Vass

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.

I mean it looks really impressive, great deal of work that's gone in, you'd probably be hard pressed to recreate the same thing for less than what he's asking but reaaaallly niche thing to try and sell. One thing I don't get is... rebuilt engine, manual conversion, partial repaint, interior reupholstery, sound system, wheels, tires, suspension, cert etc. You go through all that effort, supposedly drop $50k getting it up to standard and... try and sell it for $28k after only putting 1,000km's on it? What was the point of it all?

Free listing days always bring out a horde of dreamers on TM but this one takes the cake for me - 2000 330i - 88,000km @ $15.5k buy now "Super barn find"; "appreciating classic"; "ready for the value to continue to appreciate for the new next owner". Non-Msport, assumedly automatic, Japanese import, last WoF'd in 2015, no doubt flat spotted & dry rotted tyres plus whatever other myriad of issues that'll crop up from not having run in 10 years. If I were asking 3-4x the market value I'd have at least given it a wash. Comes with a flag holder though so that's worth a few grand. Bloody hell.

I could come up with another dozen fresh ads that are worthy of the same title. Free listing days bring out all sorts of loons.

I've no idea what these people are playing at with their deluded price expectations. Just because a car is "low mileage" doesn't negate the fact it's riddled with 20+ year old crusty rubber and plastic that'll need significant investment to overhaul. Let alone it's not even that well spec'd - cloth non-heated seats, no steering wheel controls, no auto lights-wipers, automatic, plus it has spent 20 years of its life in Japan so could be more susceptible to rust. Who in their right mind pays 3 x the market price for this? Still, probably better value than these two grandpa spec specimens: 2001 325i - 7,500km @ $19.5k & 1998 328i - 23,500km @ $13k Do these people know we're in a recession?

The FR bumper mount/chassis rail looks to be pushed in. Not economical from an insurance point of view but I'm guessing it wouldn't be awfully difficult to repair if you wanted a tidy coupe shell.

Look like magnetic phone holders. Weird placement tho.

I'm sure some of you fellas might be interested - 1988 Coupe 320i coming up on Manheim auction. Looks real tidy apart from some front end damage, which doesn't even look too terrible. Those seats alone will be worth a fair bit. Happy hunting!

How good does this thing look! Seeing it gives me serious second thoughts about parting out our little ugly duckling of a ti I've still got sitting in a mate's paddock every time. Would be cool to chuck an M54 in it, if only I had the time... Have you thought about getting some nice chrome exhaust tips for it? Part no. 18107500194 (different to 330i ones). Only real thing that sticks out to my eye.

Damn you work quick! It's barely been out 24h 😄 I'm on episode 4