gjm

Took Mrs M's Baur to have the hole in the sill sorted. Could be a while, but the guy overseeing the work was factory trained and has worked on BMWs for over 30 years, and remembers when E30s were new. Sadly, while there, I found that someone has tapped the front bumper hard enough to slightly deform the wheelarch. On the other side to the rust. ? Very unhappy about that. But it too, will be sorted.

14" Basket weaves needing a refurb - $500 (although fitted with good condition, but very-cheap-to-buy tyres). 15" basket weaves - $2k. The world has gone quite, quite mad.

Presumably a shipment from overseas, with the customs form saying "GST paid", would clear customs in NZ without issue...?

Shouldn't be any additional charges on receipt in NZ - MyUS is playing GST collector for NZ and charging the recipient (you, me, etc) the GST before they'll ship. Unfortunately it does mean paying local taxes in the US (if any) and paying GST, as the initial shipment will be a domestic one and thus not tax exempt.

I'm still not seeing how the NZ gubbmint has convinced every seller on Earth that they're going to collect the GST!

Alternatively, and avoiding the need to have long ramps stored away, get hold of 8 12"x12"x2" pieces of wood. Jack your car up, pop some of these under the wheel, and you're good to go. Just don't try to drive off them...

Gave the Baur a wash. And found a liitle hole has formed in a usual E30 place - bottom of the front wing, in front of the passenger side door. Suggestions for superb bodywork in Hawke's Bay?

Go to a timber merchant and buy a length, or offcuts, of wide planking, and make your own. This has the added advantage that, if your car is particularly low, you can extend the initial part of the ramp much further. Something like this (30 seconds with MS Paint!): Make sure the planks are secured together, with no sharp pointy bits anywhere that might make contact with you or tyres.

I have a set of 15x7 et15 Ronal rims - sounds like this would fit quite nicely. <thinking...> ?

What size rims are needed with these?

5 unanswered questions... Zooming in on the pic, the writing 'RECON ELECTRONICS LTD' can be seen, which is the actual name of the company. They've been around a while and appear to be a husband and wife team (with backing); their returns are all up to date. Bizarre that they seem to be refusing to answer a simple question.

One that's not been mentioned is Speed NZ in Tauranga. They're an ATE agent. No idea how good, bad or otherwise they might be.

An insufficient number of fingers, hands, wrists, arms and so being broken.

Can't answer about free shipping, but something has happened re shipping from Germany. I used to be able to ship from there, often by DHL, for €49-€79 for a set of 4 shock absorbers. About 2 years ago that suddenly increased to €200 or more, regardless of source.

Never ceases to amaze me that in a country this small, with so much activity in niche groups, there still seems to be an endless stream of rare(r) vehicles popping up.

My experience in similar accidents (although anecdotal) is that the reversing party is almost invariably found to be at fault. No excuse for the speed the van was moving at, and the van driver would have had a decent view of you and your movement, and should have acted accordingly. He was probably on his phone so not looking at the parked cars.

Fair enough. And - agreed. ?