rxsumo

For looks some of the BMW Concepts must take the cake... the X Concept? For normal production cars.....any 5 series with the badges that say 518

What a load of bollocks. The modern rotary engine (post S1 RX7), will do in excess of 200K before rebuild. The biggest thing that shortens the life to the engines in the turbos is people that "monkey" around with the boost, and the issues with heat that result. I'd check the car over fairly carefully to ensure the mileage is genuine, watch out for things like 300kmh speedos, as you wont be able to tell when the speedo was fitted, and what the actual mileage is. Check the engine for any modifications to the turbos...bleed off valves...non standard wiring etc. Go to one of the reputable Rotary shops...RX7 Heaven or Rotarypower and get a compression test done, that will tell you what the engine status is.

My 50c worth. I wouldnt bother with a manual if you are going to use it as a daily in traffic. The manual is great for touring, but aint that nice around town. The clutch is fairly heavy and it will drive you nuts in stop-go commuter traffic. I'd buy a NZ New car, that way you get basically the best spec's around including LSD. If your are looking at paying between $3-4K, I'd buy a V8 - 540 instead of a 6. The V8 is likely to be more economical on a trip, but a little thirsty aroound town. The V8 in sport mode is a heap more fun than the 6. The standard problems are the front control arms, either with screwed bushes or ball joints, the bushes can be swapped by Nolathane items, but the ball jiont failure means the arms need replacing. Check EBAY for pricing. The other main issue is the Instrument Panel display dying, but there is an internet site that covers off replacing the capacitors (for the brave!) I'd go for leather over cloth...it wears better, both my "cheap" E34s have had over 200K km and the leather was pretty good. A check of TradeMe will show cars with just over the 150K km mark with worn through cloth.

Silly questions time. Is the car fitted with a 4 or 5 speed box? If it is a 4 speed box, it isnt fitted with the rubber buffer, and the most likely problem is that the shifter plate itself is broken, it fatigues the area arount the top mounts until the plate breaks.

So are you after some storage space, or interested in buying the car? The car stored in a large dry storage shed

Looking to clear out some space, so I'm keen to find a good home for this car.

I would take these ratings for the older cars with a grain of salt. The star rating requires a number of safety features (like curtain airbags etc), to obtain maximum ratings and the actual safety of the cars structure would only appear to play a small part in the overall equation. Its rather bizarre to see that an E28 rates the same as an E34. the last E34s were fitted with airbags, none of the E28s were, so my thinking is they took the worst possible spec of the model and then that was the model rating. It also doesnt take into account that the E34 has a relatively high level of rust protection, which the E28 doesnt have, and as the cars are aging, the E28 has the potential to have structure failures due to unseen corrosion in the case of a big accident. While it enables people to compare safety features "apples to apples" on modern cars, and tries to "scare" people into buying only modern cars, I think that the old car ratings are suspect. For me, if I was going to be in a fairly major crash, and I got the option, I'd rather be in my E34 rather than my E12 (which is basically a E28 anyway!)

I worked on cash registers over 25 years ago, that had plasma displays, ie they werent LED or LCD, my assumption is that the BMW displays are something similar. They had a liquid filled unit that needed voltage to fire them up so that they would light up. At the time LCD was typically a black display, that required backlighting to be illuminated.

Other stuff not already mentioned.... Plasma display in the dash can go AWOL, its a capacitor problem and there is a website that details the fix. Heater control valve can fail, this means that the heater runs hot all the time, can be temporarily resolved with a gentle tap. Check the rear end links, they are ball joints and can wear out once the rubber seals perish. If the check computer is given BS readings, just reseat the computer located in the LHS rear of the engine bay. Electric seat controls can get rather flaky over time, I've had switch illumination fail, and the memory function go west, athough the rest of the controls stayed functional Watch out for over-rated bulbs and dodgy trailer wiring. The E34s are really sensitive in wiring department. 100W bulbs will cause fuses to blow.

