e38king

Great to hear from your Glenn, I work in Highbrook so will pop in and catch up with you in the next day or so provided you aren't too busy

Hi everyone, The wife has decided she would like an X3 as her 'new' vehicle. I have seen a few on trademe for the 14-17k mark. From my limited research it seems we should look for the facelift version with the 160kw engine. Any thing else we should be looking for? Any issues to look out for ? Cheers.

As has been mentioned, firstly check for locating rings. IE the wheel should sit snugly on the hub without any movement up and down with the wheel bolts removed. If the tyres are correctly balanced it will more than likely be the control arm bushes. It is a very common problem on E46's. I used to come across it alot when customers were upgrading from 15's and 16's to 18's or 19's.

if you have any spares that you don't want send them to Starship Hospital. Always great to help out kids who are not as fortunate as our own.

Locating rings are easy enough to buy and then they will fit perfectly without the rangi mods

This ^ If they are genuine they will have the markings cast into the back of one of the spokes. It should also have a TUV on it somewhere. TUV and JWL standards are pretty much the same except it costs an arm and a leg to get TUV certification. This is the reason replica's don't use it, as it would make the cost of them too prohibitive.

a bit late but they are not mismatched rims, they are from a 7 series. All 7 series run a slightly higher rear offset. They best way to get the wheel off is to hit it with a rubber mallet. Can you spin the rim around at all by putting the car in neutral. If so this will let you bang it at different points around the rim. I would also be putting down an old blanket under the rim as Murphy's law says it will pop off at the wrong moment and land on the face putting bug scratches on it.

have only just come across, looks awesome Jon! Looking forward to the updates.

It was a promotional vehicle for Unique Tints, obviously they do car wrapping as well

Not to sound rude but maybe you need to think about it...... out of that $70k has to come rent ( jump on Trade Me to see how much a workshop costs a year to rent), Wages, GST, ACC Levies, Insurance, depreciation on equipment (or leasing of equipment if you can't afford the initail outlay).. the list carries on and on. Buying or renting specialist equipment is not cheap, especially all the latest diagnostic equipment. Now see how much you have left over. Ask Glenn, I bet he wouldn't open his doors for $35 an hour.

Have you ever run a business? How much do you think a good mechanic is paid these days? $35 wouldn't cover the wages, let alone the associated expenses, etc

Not to sound too negative but I doubt you will have much luck, especially on the 01/01. I wouldn't want to be doing labour only on either of those two days, or if I was it would be at a pretty decent rate. You are effectively cutting them out of business by supplying your own tyres and brake pads and the double whammy is you are asking them to do it on almost a public holiday.

bump

where are you located? If you can let us know then someone will be able to recommend a local repairer