Kees

Hi everyone, bit random but I sent off a few parts from my Brabus ForFour to get painted. These were: - Bonnet (which has faded in the middle) - Front Grille (which was covered in stone chips) - Front Lip (which had stone chips / scrapes) With these parts redone my car would be looking quite a bit better. So anyway, I thought it would be best to just drop the required parts to the paint shop. This is because to take the grille off the ForFour, you have to remove the front clamshell leaving the whole front of the car exposed to the elements (I’ll put a picture of what it looks like). So I figured this was best as my car can stay in a dry garage rather than being stuck at the paint shop where it could get rained on etc. The clamshell is also quite fragile as it’s plastic so it’s best it isn’t moved much once it’s off - something I can guarantee when it’s in my own garage. Anyway… I dropped the parts off and included the car’s colour code C21L - “Jack Black”. I assumed that with the parts still in the colour they need to be + the actual paint code, a relatively decent colour match could be done. I’m not expecting perfection especially since they didn’t have the rest of the car, but as long as it’s pretty similar that’s alright. Now to be fair, the job they have done is executed brilliantly, the finish is mint. BUT, when I was putting the car together in the DARK last night, I could tell the colour was wrong. And in the day light it’s fairly obvious, even with rain on the car. So now I’m wondering if I contact them about it? Or is it to be expected given they didn’t have the whole car, just the parts? Seems like the colour is just straight wrong, it’s quite grey/brown whereas the car is just plain black. Any advice very much appreciated! Car with front clamshell off (this is why are just gave them the bits as I wouldn’t want this outside a paint shop getting rained on) Before shot: you can see the bonnet was faded in the middle (edges were still fine), and there were stone chips concentrated on the lip and grille - the clamshell was basically unmarked though. Fragile front clamshell:

I need to make a proper update at some point but just got my car back from my mechanic who serviced the transmission and installed the genuine M5 springs I managed to get. Pretty happy, car looks great. Just need to figure out how to lower the rear, and then I also need my side skirts on and an exhaust job - I need muffler suggestions if anyone has any. E34 exhausts seem to be a pain because of the odd shape and limited space.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/291828843783442/?mibextid=9R9pXO Might have already been posted / be an old listing but this just came up in my marketplace. Another white m sport 318ti. Looks to be in Silverdale judging by the photos.

Been using the ForFour as my daily the last couple weeks, a task those rubbish old Hankook tyres decided they could not handle on Tuesday when one of them split on the side wall most of the way round. To be fair, I’m sure the heavy right foot did them no favours. Michelin Pilot Sport 5s now on, difference is huge as expected. Will be interesting to see how they behave in the wet as the ForFour was almost undriveable with more than 15% throttle in the rain before.

As a kid Phoenix yellow was always my favourite. I must say that it’s now been demoted to number 2, with Laguna Seca blue in first place.

Couple more spots. Phoenix Yellow SMG E46 M3. Questionable artwork on a Z4….

Couple spots from the week: Rubbish photo of an estoril blue speck… but E46 Clubsport Convertible BMW outside an indoor Golf centre… am I even surprised @cleanish_e46

Just your average tow vehicle….

I’ll send you a direct message with my contact number. Would love to come check out the car sometime and let you know what I think.

Nice buy! I’m based on the shore and have seen that car around a few times in various places. Definitely a well kept original example, plate is very distinctive. I have a big box of cleaning / polishing products + a Dewalt polisher you can borrow if you need to start your detailing journey on the car. If I were you I’d aim to polish the car (depending on how swirly / oxidised the paint is you may want to do a light cut too), then ceramic coat the car + do some protecting work to the soft top. Interior, if it’s leather I would recommend moisturising it. With the top down it would be way more exposed to UV so I’m guessing it could be dry/cracked in places. Also get a wool wash mit, sponges are for wheels only!! I did a detail on my 540i a couple years ago, it’s due a light buff and re-ceramic coat soon, but came out pretty well for original paint that had travelled ~370,000km… much easier to keep the car looking nice once the paint is properly protected.

Those 216s suit it really well. Certainly a great spec. In white, with those wheels, dare I say I think it’s quite an attractive car?! Build sounds awesome, will be a great daily.

To be honest with the current car market + recent hike in petrol prices, $5.5K seems like an overly fair number. This one was for sale very recently - half the ks, aero spoiler, in-tact headliner and clearly far more cosmetically looked after. Would be a bit of a no-brainer to pay the extra $3-4K for a far better example imo. Would easily spend that trying to make the white one nice, plus its still got questionable history.... https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1255028188576505/

Don't quote me on this (went into my Trademe archives) but I think this was his "Red Porsche" prior to his ownership. I must say, 997.2 GT3 is proper taste....

