Vass

Sounds like a rough introduction, but on the bright side, you started off with one of BMW's worst engine from the past 20 odd years, so things can only go up from there. I'm willing to bet the valve stem seals will be shot on the little ti, very common issue on those N42 engines. Very tedious job replacing those, probably beyond the average DIY enthusiast and you do need some special tools. I've done it once and it took the better part of a weekend. You'll be looking at close to a $2k bill if taking it to a shop. The ti is a fun wee car but unfortunately the 4-cylinders in them are absolute pigs and are more trouble than they're worth. Either engine swap it or get rid would be my recommendation. I dare say you'll have a much better experience with the 6-cylinder, although not without its issues. Luck be with you!

Test drove a couple of these before settling for my Swift Sport. The GTI felt real nice and torquey, real fun to drive being a manual and would no doubt blow the Swift out the water performance wise. I absolutely loved the GTI Recaros too, incredibly comfortable but the rest of the interior was what did it for me. Whilst the Polos were seemingly the nicer places to be in, both examples I viewed were really ragged on the inside despite being otherwise quite well looked after - sagging headliners, scratched up and cracked bits of dash, buttons worn and peeling, sagging door card fabrics... All seemed like typical faults, the interiors just didn't appear to hold up to wear & tear all that well, which I felt like would have been too annoying to live with long term. Whilst the Swift was all bare bones & hard plastic on the inside, you could barely find any wear at all, apart from a worn seat bolster. Funnily enough, my Swift Sport also came with factory Recaros so at least it's even on the seat front.

Wow, that's a trip! You're probably right about the cause of the failure but would be interesting to hear what Powerflex come back with. Do you really need poly back there though? Could just go with Meyle HD with solid rubber - sure, it won't last forever but, evidently, neither does this. How have you found NHV with poly diff bushes btw?

Nice job, looks great! Make sure you protect it well. Washing the car has been a breeze ever since I did mine.

Discovered some numpties had tried breaking into my poor little Swift over the weekend. Hadn't driven it since Friday morning and only discovered the damaged glass Monday evening. No idea what they were trying to do, almost as if trying to pry the glass out from the bottom, also left a scratch down the door and door handle. Something must have stopped them at the last moment (or maybe just noticed that it's a manual...) as they never gained entry. Only needed a wee push of a finger and the glass shattered into pieces. Absolutely nothing of value inside the car so not sure what the point of it was. Lucky that the quarter glass just slides in and is wedged in the frame and isn't glued/bonded in like on BMW's. Quick trip to pick-a-part, $55 and less than an hour of tinkering later she was back in one piece. Was told at check out that I was far from the first one that day to be after a quarter glass. Sign of the times.

Yeah you need a special set of drifts/punches to install the detents and guide sleeves. Happy to lend it out to you, just cover return shipping. Can't remember the detents themselves being that pricey. I got mine from Schmiedmann a few years ago. One of the pins was expensive, the others were fairly cheap. Can't tell if it's the 5th or reverse one but part number 23-31-7-502-165 - looked through my order history and I paid 59.01 EUR back then, now it's gone all the way up to 81.64 EUR. Yikes. I got my DSSR from BM Speed Shop, a local fella here in Christchurch. Quality was decent and very reasonable price. Not sure what length you'd need but he might be able to advise or even make a custom one for you if no other ones suit.

No, the rears were just regular. Funnily enough I've since gone back to it to grab a few other smaller bits and ran into another X5 owner who was hoping for some heated rears too. I didn't even know that was an option until that point. I was actually relieved to find that mine had the regular coil suspension at the rear, I feel like the pneumatic system might be more trouble that it's worth. Have been vary of air suspension ever since my dad's disaster purchase of a Land Rover Disco II way back when. Amongst a laundry list of issues he had with that car, the rear bags developed a rapid leak at one point and he was stuck riding around nose up for a few weeks like some ghetto low rider. Ended up getting a coil spring conversion kit for a third of the price of replacement air bags. Pano roof would have been nice but another potential source of issues. There was an X3 with heated seats for sale in Otago a while ago with a supposed blown head gasket, think was only asking around $2k. If it were local I would have grabbed it to part out, even just for the seats. I'm still looking for a pair for my E46 but pretty sure they would have also been interchangeable with the X5. I've got a spare X5 switch panel with heated seat buttons sitting in a box somewhere, happy to send it your way if you happen to come into possession of some heated seats.

Have you tried these on your touring at all? Wonder how they'd look/fit?

