Twistee

Well impressed with this effort, if you want a near new 19" DTM with a nice bend in it to experiment on let me know. I learnt the hard way that El cheapo DTM rims are made from something similar to playdough.

Things are out of control since lockdown, drove past my daughter's school on the way to the grocery shop today only to find the remains of countless tyres and a torn up intersection. It's just nuts that had KillerX actually belted some P fueled thief he would be in the wrong and be dragged through the courts. CCTV for the win.

If the mk8 has those non tactile buttons for everything then it would be a no deal for me personally. But I do love the GTi range, having had no issues with my wife's MK6 for the three years and 80,000kms until we traded it on the new family wagon. It's a hard choice, made easier when you look at the nose of the bmw though.....

Cheers. Thanks, already have a "CCTV in operation" sign and two cameras at the top of the driveway gate. I think at the moment 105 is getting a hammering so there are delays. The last time I called 105 I felt very much like I was calling a offshore call centre, it was also just after they had launched 105 and I'm sure that it's better now. With any luck I won't need to call and the cops will take care of this via the online report I filed. Thanks, I have a pile of cameras that I installed all over the property. Mainly as I used to travel overseas (those days a gone....) regularly for work and wanted some peace of mind. But I will be installing another camera at the gate that covers the road. And before anyone gets all offended by the idea of CCTV covering the road in front of my house, I spoke with the local cops about a year ago after someone decided to repeatedly over a few nights do burnouts up our street - first thing they asked was "do you or any of your neighbors have CCTV aimed at the road"? I asked them about the legality of that and was basically told that unless one of my neighbors complains about it then the cops are totally onboard with it. A minor pandemic and life got in the way of me installing the camera that I bought specifically for that job.

So to add to this story a little, half an hour ago - 11:30pm I went to get the mail and put the M5 away (long enough driveway and I'm lazy). I got to the top of the drive and here is a random red sh1tbox o' doom parked in the shadows with some young guy, hoody covering his face, trying to look like there is nothing out of the ordinary. To put it in perspective I live down a small cul de sac, no one parks on the street because all the houses have long driveways and off street parking. So it's pretty obvious when a random car is parking behind a giant hedge row that something is off. Ignoring Level 4 stay at home for a minute I decided to head out and do a lap around the block and come back, sure enough on my return here is a second car parked up next to the red POS. So I stop to find out WTF they are doing, the illegally tinted car just ignores me, so I do the one thing that people who are trying to hide their activity hate, I stood on the horn until lights from surrounding houses started to turn on. Immediately someone dives out of the POS, and from a distance tries to convince me that he lives here. Sure...... you may live somewhere but it's not outside my neighbors house at 11:30pm on a Friday night. I give him a some basic riot act verbals and say I've called the cops - what a shock Mr "I live here" guns it followed by his what I can only describe as a customer coming to collect his score out of the street. I head home, decide that I'll do the right thing and see exactly how I can report this - the obvious way is via the you have been a naughty boy / girl Covid site run by the cops. Or I could call 105 and sit on the line for an hour - then get hung up on. Or I can just wait till the morning and call the local plod station, I decided I'll sleep on it and call the plod in the morning, but then I note that all the local station direct dial numbers are now gone from the Police website. So I can't deal directly with the community constable even if I wanted, and I don't fancy calling 105 and waiting forever. I feel bad for the cops, on one hand they got a raw deal on recruitment thanks to the latest govt, so they are pretty light on the ground and arguably have better things to do than deal with some kids being a nuisance - especially when they are sooo busy patrolling Warehouse carparks and pulling me over for doing shopping with my daughter. (*new comers read the start of this post) I feel a bit let down that the basic ability for someone to report non life threatening potential crime (regardless of covid breaches) seems to be reduced to filling out a form on a website that will be dealt with months after the event if at all. I live in a quiet area, like most people on this forum I value the safety of my family and friends - which includes my neighbors. So when a strange car is seen parked up multiple times in a single week in our little dead end street, with other cars coming and going - during lockdown - alarm bells on some level do go off and I would like something done. And I can't help feeling that I would have more luck attracting the attention of the local cops if I was driving the farm hack with no rego and wof, then trying to get them to deal with BS where some pot head is using our street as his new collection spot.

