Apex

Just replaced the rear shock absorbers with the factory specified BOGE TURBO’s. Drives fantastic. To do this is simple on the Coupe and Sedan but a complete nightmare on the Touring, you need to remove all the rear panelling so you can get to the joke of an access hole to unbolt the strut tower. Loosening and retightening the rear bolts took around an hour this would be a lot faster if you had small magnetic hands and x-ray vision. Defiantly a recommended DIY on the E30, would take around an hour on a sedan or coupe or 3.5-4 hours on a touring. If you’re going to do it make sure you order the new strut top mounts in advance as a lot of places didn’t have them. The job is pretty straight forward but here’s what I found helped.. Loosen the front bolt to the near end and the strut will drop a bit giving you better access to the rear bolt, the rear bolt will take a long time to get undone as there is next to no room to unbolt it have a telescopic magnet ready as you will need it. Use a trolley jack to raise and lower the rear hubs when manoeuvring the strut’s. After removing and refitting the rear panelling in the touring four times in one year and have worked out the correct method. 1) Remove Rear side bolsters. 2) Remove floor carpet. 3) Remove storage doors. 4) Remove side panels. Refit in reverse order obviously, this is a time consuming job if done properly and you’ll need to be patient. It sounds like an easy straight forward task but takes a considerable amount of time. Pictures show the only access to the strut tower, second shows where the bolts and sockets will end up when struggling with the rear bolt. The crazy Germans kindly gave us this cut out as part of the overall sick joke.

Nice, a good bunch of cars right there! What was faster, the M3 Turbo or the GTS-4/GTR

Welcome to BS, lucky you living in Snells, I spent my youth up there, its beautiful in summer. How about painting the centre of the mags black.

Yep, what he said + I’ll add that Cyclops also do great alarms and this is the price point id start looking at. Good mate off mine installs them and his cheapest package (Cyclops) starts at $450.

Um yea, a write off normally means it will cost more than the cars worth to rapair or that the car is unable to be repaired.

I don’t get what you mean about the gapless rear bumper design, im a visual learner maybe you could post a picture as an example?? Bangle changed the direction of design for sure and I am an avid supporter of his stuff, I purchased one his masterpieces after all! He is American though and has worked on many a brand including some very stylish trend setting Italian’s. Im not seeing the Audi connection with the tail lights on the VE. IMO Holden took inspiration from the likes of the Lexus IS200 (as well as Mazda and Honda) and pumped them up, it does have cues from other manufacturers like the E39 window frame but it is still distinctively GM and a Commodore.

Ah, Penrose. Maybe convert all the fruit it into a shelled Japanese import E60 520i (20-30k), strip it out and cage it, would make for a very fast race/Targa car. And you could sell all the 520i and M5 fruit you don’t need. A striped out E60 would most likely come in at under 1500kg, 500HP 1500Kg equals fun.

Hey, im just saying it has a better shape to it, the body line reminds me of my old Lexus and those pumped front guards look stanch. The E60 is a bit too slab sided and can look quite boring from some angles. The E60 (or the E39 for that matter) is a better drive and is built o a much higher standard. Im not a women and don’t choose a car biased entirely on its looks. My argument is that I feel the Japanese have their own look, sure certain models have borrowed this and that from other designs but they ultimately have their own identity. Maybe show some examples?? Lexus 1998 BMW 1998 Audi 1998 Lexus 2005 BMW 2005 Audi 2005 Now imagine you had no car knowledge or brand recognition/loyalty, what looks best from each year.. BMW and Lexus brought each respective model out within a month or two of each other so there was no copying going on. Sorry, it’s quite at work today and this beats vacuuming the workshop.

In all do respect I totally disagree, the Germans have lost the plot and become more like the Japanese if anything. The Holden Commodore, dare I say it has a nicer shape than the E60!! I actually think a few of the new Jap designs are better than the Germans, I mean the new Mazda 6 “looks†more appealing to me than the new 3 series and A4.