Was taking a casual stroll through Pick-A-Part the other week when by chance I caught a glimpse of a rare sight in these parts - a rogue X5. Must have been a rush on a Friday to duck out of work as it was yet to be listed on the website so I managed to get in there nice and early. Weirdly enough, another thing they forgot to do was remove the battery. Lucky for me, it made removing the rather tidy heated seats that much easier, or even at all possible. Somehow crammed the seats in the trusty old Swift and scooted home. Did manage to grab a few other handy bits whilst I was there, including the boot cargo cover, which ended up having a bit of an adventure of its own. While I was loading up the seats, I put the cargo cover onto the roof of the car, which... of course I completely forgot about. Managed to get all the way to the main road, got on the gas and heard it tumbling all the way along the roof before crashing down onto the road behind me with a massive thump. Lucked out that there wasn't any cars closely following me, pulled over to the side of the road and bolted to grab before it got run over. Got a bit banged up but somehow the damage ended up being purely aesthetic and still works well enough. Another lucky break. Anyway, got the seats home and gave them a good clean. Used some Lux Soap Flakes / Softly Laundry Flakes for the initial wash, a "hack" I'd read about from some thread on here a while back. I've had a leather recoloring kit from Clyde's Leather Company sitting on a shelf for a while and finally put it to good use. Happy enough to recommend the kit itself but goddamn are they annoying - if you end up going for the same kit, do yourself a favour and opt out of all comms as soon as you've placed your order - I must have gotten more than a dozen emails with "news", requests for reviews, "special offers" and whatnot within the first week. Filled in a few of the bigger scratches/cracks with the leather filler, let it dry, sanded it down a bit with some 600-grit, wiped the whole seat down with alcohol and applied 2 coats of the recoloring balm, then let it fully dry for 2 days before applying the conditioning cream. Initially made the seats real greasy but the shine has come down since, leaving a nice, subtle finish. Got the old seats out, gave the carpets underneath a thorough vacuum, transferred over the seat belt buckles and dropped the new seats in. Unlike the E46, the X5 comes pre-wired for the heated function so all that needed doing is hook up the seats, swap out the switch panel and that was that. Did check over all of the fuses - there's two that correspond to the heated seats, both were already installed but one had a 5A fuse instead of the 30A it was supposed to house. Easy fix. The original seats weren't in terrible condition but the base did have more cracks in the leather and were looking slightly more tired. The new ones didn't really need a full re-dye and could have gotten away with just a good clean but figured I might as well. Both had similar wear in the bolsters but not terrible enough to warrant tackling at this stage. Here's the two driver's seats for comparison. ORIGINAL SEAT NEW SEAT - post clean NEW SEAT - post re-dye & conditioner Not a perfect job, the finish is a bit patchy in places with some shinier bits sticking out but on the whole a massive improvement - some bigger cracks filled in, some cracks are still visible under certain light but don't stick out nearly as much being colored in and a much deeper tone of black overall. Was surprised to discover that even the extendable thigh bolsters have heating elements in them. Always assumed only the base and seat back would be heated but that's a nice bonus. That's the wife's biggest gripe with the X5 taken care of, should keep her nice and warm in the winter. Wouldn't mind these in the E46 but hey, happy wife - happy life.

No no nooo don't do that on alcantara, do not get it wet, it'll dry to a crispy finish and will never be the same. You need to be real gentle with it, heaps of detailing videos on the topic on YouTube. Basically just spray conservative amounts of APC on a brush, agitate and wipe off with a microfible cloth. Pretty much as with suede. Real easy to ruin.

Don't think the 330 ones will work. You're running a 325ti exhaust, right? The 330 tips are different to the 325/320 ones. The 330 exhaust has little plates welded to the sides of the pipes, the tips have sort of a hook type of latch that grabs onto those plates. The 325 pipes don't have those plates on the sides so the 330 tips would just be dangling loose. The 325/320 tips are different in that they've got wee wedge latches on 3 sides and the tips are just held on real tight with friction. I don't think I've ever seen chrome tips on anything below a 330 in the wild tho so ended up buying those tips brand new. They do clean up the look quite well.

I remember seeing this car around the internets quite a bit, used to be owned by an enthusiast for quite a few years, looked really well sorted and tastefully modified - was manual, lowered, had nice wheels, bucket seats, fully certified etc. At one point the owner got a chance to buy a cheap M3 so decided to let it go, couldn't find a buyer at the price he was happy with so made more financial sense to part out, which he did through Weitz who I guess put it back together with what they had. Some nice bits on it still but does have a bit of history. The cert probably works against it at this stage.

Thanks! Had to restrain myself from making some crude joke there. Because I'm an aDuLt now.

Being the hoarder that I am, I had managed to acquire a couple of spare sets of black cube trims over the years and finally got around to doing something with them. All of the pieces, including the ones installed in the car, had varying degrees of wear and scratches so I've been meaning to do a mini-restoration for a while. Could always just redo it in semi-gloss black but fancied a bit of a colour change and went for a silver tone to sort of emulate the clubsport silver trims. Went to Spraystore, showed them what I was after and instead of custom-mixing something they recommended the off-the-shelf silver wheel paint, which was pretty close to the tone I wanted. Gave the pieced a light sand with 600/2000 grit, masked off the inner edges on a few pieces, wiped down with alcohol and gave them 3-4 light coats (10 minutes between coats), followed by 2 coats of matte clear for a bit of protection. The coats were light enough to retain the cube texture and not look too dull. Might have turned out a tad brighter than I would have liked but on the whole I do quite like it. Will see how I feel about it in a few months' time but so far I'm pleased with the outcome. The wife said she liked it better all black. I guess haters gonna hate.

I take that as a personal insult An engine rebuild isn't cheap. An engine swap, unless like for like, is multiples of that.