Thanks, will do. That's a dangerous site - something tells me my daughter is getting BMW bear

Is there anyone that is open at present under level 4 that is taking orders for parts - I'm after a replacement power steering cap o ring part #32411128333. Cheers

Does anyone have any recommendations for a kids booster seat that doesn't massacre the leather back seat? The one that we currently have is wider than the contoured recess of the seat base and it's busy trying to dig through the protector to desperately get to that sweat leather - so it can get back to massacring it ..... I see that overseas BMW offers a matched booster seat to avoid this issue entirely, or at least it did once upon a time. It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that safety of my daughter is more important than a leather seat, but if I could have my cake etc it would be great to get a booster seat for a 6 year old that doesn't require the headrest to be removed and constantly fubar the seat base. Thanks in advance.

Having been through this on a car I was storing on behalf my solution was a liberal post clean of a rubber safe exterior trim cleaner / protector. This was not a complete fix, but it slowed things down significantly and made removal with a soft wash very easy. Pretty sure it was just an over the counter item from Supercheap.

Shipping is pretty fast, mine arrived at 8am this morning.

Cheers, and done - Also adding a comfort connector in a section of replaceable plastic trim in the boot.

Thanks for the offer, once lockdown changes I may take you up on that. In the mean time could you flick me the ECS part# please? Cheers.

I'm looking to remove the 15mm wheel spacers and need a set of factory length wheel lugs to replace the long set that are in use at present. I've searched and there are a bunch of references to the length of the standard part, I'm hoping someone can provide a part number or a suggestion on replacement items. Thanks.

New rear tires to match the new fronts from last week. Once the airbags / compressor is fixed (hopefully next week) then I'll get the alignment sorted.

Can anyone explain why BMW spec'd the rear tires as 275/35 r19 on the wagon and 285/35 r19 on the sedan M5? I just had the rears changed to the factory size and there is a large amount of room for the 285 - so rubbing can't be the issue or smaller wheel wells. I've searched the web and couldn't find anything conclusive.

The original matt black aftermarket (came with the wagon) kidney grills were pretty busted up, missing tabs and just looking average in comparison to everything else. So I ordered a replacement set of aftermarket grills that I think work with the colour of the body - obviously these can be replaced with factory items if I was ever so inclined to fall in line with the anorak brigade. In doing so I found that someone had double sided tapped the remote radar detector to the radiator slam panel behind the bumper pointing towards the ground, - cause that how it works.......... So after much faffing about I used some 3m chewing gum tape and mounted it correctly along with the laser jammers in to the grill. (All of this gear came with the car - it just was incorrectly installed / reinstalled at some point in its life. ) While I was poking around I checked the coolers for any o-ring leaks, all good but the usual birds nest of rubbish between the oil cooler and the radiator. Gave that valley a good vac and cleaned up the excess wiring loom for the radar etc. This was meant to be a 20 minute job, but between starting at midnight on saturday, trawling through install manuals for the radar to find the mounting position recommendations and being distracted by Top Gear Youtube I finally finished and cleaned up at 2:45am. Pretty happy with the look. Off to get the new rear tires in the morning.

Look at the immediate up front costs that are going to add to the purchase price, it looks to have a pretty comprehensive history. Bumper aside, it just needs a good professional detail to make it puuurdy. Mechanically at 150.000km it's possibly rolling around to clutch and brake rotor replacement time. Check the boot , open the amp area on the left and battery compartment and hope that the sunroof drains are taken care of and there is no water damage. When was the battery replaced? There are a hundred items to look for and they are well listed. Regardless of the scarcity of these wagons if you want to buy one then find everything that is wrong with it up front and get the right price, people are not lining up to buy these when fuel is at an all time high so take the time to get it completely checked over. Have a PPI done by someone that is a specialist and comes with a recommendation, BM workshop? If you've gotten this far in your buyers hunt then none of this should be news to you. Your alternative is to look overseas, but that has its own pros and cons. My 2c. (Probably worth less)

Calf Club.