Would be a very expensive fix for it to be written off. I would say good for parts and that’s it... Maybe convert a lesser car. Where is the Auction?? Im off to turners today.

Cheers.

As far as I know it’s the transponder that communicates with the immobilizers brain, having one will save you from having to disarm manually after the 40 second auto immobilizer kicks in. I would go for Cyclops TBH, its just as good if not better than Dynatron for less but as said even the best alarm is useless without a proper install. We spent 8 hours on mine!! Expect to pay 800 for a 4 star imobilizizer/alarm installed properly, 1200 for a "blackwire" job.

Not true. It Depends on what kind of alarm and immobiliser you have, and how well it is installed. You would need a truck to steal my wagon.. or given you were an auto electrician and you had the right tools and experience you could probably pull out the brain and re wire it in half an hour or so.. but you’d have to find the brain first. And then there’s the second immobiliser to find which is stand alone. I heard the same thing about pillar less cars, pull the window and hotwire. Bob’s your aunty PM me if anyone wants a 4 or 5 star install.

I can vouch for Subaru’s being popular to steel, have seen two GTB’s of friends and family disappear in less than 5 minutes off being parked, they must be a synch to nick off with. As for EVO’s being stolen, as said they are hard to insure and 80% of the old one’s are probably not running as the meat heads that buy them are probably fitting some cool hybrid turbo and awesome screamer pipe and are onto a second rebuild due to excessive boost blowing them apart. Sorry stereotypical. The Lantis Type R (130 kW and 190 Nm) is actually quite a quick little car. They came in sedan and hatch, the hatch version was the same as the NZ new Mazda Astina V6. They had a sweet little V6 and what had massive 16†wheels in the nineties. Always had a soft spot for them. If anyone actually cares about their car they will have a decent alarm.. More fool you if your car gets pinched.

Awesome, thanks Simon that was the one! I have that magazine in my mess of a collection. I remembered it as the Supra was a Euro spec car the same as what we got new in NZ (Glass headlights and bonnet scoop) and the 8 series was just plain hot. There are lots and lots of Supra's out there (not in NZ) with over 1000hp, not cheap to achieve though.

That makes sense. In some cases it’s merely a styling exercise, take the E60 series for an example of this. Also look at the Falcon above.

Just the current trend, it’s nothing new. There are 1000’s of cars throughout time that have had massive grills, in fact it once was the norm. Im sure we will all get used to the new big mouth cars of late.

Very nice, well done. Sounds amazing.

Choice!! Its better on the hill though! Only one slab this year but. Just an excuse to crack open the top shelf and have break dancing comps on the front lawn!

Cheers guys. We were looking at a Corolla but they seem overpriced, looked t a couple of 147’s. Shame she doesn’t want a BMW. If we sell the 545i this week we might go along on Friday and have another look. What’s the Focus been like Penry?? Would like to look at one as well as a AH Astra, having owned one they aren’t bad.

The Nissan GTR was where I would have spent my imaginary 100k. The e60 Diesel had a kit and some funny clear taillights, wasn’t bad. I did like the E34 535i though, the E39 M5 wheels in charcoal really went well with the white. Won’t be selling mine there that is for sure. The Missus is looking for a “to work and back†car with a budget of 8-10k, would it be safe to say the cars at turners are rejects in this price bracket?? Anyone had experience with a Turners car?

Cheers. Unfortunately it is an 05 so too old for warranty. Will give it another stab today, apparently BMW clove boxes are notoriously bad. Its just a leaver so im sure the same BMW principle might apply!!

Hi all, my glove box handle has come loose and the glove box is now stuck shut Has anyone else ever had this problem and if so how did you remedy it?? I have with previous cars removed it from the bottom but that seems quite difficult. Thanks

I have to agree, I tried a few decks before settling but still cant help thinking it just looks wrong. I searched for old early ninety’s decks but nothing worked. I went with a flat surround and painted it black, don’t look so bad. Picture whore. Would love a top quality head deck that sits flush. Any pics people??

They must have removed them already, sh*t that was fast! Um, I guess you had to see them to appreciate how discussing it was