Kees

After almost 3 months, 2 windscreens, a windscreen moulding, a flooded workshop, another failed WOF, and a pair of new shocks, my 540i finally has a fresh WOF. My streak of never passing a WOF first try with this car continues 🤣 Took her out for a little drive to celebrate.

Just saw this pop up for sale. Seems like a pretty good deal for $5.2K. Doesn't look like the tidiest example but seems to have good bones. Probably is one of, if not the cheapest running V12 car for sale in NZ, and the engine is encased by a gorgeous E32! Prices on E32s is only going up anyway, as are all classic BMWs. Heap of car for the money, and a nice spec too, with silver paint and black leather.

Honestly, same! 😂 When its parked up my brain keeps thinking its a boring old VW until I go take it for a drive, hear the exhaust and roll through the gears!

Just had a look, they are the BH15 tyres. Surprisingly, the reviews show they aren't absolutely terrible. Apparently Black Lion branded tyres are largely sold in the Middle East. Still decent enough tread so I guess I'll just wait until they are completely worn and then get something else. They don't make much/any noise unlike the "Westlake" tyres that were on my Subaru when I first got it which were so awful. Coolant flush and fresh oil are definitely top of the priority list. Will hopefully have that done next week after my E34 gets a couple new shocks as at the moment the Passat is in the storage garage away from my house that the 540i usually lives in. After that, wheel clean up and headlight polish and I think the car will be looking quite tidy all things considered.

Was pleasantly surprised by the interest in my last post on my recently acquired manual W8 Passat. Thought I might make a small thread detailing things I do to it while I have it for anyone interested. Not sure how long I will end up keeping it. A friend of mine has named the car Franklin as she thinks it looks like it would be called Franklin. I dismissed it at first but then I went through the owner's manual and found the car's original purchasing receipt from Giltrap Volkswagen. To my shock, the first owner's surname was Franklin! So the name Franklin it is! My 540i failed WOF again today because of a leaky shock absorber so I spent today giving the Passat its first clean so that I could get a better understanding of what condition its in. I started off with a decent wash as the front of the car was caked in bugs from my drive up from Wellington over the weekend when I picked the car up. There was heaps of tar and other road grime on the car which indicates it probably hasn't been washed in quite a while. This notion became a bit more obvious later on. I probably spent a solid 2 hours just doing general cleaning of the wheels which had a bunch of baked on brake dust (some of which I'm still yet to get off). It's a bit of a shame but the wheels are quite significantly curbed so I'm not sure what I'll do about that. Probably will have them all refurbished at some point because they are probably worth a decent bit of money as they are factory 2-piece BBS. In the mean time I might just get some curb protectors to stick over the curbing because its quite an eye sore. Drying the car was not a pleasant experience. The paint is crying out for a polish and wax or ceramic coating as it feels really rough and was hard to dry as its not overly hydrophobic. I then discovered that there is trim over some roof gutters where one might mount a roof rack or something like that, and of course they were filled with grime. This is what really started to show me the car hadn't had a decent wash. I then cleaned the gutters around the windscreen which were also filled with grit. My attention then turned to the door jams. After giving the sills a wipe down, I cleaned all the hinges and then lubricated them all to displace any moisture and stop them from squeaking. Attention then went to the boot. I cleaned around the hinges and blasted out debris that was blocking the water channels past the rear lights and around the rear window. I then moved to the door cards. Wiped them down with some Turtle Wax leather cleaner. Surprisingly, the W8 has some really nice materials in it, reminds me alot of my S8, its just all the materials are shaped in a way that is very early 2000s so it does look dated. Door cards cleaned up really nice. Anyway, after cleaning the door cards, dash and centre console, I gave the car a quick vacuum. Following this I polished out some stubborn sun-screen marks with some Meguiar's ultimate compound. Over the weekend I would like to hopefully wax the car and wet-vac the carpets. The car has a strong cigarette smell which is particularly pungent when its been parked overnight with the windows up. I also need to source a couple centre caps for the wheels, find some boot gas struts, and then try sort the boot lock actuator which isn't working so the boot has to be opened with the key. Also want some new tyres because wtf are "Black Lions" lol. Passat isn't really a car to tear up a backroad so some Pirelli Dragon Sports like I have on my 540i will be just fine I reckon. Want to have the headlights polished ASAP too!! Want to have it serviced soon as the coolant is grotty and I have no idea what weight oil is in it. Apparently keeping clean oil in the W8s is extremely important.

