"Higher than CD quality sound of your MP3 files" Well that's completely impossible... but looks like a good buy otherwise.

Oh, and what brand chip is in it?

Will this work on all pre-FL 325i's... or do I need to check my DME to see if it matches?