Vass

Didn't stick for long https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/750i/listing/4556515991

Ahh man, well done! What a wee weapon. Looks so good in white, and the ride height looks absolutely bang on. Keen to hear how you go with the exhaust, looking to add a bit of sound to mine at some point as well. Was just clearing out the garage yesterday and stumbled upon a spare air intake scoop thingy. Was gonna go in the bin but happy to send it your way to save the scrap yard trip. Also have a few spare steering wheel button panels if you wanted cruise & media controls. Where'd you get those shifter & handbrake boots from? Hardly see any RHD ones around, or was it a DIY effort?

Personally, I just rubbed off the rubbery gunk to expose the bare plastic and left it at that. Have just been putting on some protectant a couple of times a year (Aerospace 303). Looks nice and matte, a few years in and don't really see the benefit of putting on some coats of paint.

Guy selling it is a mate of a mate, have seen the car a few times. A few imperfections here & there but plenty of car for the money. Happy to make contact and check it out more thoroughly for you.

Yes. Until I've saved up enough to buy it in 10 years time... Gorgeous machine. Glws but you should probably keep it.

Hey, at least you still have a physical dipstick by the sounds of it. They seem to be replacing those with just an electronic sensor nonsense on all the newer cars nowadays...

Weird one. If leaking from between engine and transmission then the most obvious source would be the rear main seal, although normally it would be a pretty slow drip. Are you sure it's engine oil and not ATF? Not sure of what the industry standard would be on that. If it were my car then I would have done the rear main seal preventatively as it's quite an easy job with the engine out of the car but an absolute pain if not. I guess at the very least would have expected them to inspect it prior to install and advise to replace if found to be weeping. Then again they might have damaged something during the install, who knows... Weirdly enough, a colleague of mine has a 116i of the same chassis. Last year the engine gave up with apparent loss of compression. Replacement engine got put in under mechanical insurance, a few weeks later engine starts to overheat, gets taken back to mechanic, deemed to be a loose coolant pipe. Eerily similar story to yours, wonder if there's some common coolant pipe that's a pain to install or something...

Yeah I've heard of that. Apparently you have to pretend to be a Timaru local though? Good news on the Rolleston fella, hope it takes off, the Chch fellas are long overdue a kick up the ass.

Just checked again, and she's live! Will get a WoF booked in. Hallelujah!

Yeah will give them feedback regardless whether it gets resolved this week or not, would expect much better with the amount of money you're shelling out. It's a tricky one as the next closest certifier is all the way in Timaru so really wouldn't want to go on a full on war path and end up in the guy's bad books if I ever need stuff certified again...

Bummer but hopefully it's something simple. Did you clear adaptations at all? Sometimes it will take a wee while for the DME to adjust to a "new normal" and it will be a bit erratic until the first proper drive. Have you checked codes? I've had a code for "idle control valve stuck open" so could be something like that. What sort of smoke tester did you go for? Recently did a bit of logging and found Long Term Fuel Trims sitting at 8.5% so am looking to get one as well. Have heard good things about the AutoLine Pro range, supposedly comes with free shipping through Amazon so leaning towards that but keen to hear what you've found.

Not per se. The typical stuff like has to be garaged while not in use and assumed up to 10k km's a year. Not sure how that's policed though. The tag is on the car and have the paperwork/receipt from the certifier saying that it's passed inspection but doesn't say what it's certified for though. Wasn't enough for the WoF guy. I've still been driving it on occasion with the paperwork on board. I'd probably be able to reason with a police officer if I were to be pulled over, don't think it'd be as straight forward if I were to make an insurance claim though...

Not much to report on as far as the car itself goes, just some battles on the bureaucracy front. Had a valuation report done through NZVV. Came out to my place, took some pictures and had a chat, gave me a rundown on the mechanics behind how the valuation shakes out. Settled on $15k. Would have liked it to be higher but probably about right as to the market value if I were to sell it today. Main thing is that the higher the agreed value, the less likely it is to be written off in a fender bender. Forwarded the report on to Classic Cover who came back with a quote that I snapped up straight away. $15,000 agreed value, $570 yearly premium, $250 excess. That compared to the spit-in-the-face renewal letter I got from AA... $5,800 agreed value, $960 yearly premium, $500 excess. Make that make sense. Getting pretty annoyed with the certifier as the cert tag still hasn't gone live. The old WoF has now run out and I can't get a new one until the tag shows up online so the car is out of action. Been chasing the guy up repeatedly but he keeps on blowing smoke up my ass. First he said he'd upload the data to the LVVTA database the day of the cert but said it's unlikely to get approved until middle of January due to Christmas closures and all. Chased him up 2 weeks ago and he claimed it'd be live later that week. It wasn't. Called up LVVTA directly to check the status only to find out there's still no records for my car in the system so the certifier still hasn't submitted anything. Chased him up again on Wednesday, got told that it's "up for processing" on Thursday and should be live on Friday. Sure enough, still nothing. Not sure if this is just misleading anymore, starting to veer into the straight up lying territory from the guy. Will give it another week and might just show up in person. Getting pretty ridiculous at this point. Have read reports of tags going live the day of the inspection with other certifiers, unfortunately here in Christchurch it's pretty much a monopoly and the dude can just get away with taking your money and then dragging his feet forever. A mate had to wait 4 months from the date of inspection to his tag going live. I don't intend on waiting that long sitting down. But hey, at least I didn't have to get driveshaft hoops...