Yeah the last couple years I feel they’ve really stepped up their game. Used to be so easy to detect them with a radar detector, now clearly not.

Mine is a Uniden DFR7 and I was literally just about to upgrade to the new R4 too. Cop said because he was above and behind he would have hit my roof which meant the detector wouldn’t go off apparently.

28 days for the alleged 147. More than 40 over is loss of license, more than 50 is loss of license + a court date. Just particularly annoying no discretion is involved - but then again the law is the law I suppose.

Rears are from 2020, fronts are from 2015. Fronts are Ventus Primes and rears are the wonderful Triangles. Pilot Sport 5s will come eventually once mechanical birthday is finished. I would say I don’t really choose to drive it in the rain (although this is hard given how awesome the weather has been) but also I won’t be driving it at all for 28 days anyway lol

Not really a rant, but just lost my license an hour ago. Radar detector did not go off at all which was super weird. No KA, no laser. Questioned the cop and he said it must have been me, although he sounded surprised when I said I had my radar up and it didn’t go off. Let’s not stop ram raiders, let’s take my license, which by the way I had no demerits or any fines prior to this. Let’s ignore the fact the offence allegedly took place on an empty and straight piece of motorway, in the dry, in a modern car literally designed for the autobahn, with a speed deployed spoiler, big brakes, and 265 tyres all round. I’m not condoning speeding, but the average person faces more punishment than a 15 year old who steals an Aqua, and then gets caught, offered fast food then dropped home. Safer communities!

Yes it does - the body is all the typical TORX bits, in fact the Brabus plaque inside is fastened by them. But under the bonnet everything is regular hex head stuff - a breath of fresh air compared with the W8 which is TORX, Spline and hex!

I'm not sure how heavy they are - I'll weigh one whenever I take them off next. I was thinking of getting some lightweight OZ wheels, or Volk GTCs as a "daily wheel". I've never really had a car that I could get away with putting some more "JDM" style wheels on, but I think the Brabus could get away with it. The biggest pitfall with the Brabus wheels is as aptly described on the forums, they are "made of chocolate". One of mine has a bent lip in fact. Even worse is the spokes tend to crack from the dish just because inherently the design makes them very fragile (particularly on the rear wheels). So once they are fully restored I'm not sure if I'll have the balls to have them on the car 24/7, especially with these roads.... Speaking of which - I found out THIS MORNING that my Audi (yet to be written about) has a cracked wheel which is why I was losing 10psi of pressure per night. Big shout-out to Waka Kotahi! When I first got the car I thought they were way over the top - but they've really grown on me. The car is so ridiculous looking as is that some factory blingy wheels suit it imo! A minor tangent turned Waka Kotahi rant but that's my A7's wheel ^