For a BMW what about a 1.9 Z3? Although thats something that would need to be garage parked. My money is with something Japanese. I think an Accord Euro would be nice and is also quite safe. Higher k 4 cylinder (because fuel economy) ones can be had for 3.5K. Some are nicely spec'd with leather seats, sunroof, alloys etc. Probably the most "Euro" Japanese car you will find in that price range. Otherwise I second the standard; Axela, Fit, Corolla/Balde, Vitz, Demio, Swift etc. Very boring especially if automatic but they won't let you down. I actually saw a 2012 Swift with 60,000km on Facebook Marketplace today, pretty cheap at $3.8K, seller is apparently going overseas. Could be a good buy as its modern and low ks? Although it is borderline too cheap.

Yeah looks so much better than my old moulding which had ugly holes in the rubbery-plastic material that runs between the metal part of the moulding and the car itself. All the stickers are peeling off which triggers my OCD a bit. Luckily the car is due a WOF as the windscreen crack was what it failed on a couple months ago. Hoping to have a fresh WOF tomorrow with a nicely applied sticker!! Fingers crossed they don't find anything else because I would like to have a legal car again.

Oh interesting, I didn't even see it! Must have been snapped up pretty quick.

Was the 535is you're thinking of red and was for sale in Wellington? The paint was very faded and from memory I think it had style 5s on it. It was listed for 6 or 7K and I remember thinking someone was going to get a deal so long as the car had good bones. I think I took a screenshot of it I just can't quite remember where. Would love a 535is, baby M5 in my opinion. A friend of mine has a silver NZ New one with a very period correct blue leather interior, with blue sports seats! It's a gorgeous car.

This afternoon my new windscreen finally went in. Car had been without a windscreen for 2 months as the moulding was coming from Germany. The Smith and Smith tech said it was the hardest car he’s ever worked on. Everyone clapped when I left so seems like it was a team effort to get the new moulding on properly lol. Appears that a decent job has been done which I’m happy about. First stop with the new windscreen was the petrol station of course 🤣

Thanks! She looks decently tidy in photos but up close its definitely an original car but hasn't done too bad for almost 400,000km, has tidied up pretty nice though. Yeah I was pretty lucky to score those wheels, I may be just a tad bias but I think they are the best looking wheels on e34s. Wow I don't think I could last that long without being able to drive my car, the two months my car was off the road was a struggle enough! Did you get a big haul of parts?

Haha I bet! That would be great! That's my 540i, has been off the road for a couple months waiting for a windscreen moulding to arrive from Germany. New glass hopefully goes in today which I'm very excited about.

Wow! That 540 touring with a manual is probably the ultimate all round car imo. Just a tiny bit jealous 😅 What a cool pair to have!

I drove the W8 and my auto 540i back to back yesterday and I couldn't help but think how amazing a 6 speed in my e34 540i would be! Would love to get one but they are so good no one wants to sell them! I love E34s, a manual 540 would be one of my ultimate cars.

Is a very interesting sound. Engine revs in such a linear fashion too. Is very very bassey at low rpms almost like a Subaru but it doesn’t throb it has a constant hum. Becomes quite raspy as you rev it out. Redlines at just over 6K. I have an exhaust clip from when I showed my mate the car:

There’s a black one I saw with the plate VUUUU8, may have been that one? Quite a clever plate I reckon. Yeah there’s certainly a list of things to fail like timing chains etc. Also, a lot of easy jobs are so much harder thanks to the W8 design. I wonder how many times the engine has been out of my car 😂

Yeah I have the feeling its going to be very hit or miss. The guy did seem like a really nice person though, he was very honest about the car's flaws when I first enquired about it. He had an e32 735i, a DS Safari as well as a manual E28 with a 2.8L in it sitting on M-Contours and with E34 leather sports seats. I complemented the wheels and he asked me how much I thought they were worth which made him drop his jaw as he only paid $300 for the whole car! We got along really well I thought, I think he was happy I was super chill about the car breaking down as I thought it would make for a cool story, plus it was a bit of fun to help him fix it. Got to have a decent look under the car too!

