rxsumo

There have been two 535 manuals for sale in Trade-me of late.Check out the closed auctions, the other one up north I think was probably better spec'd than this car. The reserve from memory on both of these cars was $7K. http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/C...on-31374687.htm Based on some on the questions answered so far, if you were to look at this car, I would count on spending some money. It would appear that no major overhaul work has been done to the driveline. My car required gearbox bearings (and synchro rings)at around 140K km, so if this hasnt been done, I'm guessing with 200K miles its going to be due at some stage. When Geartech did the job they commented on how expensive the bearings were (gearbox done under vehicle warranty) At 200K miles (320K km) with no engine work at all, surely the engine is on borrowed time, a full compression test however would reveal the actual story. The comment about the electrics may be typical with a British import, but isnt the normal for NZ cars as far as I was aware (apart from the boot loom...see kiwi535's posting about the issue). You would have to query what caused the electric's to crap out, and whether any permanent damage has been done. I'm assuming that time and environment rather than mileage would drive the electrics problem, and are you likely to be buying into an ongoing electrics nightmare (typical of some of the Hong Kong import horror stories I've heard). I'm not too sure about the body kit, it's not the "standard" one on the NZ new E34 535 manuals. I'm not bagging the car....I havent seen it up close, but reading the articles from the British BMW mags, you would be better looking for one of the NZ new 535 manuals. The spec is better....the NZ new cars had as a minimum about 90% of the available options ticked, where the British spec'd cars seemed to be a little basic.

I'd be guessing but the gearboxes are probably like rocking horse poos, and priced accordingly.I'd check with Mosen's or SD's for the price of a gearbox/flywheel/pedalbox and perhaps driveshaft, the gearbox needs to be for the "big" engine rather than the "small" engine which are a little more common. You might rethink the need for a manual once these guys price up the bits.

I'm guessing your fiqures might be optimistic.......Source:http://www.automobilemag.com/auto_shows/paris_2004/0411_m5/ BMW M5 Timeline: First Generation, 1984-87 286-hp inline six 0-60 mph in 6.5 seconds Total production: 2200 units Second Generation, 1988-95 315-hp inline six 0-60 mph in 6.3 seconds Total production: 12,000 units Third Generation, 1998-2003 400-hp V-8 0-60 mph in 5.3 seconds Total production: 20,000-plus units Fourth Generation, 2005 debut (on sale in U.S. fall 2005, estimated price $85,000) 500-hp V-10 0-60 mph in 4.7 seconds Total production: Time will tell

As for the model collection.... Pretty much all the James Bond, Corgi and John Lighning BMWs (along with the non BMW stuff) 1/12 Kyosho Z8 James Bond....real leather seats, material softtop 1/18 Tin plate BMW 2000C remote control 1/43 Marklin 2000C 1/43 various E30 Group A M3s 1/43 E34 Polizei 535 1/32 Corgi E34 525 some Burrago E34 535s,(and a Z3) 1/43 Solido E9 "Bat mobile" 1/87 Herpa Alpina B10 Twin Turbo Trying to hunt down a Schucco E3 2500 at a reasonable price......

If you want E39 models...In the small sizes....I think Matchbox do one, SIKU definately do them.... For 1/72 try Herpa....they have a website For 1/43 stuff try searching the net...Pauls Model Art/Autoart....Schucco Try searching www.grandprixmodels.co.uk

A mate of mine, has owned both, from new/nearly new. E34 535/E32 735 automatics The 7 series was the cheaper to run on a daily basis. I find that our 535 (manual), is thirsty to run daily....typically 14-17 MPG around town, 18-20 MPG on a trip. The fuel economy has been checked and is regarded as normal. (its about the same as my 4 speed E3 3.0Si) My dirty old XF Falcon Ute will do 20MPG around town and 25-28 MPG on a trip

Looking at the gearlever shot, I'm actually wondering if somebody has tried recolouring (or repainting), the leather previously.... maybe thats why the pigment is coming off. Check the brake rotors to see if they have lips at the outer edges, and if you can check them for minimum thickness (remove wheel...vernier time) If Shelly's have just serviced the car...see if you can get a full history....or at least the NZ Service History for the car. You should be able to see what work has been done on the car. Try one of the leathercare speciallists for a quote for recolouring the Leather. Tunleys in Ngauranga reclour leather car upholstery

