scottr

I used to just buy them second hand on eBay. Probably sourced 20+ of the high-failure hard-to-find e46 ones over the years shipped from Europe. Paid as low as 70 nz each and stopped when they got to 200+ nz each. Haven’t had to do one for e87 yet, but if it’s anything like e46 you just need to replace the black ecu only, which for e46 could be done without disconnecting hydraulics, and reset the vin using ncs expert.

Have a 130i also with GM box also, pretty sure I confirmed that by digging through INPA menus. If you have a cable and that software, have a look through the info/drive train tabs.

Hi, have recently purchased a japanese import 2016 F30 with NBT Evo ID4. Have managed to get a connected drive account and registering car by signing up to the co.jp site. From the MyBMW app on my phone I am able to send addresses to the car, which appear in the incoming messages on the HU. Can't navigate to these at this point as have not yet converted maps to NZ. Also looking to use AAIDrive via apps for spotify etc (https://github.com/BimmerGestalt/AAIdrive), which requires 6NR which I'll sort as well. To use apps however I need an active connectedrive subscription. It appears I can purchase one of those through the japanese store but interested if anyone has done the same before on an import, and if so what was the experience and what features worked/didn't work? e.g. Remote lock, light flash etc, Vehicle status, Map updates, RTTI (esp interested in this), vehicle finder. Not overly interested in paying an annual subscription, but if I can get a good spotify experience and traffic on the idrive maps that'll be a great start.

Hi all, after an unfortunate incident with a range rover my trusty e46 has been upgraded to a e87 130i motorsport. Luckily the 130i is late model enough to have CIC, however unluckily the original purchaser did not opt for bluetooth. I'm looking at a combox retrofit which looks easy enough to do (car have cabling prep for bluetooth, just no mulf installed) however my CIC software is not recent enough to understand what to do with one and I don't have the ICOM cable required to update it. I'm looking at a combox so that it works well and integrates nicely with the car's cic system for phone and music as I'm keen to avoid anything that runs through the aux port, requires seperate microphones, or needs a phone to be plugged in to work (like tune2air and/or carplay/android auto screen interceptors). Wondering if there's anyone out west auckland with an icom who'd be able and/or willing to help out? Thanks!

I was talking about tyroola where 4 of the 11 tyres listed were pirelli pzeros. Dunlops hadnt had great reviews so have gone with bridgestone alenza 001 from elsewhere at a reasonable price. Thanks for the help all.

pickings are slim, pretty much pirelli p zero's and not much else. feedback on tyroola is that they sell old/out of date tires which is why ythey're cheap. tony's tire service won't price-match them for that reason.

Have those on my bmw, good tyres but dont come in the size i need unfortunately. Same with pilot sport 4's. Size is 295/35/21. Found their trademe account and a whirpool thread, feedback is eirher all good or not great at all (mainly crap comms and can take ages, have also sold very old but new tires as well). Looks like they drop ship from thier aussie arm. Prices are great but not yet sure if its worth the risk as warrant is due in 3 weeks and i need to replace old tires that are falling apart.

Hi all, looking to get new tires for the wife's q7 and came across a site called tyroola, appears a similar model to hyperdrive (buy online, get shipped to a local fitter for install). Anyone tried them out? If so whats the experience been? Thanks!

e46 antenna is in the rear glass., believe the antenna amp is in the C pilar as well. The grom works, it's cheap and cheerful but has limitaitons. For example mine never seemed to turn off when the car turned off and the phone would stay connected to it. There may be clones on aliexpress (haven't looked) for cheaper still.

i have one of those android double din original style units which works a treat, between 3-400 nzd from aliexpress. relocating the heater controls lower can be a painwithout the proper bracket. prior to that i had a grom which worked by plugging into the CD changer lead in the boot, but itwas a fairly average experience. think that was 90 bucks from trademe at the time.

I found a long thin allen key that seemed to fit and work, but it took a very long time. Get a mirror on a stick + a torch and pre-book a physio session for your back and shoulders for when it's complete. Easily one of the worst DIY's I've ever done on a car, ever.

Hi, appreciate your response, although not the same car it’s a good experience-driven description of the difference between the two. re: the loading. The Honda weighs 1620kg and is just under 5m long which puts it on-par with the 5 series range. It’s the 3.5 v6 vtec model which is the larger of the two (not the Smaller ‘Euro’ model).

Hi, wasn't after a high-tech discussion only people's experience on the feel of the difference between the two on the same car. The PS4s i got a load rated 98 in 225/50/17. I remember seeing the words 'high load' on the side as they were being fitted.

Hi, thanks for the feedback re: the Primacy’s. You think you’d get them again, or go for something different next time?

