balancerider

Any recommendations for powder coating wheels in Welly? The diamond cut finish on mine has a case of corrosion under the lacquer (which seems inevitable). Thinking of getting them redone in factory ferric grey uni.

@Neil McCauley you may well be right, Sreten of M539 has a set in his latest E39 touring restoration...they're not very well bolstered though.

I know beggars can't be choosers with E39 M5 spec but the sunroof and comfort seats spoil it for me, should have sports seats IMO (can't imagine many people deliberately despecced them). Price looks decent though

Surprising really, wouldn’t have valued it much above 75k?

message @promo

you might want to add a link? N53 is trouble c.f. N52 or even the turbocharged ones, seems the injectors and NOX sensor are prone to issues and new ones are $$$$ if you can find them

Sport steering wheel next?

Leather sports seats and an LSD ftw...assuming both of those items were cheaper than they would be for an E30? Love these E34's - there's a manual 525ix touring around the corner that I'm contemplating putting a 'will you sell me your car?' note on

Definitely should be 12 months. pre-2000 is the current cutoff for 6 month WOF

@Kees those Style 216 rims really suit it, prefer them to the standard 17/18's. LMB is the best colour I think. With a new bumper you shouldn't have much trouble moving it on.

Experienced this shambolic bit of administration first hand today. SH2 is 80kph between Featherston and Carterton despite being the straightest widest piece of road in the area...but turn off onto a secondary road and 100kph is fine. NZTA can get f**ked

Jon (and Auto38) are now in Marton - sadly for those of us of us still in Welly

How big is your parking compound these days @Kees?

Vintage BMW parking 🙄

An actual E60 M5 ( @Jun's?) at Powerhaus Thorndon on my way to work today

No. They have valvetronic / CCV issues as well. Just avoid unless you know exactly what you are getting yourself into. There is a reason there are so many 'my E90 320i is broken' threads on here.

That’s not going to shift with those janky aftermarket headlights IMO

If you have an iphone and bluetooth obd adapter, bimmerlink app will let you choose appropriate amperage battery and code to car.

They both use Getrag GS6 but the 335 gearboxes are rated for higher torque. Different length driveshafts also

Fair points @Vass. The power delivery is actually not unpleasant on the N46 if you can get the engine oilproof and it's quite a light engine...those are probably the only two positives. I thought a rear bumper in this colour shouldn't be too hard to source. The light error will be a problem with the footwell module, relatively easily fixed. Sunroof might be more of a challenge.

Having watched a LOT of M539 restorations on youtube lately I'm finding myself unexplainably drawn to this - downsides are the fact that its' ass is dragging on the ground (presume cheap lowering springs), it's cosmetically pretty rough and most of all it's powered by the shitty N46. But it's a well specced manual 3 series touring so possibly worth saving despite that. Reckon you could probably triple / quadruple your purchase price to get it going well though. WOF history suggests it hasn't had much love for a while https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/320i/listing/3958250879

Lovely touring @darren_mk (the M3 isn't bad either). Hopefully this one escaped the UK quickly enough for rust not to become an issue. The 3L diesel is a fantastic unit in a car of this size.

@aja540i sums up my conflicted feelings on this car. Awesome engine but just doesn’t suit the kind of utility I would expect from a wagon (due to the combination of thirst and small fuel tank)

Not sure if it is the same one. Don’t think the other black one had a sunroof? Also this one has been on 6 different plates since arrival and is now running a beautiful set of Goodrides to put down the 400kW. I love the idea but I think I’ll pass on this one EDIT: it’s definitely not the same one, I remember now that one had a hitch receiver towbar