I may have issues with authority figures trying to push their agenda on me when they have no idea. Let me put it another way, our illustrious leader says utes are bad news, farmers, tradies, jaffa's and the like are abusing the intention of the "ute" - how dare they have freedom of choice ? (or buy something that can cope with the amazingly well maintained roads, go light rail yay it will save us all) My solution - buy a V10, use it like a ute................... I won't claim to be the first person to point a finger at the govt, but I'm probably the first person in my neck of the woods to rock up to Farm Source and pound 60kg of sheep feed in the boot of a superwagon. I like my ute, it's got a bang'n stereo 😎

I actually wrote a full on rant about that very fact, I mean FFS - Then I deleted it. But yes, I totally agree with that statement. I mean have some respect for what it is, what it can do, how many were built, and don't be a dreamer who over extends to the hilt just to buy it and then can't afford to keep it - so it just becomes another under maintained M5 which adds to the its unreliable BS. Although I was told this came from some eccentric collector, I think it was bought, driven for a couple of months until the reality hit home and it was parked. The tires are just annoying, but not because of the cost - but because the car went through what can only be described as the most useless PPI I have ever seen done on a car by a "specialist" in CHCH, report literally was written on the invoice....... and they missed a glorious slice clean through the sidewall to the banding (and countless other things), right where the rim had been repaired, probably because someone assed it into a curb. I only came across this beauty after two tire shops couldn't balance these wonders and I was cleaning a ridiculous amount of weight adhesive off the rims. And if you ever want to know what you need to throw at a Hifly to try and balance it - start with this: Then put about the same on the inside further around, quality............ The Michelins have no weight on one and 5 grams on the other.

Got rid of the amazing "Hifly" front tires and replaced them with some Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S. What a shock the wheel vibration that couldn't be balanced out with the quality Hifly's is 99% gone. Yes they look like balloons from this angle, but they are the standard 255/40r19.

I managed to change it at no cost via the LTSA website. I don't either and this is not the first time I have been pulled over - but this is the first time I have had someone give me grief about my postal and physical address.

Apparently so.... Because there's no such thing as a successful person in Pukekohe so I must have stolen the car. If I had stolen an M5 I don't think I would be going shopping.

And not for speeding! I took my daughter to the shops to get a birthday present for a friend tonight, as we plan so well and the kids party is tomorrow morning... After grabbing some overpriced lego we were crawling out of the empty carpark and I see the Police cruiser behind me, next minute on come the red and blues. Officer comes over looking all confused because my drivers license which was issued in Pukekohe somehow has my inlaws address attached to it from the other side of town from more than a decade ago - yet the LTSA mailed me the license to my current address of the past 12 years?!?!? Basically he was checking out why a car from the other side of town according to my license was in Pukekohe on a Saturday night. And when asked how do I fix this ----- he had no idea other than maybe try LTSA, so I guess I'll try LTSA. Sorry not an exciting tale, but it made me laugh

One thing I forgot to mention was my almost lost the bonnet moment outside of Christchurch. Everytime a truck went by the bonnet looked like it was flexing, initially I thought it was just a really polished bonnet.... I started to get real paranoid and in the end pulled over and had a look, the bonnet appeared latched but it was spongy and initially I thought it was some bmw thing with lots of rubber seals around the front. Another 10 minutes and a few trucks and I decided this was not normal, pulled over and did a Google of my symptoms - plenty of badness to be had with poorly adjusted bonnet stops on the E60/61, so I wound then down and life was a whole lot less " is this bonnet about to take off. " I'm guessing someone played with them while they detailed the car and tried to get the shut lines correct. Having been in one car as a passenger that had a bonnet fold over the roof I was not looking for a repeat.