gjm

Sorry - I feel this is worth reinstating. This is $5000 - $7000 in insurance. Sounds ridiculous? No-one in the UK ever admitted it was even the remotest possibility until it happened. Oh, but it'll be the law... Hah! As if that'll stop anyone faced with a $5k+ bill for insurance. More burned-out shells on the side of the road.. "Musta bin nicked, off sir... I wuz off me face, innit? Woodn drive like that, wood I???" (Yes - this post fueled by animosity towards uninsured, off-their-faces drivers [in their 20s] who couldn't care less about young families driving carefully...)

Damnit. Anyone interested in a monumentally reliable 318i manual?

Only option is to not use Euro-style plates. NZTA decree what we can use and where we buy from. Official source, or they are illegal. (And tes - the supplier is Australian. ???)

1. Absolutely. 2. Smash Palace in Palmy are supposed to be good? 3. The 525e !

Naah... Fun is when the drivers door is deadlocked, and won't open from the inside or outside and you have to dismantle the whole thing from inside the car!

The enjoyment remains long after the cost is forgotten. And imagine the satisfaction of knowing you've saved a M535i. Rebuilding the 525e with the 'M' bits is certainly the more economic option, but (in your mind) it will always be a 525e.

Yup - see below... Worked that out in the end! Still got to check it all out. Something is rubbing/catching. Haven't connected the lectrickery to the motor, but manual raising and lowering doesn't feel right. And... I worked out a way to get my huge hands into a position where I could nut'n'bolt the regulator into place.

Could be. Rain stopped 'play'... But I'm having all sorts of problems getting the holes to line up. They're a hole width out at present. I'm using new nylon sliding blocks but finding they are stiff to turn on the regulator arm knobs - is that usual?

I would prefer to, but can't see how I'm going to get to the back of two of them.

Replaced the drivers door window regulator in the E36 318i. What a palaver. FFS BMW - did you run out of fixings when doing this? 4 rivets, a torx head bolt, a hex head bolt, a crosshead screwdriver bolt... Too much to ask for any sort of standardisation? The old regulator was bent, twisted, and not running in the window channels at all - once I'd got all the fixings out of the way, it came straight out of the door, with no need to detach from from the window at all. I'd straightened the arms before but obviously not well enough. Pics of the old, and the replacement which will go back in. I'll replace the plastic sliders before refitting. Time to polish up on my riveting skills.

5 TradeMe auctions. Over 1200 views and 250 watchers between them. Not one single bid on any of them.

Waved 'bye-bye' to the 318Ci...

It's not just me that thinks that, then!

No help if wanting to get anything done outside... Sunny - great. But everything is saturated and sitting in puddles.

Dunno about the CEL, but I think there's a low coolant warning light.

Not quite what I meant... What would you do with the 'M' if the 525e was out of the picture? Not saying it will be, but it might help decide on a direction?

It is a bit wild'n'woolly this morning.

This was Facebook, which is probably worse!

Another way to approach this is to consider: what would you do if you sold the 525e?

The 318Ci is listed at $3250. Just received this: I'm struggling to continue being a nice guy...

Washed and hoovered the 318Ci, cleaned the glass... And showed a father and son around it. They liked it, took it for a test drive and will be in touch tomorrow. Did the same for the 318i and took some pics. Not shown that to anyone, though.