Geez ...some people write some crap....... I'm assuming by thrashed you are concerned about how the car has been looked after, rather than the mileage the car has done. Personally I'd be more interested in how the cars been treated when cold, whether the car has been kerb'ed regularly, or if its been serviced as per BMW's recommendations. The condition of the leather is unlikely to be a sign that the car has been thrashed... I'd look at the condition the wheels are in, and possibly the condition of the brake rotors, these would tend to indicate whether somebody has looked after and serviced the car rather than the condition of the leather. Does the car have any service history? The condition of the leather colouring (the leather hasnt actually worn through, its only the colour pigment), could be affected by the heat the car has been exposed to....did one of the owners use a lot of makeup or have aftershave on their hands prior to driving the car....the alcohol would dry the leather out. The MOMO wheel on on of my RX7s looked like that after about 15-20K....a combination of fuel and oil residue on my hands, the heat from being parked outside, and a lack of leather conditioner, probably did the rest. A good indicator of the actual run time of the mechanicals would be to check out the arm-rests.....pedals can be changed easily....door panels arent...are they droopy or loose...or showing signs of wear. This might indicate the car has had a driver in the cockpit for a good while. If the car has come in from Japan, you might find the engine has done more "mileage" than indicated mileage....quite often people will park up and leave the engine running to keep the air con going. We saw a VW Golf in Tokyo, the driver obviously waiting for someone, parked up with the engine running when we went out for dinner. A hour later it hadnt move....engine still running....

The 3.5 litre engine wont be cheap to run as a daily....expect between 15-17 MPG around town, and you will be lucky to break into low 20s touring. Rust is the biggie, the BMW Coupes, were built by Karmann, and have a worst problem with rust than the BMW saloons. Beware of British imports.....the car will probably be a horror story underneath. If you can find an NZ new with FSH history...then you are probably on to a good car.....otherwise have the car checked out by somebody that knows BMWs. Metric tyres are unavailable....so if the car is fitted with metric rims....count on replacing them. Standard alloys and tyres are relatively cheap on Trade-Me if you can wait for the good deals

Funny you should mention Bio-Fuels...... I was at the MoT's seminar for the upcoming emissions regulations earlier in the week, and the issue of Bio-Fuels came up. The government passed the specification for up to 10% ethanol in pump gas back in 2002. The issue is that the fuel companies are a little scared of doing it, because they are unsure of the impact to your car, and the possible negative impact on their wallet when you sue them for damages. The problem is that the manufacturers wont tell anybody what models will happily accept the fuel with no ill affects.......and the vicious cycle begins I didnt note the stats....(I thought I have a slide somewhere), but I think I heard that using ethanol for blending will make something like a 0.8% difference in our petrol consumption.....one of the other attendees made your point about we have millions of litres of the stuff.....we could lower our petrol usage etc...etc, and then the stats can out a while later....which sorta did the great idea...but not as practical as it seems at the onset...

I've scribed this up elsewhere but..... In the past there have been 2 major sources of gas, for NZ Marsden Point and BP's Western Australian plant. With the exception of Auckland which gets piped gas, the general rule was if your local port was big enough to take off shore tankers you got Aussie gas, if you could only accept coastal tankers you got NZ gas. Of late with things tightening up, it would seem that we are getting more gas imported from Singapore. BP Ultimate arrives in NZ as 98, which is why originally it was available in a few spots as it was Aussie gas, I'm guessing that the Ultimate "Blue" might be brewed here. Mobil's 8000 is regular premium gas with additional additives. The MON count is the pinking counter. We had my Si down south a couple of years back and our first dose of South Island Coastal gas was from Twizel, the car pinked constantly and by the time we reached Invercargill it was time for Octane Booster as the pinking was driving me nuts.....2 bottles of Octane booster later and things didnt get any better. I rang Shell to bitch about their fuel quality, and ended up speaking to a guy that had spoken to us at car club, and he explained the problem. Apparently the specification for NZ gas says that you can have up to 10 points difference between the RON and MON counts, the high compression motor in the Si wants a MON count of around 88 or better, the NZ gas at Twizel and through the lower part of the Si at the time was more like 86...hence the rattling motor. The other consideration between 91 and premium , is the physical weight of the fuel. One of the reasons that 91 may ran like crap in your late model FI cars, is that the density of the fuel is weighted for use in carburettors. Premium gas is lighter designed to flow better throughhigh pressure injectors. The engineer at Shell, who spoke to the club, when the unleaded gas was introduced, reckon the biggest issue facing the use of unleaded gas in older engines was working out timing and spark plug requirements, as the burn characteristics changed with the fuel density. and we havent even got onto winter and summer fuels.......