Yeah that’s fair enough I think occasionally the fear of impending disaster will keep me up at night with that car. Most crack-pipe era VAG cars are like that. Was petrified everyday I would walk out to my S8 that it would be slumped in one corner with failed air suspension, or the timing chains for the V10 would fail. The car has had a decent bit of work done. The seller is a euro mechanic and owns his own mechanic shop so did all the work himself. I believe he got the car as part of a deal as it had been sitting with a blown clutch. He did the clutch, clutch master cylinder, fuel pump and filter as well as engine mounts in the 18 months he had it. I’m going to have it serviced soon as he can’t remember when he did the oil last. Oil looks ok but the coolant is very grotty and old so it definitely needs a flush ASAP. From what I’ve read if you service them regularly they can be alright, although only time will tell. Dumb stuff like o2 sensors are an engine out job on these…

I saw a V10 TDI Phaeton a while ago for 7.5K. So tempting… also so much to go wrong but yolo I guess 🤣

Economy was pretty average. My 540i I have had as low as 9.8L/100km which I thought was pretty decent considering its done almost 400,000km. I was hoping to get under 10L/100km but the lowest I got was 10.5L/100km according to the car. The car has a few quirks and features being an early 2000s VAG product. One of its nice features is the fuel gauge doesn't work so the fear of running out of petrol was also on my mind 😂 I didn't fill it up completely in Wellington as I was hoping to score some cheaper 95, but it was around $3.40 the whole way up so I didn't get a chance to work the fuel economy out myself as I was hanging out for some cheap fuel the whole way up but I didn't find any. Been driving it round today and the economy has jumped up to 15.5L/100km, and its probably going to get worse because I'm addicted to how it sounds lol

I decided to empty out my spastic car collection about a month ago, getting rid of my S8, S6 and GTB E-Tune. All three cars were interesting but the S8 was the only one I really liked, largely due to how insanely engineered it was, and of course the V10 thunder it produced. All three were automatics so were quite plain to drive. Since I have my E34 540i which is also automatic, the others had to go (insurance was also an absolute fortune, $6K a year for the three I sold which is rather unsustainable lol). My initial plan was to somewhat detox from the high power, yet largely mundane automatic sedans and get something quite the opposite that would complement my 540i. What I really wanted was a manual Z3, especially after coming across the photos of my Grandfather's manual 2.2 Z3 he had in the early 2000s. I was thinking; manual, light, roof down, straight six, hmmm that sounds like a-lot of fun. In the depths of Facebook marketplace I found a rougher manual 2.0L Z3 for sale about 15 minutes from my house. The car looked like it had solid bones and was just suffering from some cosmetic flaws like clear coat peel on the boot-lid, missing interior trim, typical Z3 split seats etc which are easily rectifiable. Went and looked at it and was pretty put off not only by its condition in person, but also the way it drove. To be fair, I think that car specifically was just a bit of an underpowered dog that really, really needed some decent mechanical work done. Even the alignment was horrific, and was one of many things the owner hadn't "bothered" to sort. Feeling a bit disappointed I returned to trademe. I randomly decided to do a random search of a minimum 3.5L engine capacity and a manual transmission. I scroll through the various clapped Commodores when I stumble across a W8 Passat. I roll my eyes, here's another clown who has listed their W8 Passat Auto as a manual. (It's important to note: when I was younger I was fanatical about the W8 Passats. I have no idea why. I would always have a look at them for sale every few months but had only ever seen one manual one) I open the listing expecting to see people grilling the seller in the comments for listing it incorrectly. The first comment read something along the lines of "Can I please come view, I have an Automatic one, have been looking for a manual". I immediately go look at the photos. I scroll through the 3 photos of the car and see it is in-fact the super rare 6 speed manual. That's very cool I thought. I texted the seller to ask some questions and for some more photos. I got a response but never got sent any photos. I then couldn't find it on trademe so just assumed someone else had snagged it. Fast forward 3 weeks and I get a random text one morning asking if I'm still interested in the Passat. I replied and the seller sent me a walk around video of the car. He then filmed a short video of him driving it. As soon as I heard the W8 rumble I was very, very interested. I texted him heaps of questions (as W8s are not quite known for their reliability) and after a couple days made him a sight un-seen offer I thought was fair. We made a deal and I flew down to Wellington yesterday to go get it. The day started out a little less than ideal. About 2 minutes into the test drive I go to put the car in neutral from 2nd gear as we pull up to some lights and it shifted funny. I then go to release the clutch and the clutch is still sitting on the floor. Oh sh#$. We push the car to the side of the road where we see it dripping some fluids. Without a clutch we weren't going far. The owner and I decided the best thing to do would be to try drive the car to his workshop as it seemed some kind of line or hose had popped off. We push the car down the street in neutral and then jam it in second and set off to Lower Hutt. We get the car on a hoist and indeed a hose connected to the clutch master cylinder had disconnected thanks to a clip that had somehow wiggled its way back. The seller got everything connected up and then we bled the clutch so we could do test drive attempt 2. Car did well on the test drive, and although my confidence wasn't particularly high, I knew I probably wouldn't find another car like it for the price, so I bought it anyway. I then began the journey home trying to make as few shifts as possible incase a similar thing happened again. I cruised mostly in 5th as I could go through towns and on the open road in the same gear. Everything was going smoothly until I realised I hadn't been listening to the GPS and was in Whanganui. I started driving State Highway 4 out of Whanganui which I found to be an amazing road that was nice and twisty! It's just not that enjoyable when you have no phone service and you are petrified you are going to have no clutch because of all the gear changes you are making to go around the hairpins! The car however continued to do really well and eventually I made it home. Was really impressed by how comfy and quiet it was at higher speeds, despite the car having some decent exhaust work done to it. The steering has a good weight to it and the car handles nicely. Not sure how many people will be interested in it but thought I would do a little write up and post a few photos. Its a car many people forget but I think its quite cool. Factory recaros, factory BBS wheels, unique engine and a 6 speed manual! From what I can find out online, I think my car may be 1 of 4 W8 Manuals left in NZ. It needs a really decent detail which I will hopefully start in the next few days. Only posting a few photos as the car is looking a bit grubby at the moment.