It's been a while since I wrote a post on here - I actually have two cars to introduce, but I'll start with the Brabus.... By now a few of you may be familiar with the fact I am generally drawn towards the whacky, weird and sometimes wonderful European cars…. Or the ones no one else has the balls to buy. This has included; 3x W8 Passats, 2x 5.2L V10 Audis (S8 & S6), high ks 130i, a high ks 987 manual Boxster, and then of course my very high ks E34 540i. Anyway, back at the start of the year I was doing my generic trawling through Trademe and Turners when I came across a Smart ForFour Brabus. Smart as a brand has always intrigued me. I’ve been obsessed with the Smart Roadster since I was about 7, and want one very much. The robotised manual gearbox is just very off putting, and I think they are hard to justify with most sellers wanting 12-15K for them. My Mum’s daily run around is a Smart ForTwo, so I am familiar with the gearbox, and it is everything the reviews say and more. It’s actually not too bad once you get used to it, but to have in a dedicated roadster… no thanks, especially having had the manual 987 which genuinely is driving pleasure in its finest form for under $20K. However, I digress. I had seen the Brabus ForFour that now sits in my driveway at Turners sometime at the start of the year. A very neat car I thought - I should bid on that! I then promptly forgot about the auction, and saw it pop up on Trademe at a dealer for around $12,995. The car sat for a while (as did basically everything on the market at the start of the year), but eventually sold. It then got returned to the dealer as it had an intermittent issue. The dealer decided to $1 reserve the Brabus which is when a friend of mine sent it to me with the tag line "This screams Kees"... As I flogged my 987 and 130i off under the guise I wanted to have just two fun(ish) cars I was desperately trying to resist the urge to buy it. The listing stated it likely had some form of ECU issue where the car would sometimes run, but other times have huge power loss, misfire, or refuse to start. Smart cars are notorious for funky electrics due to their less than ideal placing of the ECU and SAM unit, particularly on the Roadster and ForTwo models, so it seemed a complex fix. However, I did come to a figure of what I would be prepared to pay for the Brabus, if I were to buy it. Because I now identify as an old, wise man who sticks to his own word, on the day of the auction I did not bid, even though the car went for less than what I would have hypothetically paid for it. I even had a mild rant to a mate of mine on how I should have pulled the trigger on it. That night I went to sleep a troubled man, and it sounds ridiculous but I had a dream about the car, and how I should have bought it. When I woke up the next day I was lying in bed pondering my decision when I got a notification on Trademe saying the car was being offered at a fixed price. Clearly the deal had fallen through. 30 seconds later my mate rings me telling me to buy it. 20 minutes of being indecisive followed, before I accepted the fixed price offer, and then went off to collect my Brabus! I pick the car up, and it makes it all of 10 minutes before it decided to be the most undriveable vehicle I have experienced so far. It would cut in and out, stall, flash random warnings for coolant temp, barely accelerate and then refused to run full stop. At this point I was questioning my decision. I decided to abandon it and pick it up later that day. I drove it from Penrose back to the North Shore, with 3 breaks where the car decided to be like a stubborn dog and not move, but eventually I made it home. I then started doing research on what the issue could be. One thing that kept coming up was ignition related issues - particularly coils. So the following day I lift the engine cover off - and sure enough one of the coils is clearly different from the rest. I take it out, run the part number, and it was completely incorrect. So a quick trip to Jap spares for a $40 ignition coil, and by a stroke of luck I now have one of the most fun cars I've ever driven. I should mention at this point, the Brabus ForFour uses the 4G15T from the Mitsubishi Colt Ralliart, and the same 5 speed manual gearbox too. The only difference to the engine aside from the plethora of Brabus and Mercedes branding on the engine cover and boost pipes is the Brabus engine has no blow off valve, as from what I've read too much pressure was lost through the stock Colt Ralliart BOV setup. And of course the boost is turned up a bit to bump power from around 150hp/210nm to 177hp/238nm.... I am unsure how accurate this is - but a friend's OBD reader was indicating my Brabus was making 21psi on full boost which is a fair bit. To say the car is quick for a stock vehicle from 2006 is an understatement. It's undriveable in the rain - spins in 1st, 2nd and 3rd, sometimes 4th. It also understeers like NOTHING I have ever experienced. It's genuinely scary in the wet. An LSD would do it a great deal of good, and something I would like to get. The thing surprises a lot of cars by how quick it is - even my friend who has a tuned Peugeot 207 GTI with $15K in receipts (its meant to be 220hp), got walked in one of those convenient scenarios where we both accelerated at the same time So as a brief summary. It's got a Japanese drivetrain, that's been breathed on by the Germans, and then its put into a four door Smart car. It's of course factory lowered, has awesome deep dish staggered Brabus alloys, a panoramic roof, leather Brabus embossed seats (which are heated!), and it says SMART ARSE on the back. They also only made around 1200 total for the world! Can you see why I have fallen for this thing? It only weighs 1090kg as well so it feels nice and light footed. The best way I can describe it - is its how I imagine an AMG hatchback would be - great in a straight line, slightly above average going around corners in the dry, and absolutely undriveable in the rain! I can also understand why my one might be the only one in NZ - they are the size of a VW Polo, but were Golf GTI money in 2006! I would also love to know who had my car from new as its NZ New, so I'm guessing was some form of special order? So what now? Well after doing over 2000km in the car, I realised that it was most likely on its original cambelt.... and since its done a 183,000km, I thought it best I do not drive it until thats sorted. So its been sitting in my driveaway awaiting a bunch of parts as its going to be getting quite the birthday, and then following its birthday it is likely to have another birthday which addresses the paint fade on the bonnet, stone chips on the front lip, and curbed wheels. So with the cr out of action likely for a while, ignoring the fact I have the 540i and W8, I had to buy another car to drive in the interim.... of course! More on that another time. So as another brief summary - it’s an exclusive and interesting European car with some huge quirks, but has Japanese consistency/reliability? in the way it pulls (reminds me a lot of my mate’s old WRX). And then on top of all that, it feels like a factory modified car - that’s the best way to describe it. It creates a hybrid medium between a factory and an aftermarket feeling… if that makes any sense at all.

Another sale day on Saturday: 10AM - 4PM

There will be another garage sale tomorrow for anyone interested. 10AM - 4PM Mostly just generic cosmetic stuff left now.

I think this is a DEAL! Factory manual, 1 owner, NZ New, what’s not to like? All for 5.5K! https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/bmw/auction-4173181255.htm

@Sammo you've been spotted on Facebook.