Bit off topic but have been curious on this for a while. Is there a reason people are opting for M52 conversions as opposed to M54? Have a mate that just got his E30 certified with an M52B28 and have heard of a few others too. I would have thought the M54 to be, I guess, a superior engine, the fabrication involved and fitment would be pretty much the same and M54's are surely more easily available nowadays. Is it the electronics behind it that are more complex or just down to what people have had available to them at the time?

Ohh man that's epic! Looks so clean, what an absolute weapon it will be

AA has an upper limit on what you can set without having to go through the hassle of contacting them directly. In my case it was $8,350 with a yearly premium of $1,040. Just played around with the calculator on the MAS website @Hazzy mentioned and there didn't seem to be an upper limit, not for getting a quote anyway. Put in $15,000 for shits and giggles and the yearly premium came out to $980... In conclusion, f**k AA.

What happened to having too many cars?

The premiums going up isn't the shocking part. The fact that they at the same time devalued the car by that much as well is an absolute pisstake though.

AA Insurance. With them for 5 years, only claim I've ever had was a chip in the windscreen 3 years ago that didn't even need a full replacement. Policy renewal documents dropped in the inbox. Yearly premium goes up by $100 whilst dropping the agreed value of the car down to $5.8k, a drop of 23%. Nevermind the excessive maintenance and modifications, go find any 6-cylinder E46 Touring for any sort of money, let alone sub $6k. Getting the car evaluated in the next few weeks and going with someone else. Useless pricks.

Shouldn't be much, I'll package it up and get a quote tomorrow. Will send you a PM

More money than sense. X2 M35i xDrive... f**k off.

Yeah should have a couple spares.

How many k's has it got on the clock? Head gasket failures are fairly rare on M52/M54's, unless well abused and/or severely overheated. The milkshake in the oil could be something as simple as a clogged up CCV system, which is a pretty common occurance and one of the most commonly neglected maintenance items so that'd be the first item I'd address before jumping to a conclusion of a failed head gasket. Worth getting either way as you could just reuse it if you do end up going for an engine swap. Milky residue could also be caused by repeated short drives where the engine doesn't fully warm up so the moisture doesn't get a chance to escape. I've done an M54B25 to M54B30 swap on my wagon and the difference in power is noticeable, although not mind blowing. As far as squeezing more power out of it though, unless you go the forced induction route then the options are fairly limited. These engines are tuned pretty well close to their potential in naturally aspirated form from factory. Slapping on a pod filter is the most common mod but is more likely to lose you power as the stock air box is actually quite well designed. You could make some gains by opening up the exhaust a bit more but there aren't any budget options for catless headers for RHD cars so it quickly becomes a custom fabrication exercise and you'd maybe hope to gain all of 10hp. Aftermarket cams, ECU remaps, stroker kits, ITB's are options but none of those are cheap or simple and gains will be quite modest still.

First thing I'd do is figure out what engine you actually have as something doesn't seem to add up from what you've said there. If it's a 325i then it will have an M54B25. If as you say it's got an M52 then it'll be a 323i or a 328i. Both M52's & M54's are relatively solid engines and can easily reach 400,000km's without needing major rebuilds but by this point all of them are likely to have various issues, from minor stuff like oil leaks to oil burning, failing coils, VANOS & DISA units etc. If you feel your current engine deteriorating then it could just be some long term maintenance items needing addressing. In terms of swaps, depends on how involved you want the project to be. Easiest and cheapest would be to drop in a plug & play M54B30 which is the biggest engine that came in these from factory and would give a moderate power boost. Other, more involved options that would require custom fabrication and indepth wiring shenanigans would be to swap in an M62 V8 or similar, or do an absolute madness and go B58. Or just turbo the engine you already have.

I wouldn't worry about it. It'll take you a good few hundred years to get anywhere close to $1,500 worth of oil topups.