Agree that most decent tires are overkill for day-to-day driving. I tend to buy them for those scary moments on the road when you really need them, more so now that I've got a couple of kids. I've got the PS4's on the Honda now. They're surprisingly quiet and have a fairly soft ride given what they are. The sidewalls also look more forgiving than (although not as nice as) the RE003's which are very square and firm. Overall I think putting the PS4's on the Honda was a good idea. I was concerned about the firmness and road-noise which is why i was also considering the Primacy's. I don't think the PS4's are too firm or noisy for a larger less-sporty car (as I've experienced with the RE003's in the e46). Hope others find this useful.

Nothing more than normal driving on them. They lasted a bit over half as long on the front as the f1 asym2’s did. Ended up putting re002’s on the rear when the rears needed replacing as no f1 asym2’s were available, so put re002 on the front to match when the asym2’s wore out. As time’s moved and the tires have worn on both front and rear have bumped up seperately to re003.

Hi all, got a question re: tire choice and I'm interested to hear people's opinions/experiences with the issue I've just faced for the first time ever. We've been buying sports tires for the e46 for many years (Eagle F1 asym2, then RE002, and now RE003). Also had decent sports tires on the 550i as well. All the cars I've owned since I started working have been dressed in decent sports tires. We'd sold the 550i so we could conjure enough money to buy a house and bought a v6 3.5 litre vtec Honda Accord to replace it. I've ended up with the e46 as a daily driver and my wife's now doing the school/shopping runs in the Honda. The tires on the Honda are rubbish early-model ecopia's with hard/cracking rubber and one's now sprung a leak. They're getting replaced with michelin pilot sport 4's tomorrow as I was keen to try something other than bridgestone (haven't been happy with the wear rates of the RE00x's) and michelin had a buy 3 get 4 deal on at hyperdrive. When I checked out the size (225/50/17)'s i noticed that the Pilot Sport 4's were the cheapest tire available for that size by michelin. An alternative would've been the Primacy 3 (ST)'s which are very near in price (slightly more), although seem quite a different tire. The prices for Primacy tires then go up from there. We'd gone for the PS4's as we're keen for a more direct/sporty feel for the car over comfort and longevity, but I can't help but wonder what's really the difference between the two types of tires WRT to grip and feel on a larger and less sporty car, and why the Primacy tires are so expensive in comparison. Has anyone flipped between the two types of tires (Primacy and Pilot Sports), and if so what was the experience? Apparently the Primacy 3 tires are OEM for 5 and 7 series BMW's, as well as S-Class Mercedes and Audi A6's. Thanks!

Yeah I'd find I'd have to do this if I'd been tinkering around in the car and let the battery get flatter than it liked (I suspect the battery was on the way out as I wasn't spending that long). The car would shut things off automatically and show me car-on-a-lift picture next time I turned the ignition on. Do this a few times and it'll give an active steering issue the next time you start it up. The turn on, lock to lock once or twice, back to centre, and turn it off seemed to fix it each time. Was a pain because the steering weight and ratio's would be out. If you're doing the same as I was (lots of tinkering), and/or your battery is weak you could end up with the same. Had similar concerns about the TPS. Would loose 5psi + with no warning to be seen. From what I understand the jap cars worked on rotation speed as opposed to active sensors.

These are great cars to own and drive (had a 09 550i msport sedan with lowish kms, sold at 81km last november). The active steering/swaybars are amazing and it was fairly reasonable on fuel. You certainly will enjoy that part of owning it, I certainly did. Make sure you get Mechanical Insurance, it'll give you Piece of Mind as any issues can be very costly. It was reliable except for when it didn't start a few times due to a strange relay in a power distribution box that gave out randomly when it was cold (broken solder joint). The maintenance though is high, much higher than I expected and I'd owned a 3 series for 6 years prior to buying this. It wasn't so much the cost (and it costs, 8+ litres of oil per change, brake pads in the hundreds, very expensive batteries), but the time taken and frequency given I was doing it all myself. The engines leak like an old 1700s naval warship and fixing the main offenders (there's a few) nears 4 figures each if you do it yourself, and goes into 4 figures if you don't. The gearbox does need maintenance earlier than you'd expect. Watch out for a ~1 second delay (or longer) when going into reverse from Park. Usually a sign of seal wear. I had a noticeable delay in mine. You'll constantly be looking under your bed at night for valve stem seal issues. Even with a PPI it's a hard concern to shake Try and get one with the newer Car Computer (called CIC). CCC is quite dated. CIC is much more usable, contains a HDD, and can be made to work with NZ maps in english with Voice Control and navigation directly on the HUD. This will be available on late 2009 models (the one you linked has CCC). There's parking sensors but no reversing camera., you can get a video interceptor to sort this and they integrate reasonably seamlessly with the car, but they're pricey. It'll likely have bluetooth but this will only work for phone calls and not for playing music. You can install an adapter to AUX for this (I installed airplay into mine, which hooked into the display as well). I think i had to do some challenging trickery hackery with the phone module in the car to get my contacts displaying (couldn't program it directly, think i had to change the country region in other authoritative modules and initiate a full reset or flash to the phone one so it reprogrammed itself). Overall I loved the car., they're great to drive and amazing to own. Ultimately I spent too long tinkering and maintaining it so it needed to go. My recommendation would be to keep looking and try to find as a late model one as you can, with the lowest kms you can. Took me about 6 months to find one. Hope that helps. Scott