I don't have an issue with personalised plates...obvious or obscure, its really personal choice. We have S5BMW on the 540, only because it was a cheap BMW plate that looks a bucketload better than a standard 3 digit 3 number plate, the M535i will have 4RACN once its back on the road, thanks to trade-me we havent paid more than $200 for any of the plates we have brought over the last few years The only cars we have that dont have a personalised plate are the old cars that still run their original black plates, I think the old plates are more in character for the age of the cars.

What sort of steering wheel...I have a boss kit for SAAS wheel for a E28 that I'll sell

Actually I believe there was a model marketed in '87 or '88 in the UK as the M535i, it was a fairly base model car with a few of the M accessories, eventually these cars became either the iS in base form or the SE. In NZ however these manual cars were sometimes marketed as a S, its not a model variant as such. The manual variants got the "performance" options from the Motorsport catelogue, like the bodykit, M-Tech suspension, the big Metric wheel and tyre setup etc. Heres the information I got from BMW on my old car. Your car was original purchased through the "tourist delivery" scheme by Mr G Smith of Palmerston North on 05/04/1990. The model designation of "S" was a NZ marketing term only, as the car was assembled as an ordinary 535i, with various added options including M-Technic suspension, seats, and sports kit. There are no factory modifications to the engine. Yours faithfully, G.J.R. Wenzlick Warranty Administration BMW Group New Zealand

The E9 isnt as rare as the CHCH dealer would make out, I suspect the figures he is talking about are for the CSL not the CSi. Finding a RHD CSi or CS is relatively easy. The price is a little OTT, I would suspect that in todays market $15-20K would buy you a tidy car privately. Parts arent a really a problem either through BMW or speciallised places like Walloth and Nesch in Germany. Behind the 2002, the next most popular "classic" BMW is the E9, so parts do get remanufactured for them. http://www.wallothnesch.com/e/ The biggest problem with these cars is rust, and they are really expensive to repair properly. The worst rust area is the rear floor, not only to they rust, but the diff setup (like the E3 and E12) can cause the floor to stress, fatigue and crack. If you are looking at one of these cars you would really want to have on a hoist and have it checked out really well body wise. All the mechanicals are available as they are generally the same as the E3, and the E12.

okay for the old motors..E3 2500 Bore 86mm Stroke 71.6 C/R 9.0:1 2800 Bore 86mm Stroke 80 C/R 9.0:1 3.0S Bore 89mm Stroke 80 C/R 9.0:1 3.0Si Bore 89mm Stroke 80 C/R 9.5:1 3.0CSL Bore 89.25mm Stroke 84 C/R 9.5:1 3.3 L Bore 89mm Stroke 88.4 C/R 9.0:1 3.3 Li Bore 89mm Stroke 86 C/R 9.0:1 The only differences that I can think of would be for the accessory mounts...power steer...air con....and perhaps the harmonic balancer. Most of the blocks that I have seen are marked up with the engine displacement 2500/2800 3.2/3.5, which I assume refers to base bore size. I havent checked out an E34 block, but the E23 735 engine I have, accepts all the E3 engine mounts, the only difference was the dissy & location, water feeder pipes and the sump/oil pickups

are you talking short block or long block? I can get the differences for the early blocks from the service manual...bore/stroke stuff The engines have quite a lot of differences in the head/cam setup as the transition from carbies to the different types of FI/ Engine Management systems Sumps/oil pickups vary model to model

NZ Launch of the E34 was at the Auckland Motor Expo in July '88

We have sortta covered this off before. According to BMW NZ, the HD12 is a "special" car, BUT it is not a "M" car nor is it a "iS", it is a standard 535i, manual with a few (actually just about every one )option boxes ticked. The british M535i and 535iSE are pretty much in the same box, they are locally spec'ed cars with a badge engineered designation. The british M535i and SE's appear at face value to be lower in base spec to the NZ New 535i manuals, however the brits seemed to like ticking the option box at the time of ordering. Things like the M535i, had cloth manual seats, and manual air con, and the standard alloys in base spec, whereas the NZ car was "stock" spec with leather sports seats, the big metric wheels, and climate air (along with the body kit, sports suspension, 10 speaker stereo etc etc)

I'm all in for a party but you might be 12 months too late. A check on the www.realoem.com site shows the following start production dates for E34...... 535i 03/87 520i,525i,530i 06/87 524tD 07/87 perhaps we could do a release in NZ do.....I've probably got the actual date of release in the stuff I have at home.