I'm just waiting for the day the Government introduces some arbitrary registration system based off something like engine displacement, where you pay more for registration the bigger your engine is. Can see something like that happening very soon.

The news this morning has had me looking at frugal diesels for longer trips. I have access to a Smart Fortwo for around town activities which it handles superbly. However, on the open road you do feel a bit vulnerable in a Smart car, especially with the quality bumpy roads which make it hop and shift around the road like a grass hopper. Wish I had bought the manual 320D touring that was for sale a few weeks ago! Can't seem to find many decent modern(ish) manual diesels for under $7K. Have noticed the price of hybrids and electric cars going up too. I remember when BMW i3s could be had for under $30K. Now the cheapest is a little over $30K... I'm about to buy a battery charger because I can see my 540i getting minimal use this year. Last year it wouldn't sit for more than two weeks ever, and was usually driven a couple times a week (as it is stored away in a garage away from my house so I would swap cars and keep it for the weekend). I did over 5000km in it which I thought was pretty solid considering the lockdowns and what not. I also wonder what ramifications of the petrol prices will be seen in the car market. My guess is that really desirable and rare stuff (i.e manual 911s, e39 M5s etc) will remain at their current prices or continue to appreciate, but more common stuff like W204 C63s which had been regularly seen doing daily duties in the past, will soon flood the market as people can't afford to run them, and don't see the value in having them as a weekend toy. I think people may also think twice about buying a weekend car as they struggle to pay for fuel in their daily drivers. Although on that vein of thought; desirable weekend toys like M3s etc. may become more desirable as more people switch to super mundane daily drivers like Leafs etc and subsequently crave a really special and engaging machine for the weekends. In which case your average daily driver that isn't particularly fuel efficient will potentially be worthless. Only time will tell though! Without getting too political it doesn't take a genius to understand that minimum wage rising is just going to boost inflation further. Costs of production will increase for firms that are already on their knees, and of course that extra cost will be largely passed onto the consumer. It does not take a genius to interpret that minimum wage rising is going to hurt low income earners more than benefit them! I would not be surprised if we have protests very soon pertaining to the cost of necessities because it genuinely is out of control. Let's just say I'm counting down the days until the next election.

That is true, even that second example that was for sale with 140,000km had a strange "startup noise". I'm sure a couple E39 M5s and E46 M3s have racked up some higher ks, and they might even be the best ones to get as they've clearly had work done to them for them to rack up the ks. Surely there's a 300,000km e39 M5 in someone's shed...

Here it is! Every time I see it I just get annoyed lol. Its great how when I didn't have the money, cars like this were 20K. Fast forward 2 years when I could start to justify $20-30K on a special car like an e39 M5, B7 RS4, E46 M3 etc, and I'm completely priced out of the market. I have a folder on my computer dedicated to cars I have spotted for sale which I think were bargains. That M5 is part of it! If anyone knows of a super high ks/less pampered "cheap" E39 M5 (i.e less than $40K), please let me know 😂