This information is a little bit old but....... The reason for price fixing is fairly obvious..... Where does the gas you put in you car come from. Generally there are 2 locations.....Marsden Point from a Facility owned by all the oil companies....or from BP's refinery in Western Australia. Some of the gas is now coming off the spot market from Singapore, as Aussies reserve are al ittle tight at the mo... So go ahead boycott your local gas station....at the end of the day it really doesnt matter its the same ship that delivers the gas into your local port....you might deprive the gas station of a very little retail profit....but that aint where the money is anyway. If selling gas was so profitable...why do you think that the Service Stations have branched into every other adventure under the sun. A gas station selling only petrol and nothing else, isnt worth running. Thats why when the market deregulated a few years back, all the little gas stations disappeared. A gas stations profit is in the point of sale items, like sweets,drinks,cafes, and the workshop, and any oil they can sell you.

Im Darryl and the cars are... E3....E3....E3....E34....

One of the cars that was for sale in Dixie, stated that there were only 5 imported in '90.I couldnt see them being a particularly strong seller when new, after all, they started at around $140K, so most of the buyers were probably companies, and rich old guys, and if you are buying a luxury car who the hell wants a manual! I'm guessing that the cars were also special order for the customer, rather than regular 535. You only have to look at a the slight differences in our cars. I wonder if the tally of 5 counts the Tourist Delivery Cars...like mine.

M535

ahh....According to BMW ....none. The manual E34 535's according to BMW were plain old 535's with some extra bits on them. They say that the model known as the iS was a marketing exercise only for NZ (rather than some other markets that got a true model designated iS)

I found this isnt the case with the old E3 diffs.The diffs are generally that tight they wil pass this test, the 3.0 diffs also have an enclosed spider gear diff, so at first look in the inspection hole it looks like a LSD as well! If you were to buy this as an LSD and without the benefit of a factory part number that could confirm that the diff is LSD, I would only be buying it with a conditional sale....ie if you open it up and found out it is a spider gear diff...then you get your money back.

its marked withBMW S: 8 360 066 AW: 8 377 861 Year stamp looks to be 02

Yep Fits into a slot in the glove box, you will find on the E34, when you open the glovebox a fitting on the RHS Top (on the dash not the Glove box lid) that has 2 pins sticking out, my car has a piece of foam covering the pins. For my E34 I require the "white" torch with the centred pins, the later ones use the "black" torch with the offset pins. Not too sure but I think the option was only with 5 series and bigger

I've just brought a Glovebox torch for my E34 off Ebay, and the sucker is the wrong one. Its the Black one for the later model cars. It owes me $40.00, it appears to work ok, nice and bright. I'm open for offers...PM me if you are interested

Really depends on what the day is all about. I suspect the BMW driver training is all about learning car control in environment that is relately safe, not doing hots laps at Pukekohe. As a result I would guess that you might get some full laps, but the most of the day would be about safe driving practises...Braking ...use of ABS...hazard avoidance at speed....the sort of thing the Holden Driver Training do for the Corporates. For this I suspect it really doesnt matter what car you are driving, as lessons learnt should apply to anything you drive. As for good value for money...contact Stu at Holden Driver Training and find out what they charge for a day....

I'll have to go to my Auto Salon pikkies for the HiAce ones but heres some based on the Daihatsu HiJet?

Japan most probably. You see this and more throughout Tokyo. The other crazy van they like is the HiAce VW Kombi's, there is a crowd doing both early and late Kombi fiberglass panels to fit HiAce, and they are really quite good, the windscreens and dorrs give them away....I'll see if I can get a picture.

I'm guessing that you dont have any heat shielding from your exhaust, either that or your idle circuit is too rich. Heat soak boiling the fuel in the carby or Plugs fouling with raw fuel.No reason that a BP wont idle, most of the PP's I know of will idle quite happily on pump gas (albeit in excess of 1000rpm) Unless you have cranked the timing miles too advanced, or have inserts added to the rotors, there will be no HP gains for a NA rotary. The compression ratio of the rotary is too low to require Avgas, or get massive power gains The main advantage to the Avgas in a NA rotary, is the weight of the fuel, it runs better through the carby. The Avgas might also help with lubrication from the lead additive. However its a different story for a turbo car...rotary or piston....

sort of........AVGAS is aviation fuel, supplied fresh to the airports, with a set parameters, and that includes a shelf life. Racegas is generally AVGAS, that has been removed from Airport Tanks, and then drumed up and sold on. Obviously leadfree Racegas is a special brew. Neither of these products have a octane rating as such, as the RON scale that is used for pump gas doesnt exceed 100. A comparative measure is that AVGAS would be between 118-130 Octane, depending on variations Summer/Winter etc, Racegas is at least 110 Octane