Had a motorsport 550i for a while on 18inch wheels with non-RFTs. Tried a few different 550is before i bought one. No non-motorsports though so can't compare to that. 18 > 19 for ride comfort. The 19's were low profile and let you know about it and bumps and driveways. The motorsport cars felt smooth and comfortable, but always in control. Enough to cart around a 5 year old and pregnant wife without any complaining. Pretty much the killer feature was active steering and active sway bars.. They didn't feel like they changed the feel of the car when engaged, but more so bought around feelings of 'wow that corner was way less drama that I expected at that speed' due to the sharpness of the turn and flatness of the car (the expected bodyroll wasn't there) I miss it Not sure i'll be able to enjoy another car without active steering/sway bars now.

Hi all, thanks for the replies. Looks like I'll take it down to an auto-transmission specialist as recommended. Hopefully it's as simple as bung fluid. Thanks!

Hi, thanks for the reply. Could put the stronger one in, but cost is a factor. The car's not worth much (<5k) and if we could replace the box and get another year or two out of the car that would be superb. What would I be looking at for a 320i or 330i box? (box by itself, and/or fitted)

Hi, hasn't been replaced while I've had the car (since 107km). Apparently a 'lifetime' fluid so I haven't changed it. Possibly too late now (unless it's just turned to gunk and hasn't caused any actual damage). It's always shifted fine and had no issues up until now, where it's consistently throwing (inconsistent) codes.

Hi all, been a happy owner of an 2002 e46 320i (188km) for sometime now, but I suspect it's in the middle of it's death throes. I'm having some issues with the gearbox (codes thrown and going into limp mode) and are interested in anyone else's similar experiences, or opinions on what could be wrong. Read on the for the story... Got a panicked call from my soon-to-be-due wife the other day that the car had thrown a new warning sign (cog with exclamation next to the gear letter) and became very sluggish. The car seemed to have gone into limp mode which means she managed to get it home without too much drama (luckily as it was raining heavily!). She'd driven through some smaller puddles on the way and thought that could've been related. A bit of testing showed I had forwards, but no reverse. After plugging a scanner in I could see the following codes; 049 Symptom Gangueberwachung (Symptom Gear Check) 054 Gangueberwachung 4 (Gear Check 4) 065 Gangueberwachung 4 (ENP) (Gear Check 4 (ENP)) 033 Drehzahlgeber Turbine (Speed Turbine) After a reset all appeared well, and both forwards and reverse worked. After a short drive (50-100 metres), I got a new set of codes; 056 Symptom GLUE 049 Symptom Gangueberwachung (Symptom Gear Check) 032 Drehzahlsignal n-ab (Abtrieb) (Speed Signal n-down (output)) 052 Gangueberwachung 2 (Gear Check 2) I still had reverse. After a couple of short drives back home (with clear and reset) it seemed to flip between having reverse or not. Figuring it was deciding how 'limp mode' it needed to go, based on the codes thrown. I did notice what might've been a couple of gear slips once i'd gotten some speed up going up a hill (about 30km). This was the only potential experience of slipping, and I wasn't sure if this was a a result of being in limp mode and the car was saying no to the speed or the hill, or an actual transmission gear slip. So I re-cleared the errors and left it about 3 days to let the car dry out, in case it was water related. After 3 days I jacked the car up, undone, checked and cleaned the plugs on the gearbox, tcm ecu, and relays. Everything seemed dry and fine, so I put it all back together. I also checked the transmission lines, cooler, and pan for leakages, the lines and cooler seemed fine, the pan seemed fine although there was gunk over the front of it, likely from an oil leak (the oil sump was covered in gunk as well). Unfortunately it's not easy to check the fluid levels in these things, so I have no idea what the level is. After a short drive (30 metres) I got two more codes; 049 Symptom Gangueberwachung (Symptom Gear Check) 053 Gangueberwachung 3 (Gear Check 3) So something's clearly up with it although I'm not sure what. It's consistently giving me errors, although the errors aren't consistent and are for different gears (2, 3, and 4). I'm guessing it's possibly not gear specific, but a problem like bung sensors, low fluid, or something else. Anyone got any ideas as to what's going on? The car's had some love recently (fairly new RE002/003's all around, new battery), and it would be a shame to scrap it if it can be fixed. Thanks! Scott

Bump: dropping the price to $50. Reply here or PM if you're keen. If no-one's keen @50 then I'll have to try trademe.