The roads werent too bad, we had a stock XK8 and a 968 ragtop that have survived the gravel sections. Here's some photos of the third day The worst road of the day swamp road.....

The 3.0S has finally got to taste gravel in the South Island. Day 1 was Methven to Palmerston using Mckenzies Pass and the Hakataramea Pass. Here's the old gal at the end of the McKenzie pass road before hooking left to go up the Hakataramea to Kurow Day 2 Was Palmerston to Gore using such bits of the road like the old Dunstan Gold Trail road You know the road is going to be interesting when you get welcomed by signs like this: Anyway we got through it to views like this: Day 3 Was Gore through to Alexandra using the Lake Onslow Road, photos to come...

I'm not too sure that I would totally agree with some of the comments here. The most problematic thing about the auto trans from what I've been lead to believe is the organic material used for the drive clutches, and these seem to die with time. The box in our old 535 was "dying", the symptoms were really slow 1-2 change when cold, sometimes it wouldn't select 2 at all, it would select a neutral, and it would improve once the car had warmed up, a flush and a fresh lot of fluid worked wonders. However the trans can be rebuilt using aftermarket parts, and from the fiqures I've seen posted is around 4K, which seems similar to other autos...like Falcon....although I havent done the exercise in pricing it up myself. The manual box is a little different, I ended up having the box in our manual 535 rebuilt at 150K, the symptoms were that the car was jumping out of first occasionally when taking off from a start. The problem was put down to a very slight amount of freeplay in the bearings although once the box was opened they found that the syncros were shagged as well, while the major component was paid for by the mechanical insurance they played hard ball with the syncros and I ended up coughing up $500 for the syncro rings, and the gearbox repairer commented that I was "lucky" as they ended up having to use geniune BMW bearings in the gearbox, and the sycnros were the cheapest part of the rebuild. So I would gather that the E34 5 speeds may not be as cheap to repair in comparison to the auto. Personally I reckon the 540 even with the auto is a great car, and because we use it as a daily driver with a relatively short haul into the city, I dont miss the old manual 535 at all. And the 540 is cheaper to run on a trip

Are you sure that the car wasnt actually just suffering from crap gas? We had a run down south a few years back, and my 3.0Si was running sweet until I gassed at Twizel. I couldnt get the timing back far enough to stop the knocking, in fact by the time I got to Invercargill I even tried about a litre of Octane Booster, and that didnt help. I rang Shell and spoke to their engineering expert who checked the fuel that was being supplied to the gas station, apparently some of the SI gas stations were supplied with a MON rating very close to the lower limit, any car running a highish C/R would pink. The situation showed up a couple of years later with an old 2500 as well, that didnt clear up until we got Challenge at a small gas station near Picton. Personally I think Fuel Star is another version of snake oil, if it was soooooo good, how come the manufacturers dont fit it to all their cars.......

South Africans didnt to my knowledge...... The SA Chevrolets did consist of some cosmetically altered Aussie Holdens but it was GM marketing GM cars. The Roadpacer was a HZ Premier fitted with a 13B and slushbox, and was done as a deal probably to give GM some access to Rotary technology, to sort out the issues with their Monza/Corvette Prototypes. Mazda needed a big car to meet some corporate contracts.

Mine was the same spec (with 180K and a rebuilt gearbox), The best offer I got from TradeMe was just over $4K, and it sat there for around 8 months. It eventually sold for $7K with the 17 inch RD rims through a private side sale. Considering that there was a red one sitting in a dealer in Paraparaumu with less kms and for the same price the guy is dreaming.

Actually 5 body shapes. The South African E12 (officially known as an E28, Vehicle code 4709), was last produced in '85.