Mark

You can do it the second way you described. I did it on my E46 touring recently. Although mine is a year 2000.

Finished the bonnet insulation. And it's only a small thing, but one of favourite parts I've bought so far - new key blanks with the little light that actually works! Much OEM!

Seat badges look great, where did you get them from? Are the door handle logos just a transfer, or a replacement part?

Pelican Parts have them. The BMW roundel is NLA however.

Vacuumed off the crumbling foam then sprayed liberally with paintbrush cleaner (same as wax and grease remover or panel wipe). Let it soak in then used an old plastic card from my wallet to scrape the glue off. This one clips on properly but is a reproduction part. I bought a genuine BMW one but I also had issues clipping it on. I think it's to do with the genuine ones being new old stock and the rubber seal is no longer soft enough to let it seal properly. The one I'm using is from Guten Parts, looks identical to the genuine one except no BMW logo.

There's always something to modify or fix when you own an E30. Been doing a few things as funds and time allow: Painted the scuttle panel vents installed some parts I bought from Pelican: New expansion tank... so fresh and white! New fusebox cover.... this took ages to install. Currently removing the old underbonnet insulation so I can install some new stuff. Making a mess... Some other parts to go on: Headers. Will give these a paint / wrap with exhaust wrap. 750i master cylinder

E30 power steering groans/creaks when almost at full lock and only when turning wheel left. Only does it at low speeds. Jacked the car up today and doesn't make the noise at all when wheels are off the ground. Noticed a slow drip of ATF from the drivers side of the steering rack. Does this mean a rack seal has gone?

Start showing up to classic car meets, put feelers out with owners of similar cars or cars you want to buy. Keep an eye out on here and PM members with cars you like to see if they're keen to sell or know of other cars that might be for sale. Make friends with the enthusiast guy at the parts department of your local BMW dealer, they see lots of nice cars pull into the car park on a Saturday morning. As mentioned above most really tidy E30s aren't for sale publicly but usually are if the owners are offered the right price.

Make sure you get the right one for your model/year, there are a few different shapes with different sized holes for the intake tube.

Fuel/temp gauge: check the grounding nut on the cluster is tight, change the SI batteries. Lights not working: Clean the bulb contacts / trace the wires see if there is any damage or shorts.

Microfibre cloth and some wax and grease remover (paintbrush cleaner/kerosene will work too) will get most of it. Then use something like Meguiars ScratchX to get out the rest.

Lol at this being a thread about a damaged E30 and somehow you two blokes turn it into an argument about fuel economy between two incomparable cars built in different decades.

I'd like to add that e30s are very popular at the moment with the young hipster crowd using mum and dads money to buy their first car. Old tech plus minimal driving experience equals accidents. This makes me sound like an old coot but my first car at 15 was a FWD Mazda 323 with an asthmatic single carb 1.5 that couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding. I too would've ended up backwards through a fence if I owned a 170hp RWD 6 cylinder with no safety features and a tendency to oversteer.

Just unlocking to add my "moderator-y" two cents. Tyler - you don't need to do anything. There is no legal process for private motor vehicle sales gone wrong. You purchase a car privately at your own risk, any issues are the new owner's problem from the moment the car is driven away. The garage who issued a WOF can be hit up for the cost of repairs if it issues a dodgy WOF. A mate had this happen with a Landcruiser he purchased that had a new VTNZ wof but actually needed completely new suspension and had rust issues. He got nearly $6000 from VTNZ. OK, re-locking now

People many blocks away heard my offensive language when I realised the door lock was buggered and there's no lock on the touring hatch. Have found a guy on Trademe based here in Christchurch who sells the repair kits for the door lock - $35 for the kit plus $80 to install. Not a bad deal I thought.

Cheers guys, ended up just calling the AA and the bloke had seen a few like this before -he wedged the door frame and threaded a rod through to hook and pull the bonnet release. Car in the garage now with battery charging. Will get the door lock replaced ASAP so this doesn't happen again.

I have a 2000 325i E46 Touring. Cannot unlock the car via remote or via drivers door lock (I think the door lock actuator is also broken). It is a touring so there is no lock on the boot hatch. After doing some googling I have replaced the battery in the key - nope still can't get in. I assume it is a dead battery but I am unable to get into the car to charge or replace it. What should I do? Is there a way to get in that doesn't involve breaking a window or ruining other parts of the car? Help most appreciated.

If you had it on your watchlist you can click the "Ask the seller to relist this item" link that pops up when you view the auction in your "Items I lost" list.

Do you know a guy who owns a drill?

Got the bootlid lining with the larger tool kit? What condition is it in?

Been discussed many times. Gonna close this thread but a quick search will find one of the other ones about this car.

Might be time to suck it up and put it on TM at $1 reserve.

What the hell are M-Class Mercs' intake pipes made of??? Pure platinum??!!! Kind of scary that you can pick up a whole M-Class for not a lot more than the price of a new intake pipe... no wonder they're so cheap on TM.

The ad should read like this: "Here we have an example of an M325i (sort of). It's a future collector's car and we're going to charge 10g's for it. But even though we have the original wheels for it we instead bought the ugliest goddamn wheels we could find and fitted them with 55 profile Firestone Supercats. Because everyone knows that Supercats are the ultimate performance tyre and people who would buy an 80's BMW for 10g's would insist that it had new 55 profile Firestone Supercats on it. f**k we're smart."

I recently bought a 2000 E46 touring 325i as a replacement family car. While looking I test drove a couple of 2007+ A4 Avants. I may be bias but even though the BMW is 7 years older it felt far more solid and rode more smoothly. I too would recommend a 6 cylinder E91 or E61. Excellent value for money. Just buy a warranty for piece of mind.