Mop

Ran with a used lock on style I found locally on Facebook in the end, gave it a spruce up with a spray can and it has fitted up nicely. Couldn’t find a removable style anywhere except importing new for stupid money. Had to cut the splitter to fit it, it’s actually quite a bit - something like 90 x 150mm I reckon as the splitter extends under so far. Not noticeable with the towbar there though, I didn’t need to worry. Got a relay included (used) with the bar, had to dust off the multimeter to work it all out but got there in the end. The wiring was by far the most fiddly/difficult bit, but would’ve been much easier with the original instructions no doubt…

Hi all, I need a towbar for loan trailers (carting timber and gravel etc) and my E61 makes the most sense of our two cars. Seems to be two options; the NZ lockon permanent style or Westfalia detachable - if you can find one. I have an Msport so I think the lockon type needs a hole cut, but can’t find any pictures of how tidy this looks. Tried a couple of towbar places but they don’t seem to know what is required, presumably they sort it out on the day. Westfalia would be great but struggling to find one and I would also need to source the splitter with the hole and removable cover for the bumper - pushes the cost and difficulty to find up significantly it seems. Budget is up to $1k, cheaper the better and happy to fit and wire myself to save some cash with one of the canbus relays available now. Have found used lockon types already for $150-300 but just nervous about what the install ends up looking like… anyone happen to have one or have a picture by any chance? Appreciate any help/advice

Thanks I found this after posting and the local Tony’s has knocked a further $10/tyre off this price so I’ve booked in 4x RE003s with them. Still interested in hearing whether anyone has other recommendations, will have to do my wife’s car in 6 months I expect.

Hi all, I’ve done a search but couldn’t find any recentish threads discussing and thought it was worth checking what the current consensus is on tyre recommendations. I need two 245/40 r18 for my E61 wagon, it currently has re050a on it all round (on the car when I bought it) but they are completely worn out on the very inside edge at the rear so needs a good alignment too. Was thinking I’d do all 4 but a quick google indicates I may need to sell a kidney to swing that… I don’t want to put rubbish tyres on it but don’t want to spend a fortune - are RE003 tyres still the go to for value/life/performance? If so, are people going to Bridgestone for them - they seem expensive? I’ve seen posts about pirelli dragon sports as a cheaper decent option but struggling to find any in stock. Most of the other options I’ve seen discussed in years past seem to no longer be available. Keen on any thoughts

ASB were the best combination of price and coverage for us, but it was discounted for having 3 cars, contents and the house all through them

Vtnz Takanini - “bulbs are different take it somewhere else I won’t pass it”. Vtnz manukau - “they’re very close in colour, not a problem”. Issued the warrant. They also added a note saying “all engine leaking oil, requires attention soon” - hasn’t leaked a drop of oil since I did all the pan and other seals a year ago and it’s very clean underneath as I checked when servicing it recently… This is why I normally avoid vtnz, this time I was in a hurry though. Anyway, thanks for the advice - the lights look good now. Have just thrown some wax sealant on for the time being

Update - I ended up just wet sanding by hand with 1200, 1500, 2000 grit and then picked up a Mechpro DA polisher and gave them a quick run over with compound and polish. Came up excellent! Good advice on the DA, that’s the way to go if you have one I reckon - no need for a $80 sandpaper kit. Took back to vtnz, focus is now good but this branch won’t pass as one bulb is a slightly different shade of yellow (replaced one side a couple of warrants ago as wiring insulation rot caused it to blow). Xenon bulbs are bloody expensive and I can’t remember which brand I got so I’m going back to the original vtnz as they mentioned the slight colour difference but weren’t bothered by it.

I don’t have an orbital polisher unfortunately, I’ll take a pic of the lights this arvo - they look worse than that one though I think. It’s a daily driver but it’s only done 140k and is in reasonable nick so we would like it around for a fair bit longer. Last year I did a big overhaul (clutch and a bunch of other stuff while it was on stands in bits - ball joints and bushes, waterpump, tstat, supercharger service etc.) The advice on spraying some 2K to seal it sounds good but I’ve not done that before and I’m not sure when I’d be able to have the car off the road long enough. Was hoping there would be a ceramic coating or something that might offer enough protection?

Have just failed a warrant with our R53 Mini (sort of a bmw…) on the headlights supposedly lacking the appropriate cutoff/focus. Been to two vtnz branches and they both say their machine just shows light everywhere, no cutoff at all - although I can clearly see a line with a very distinct change in brightness at the appropriate height when shining on a bit of plywood at home at different distances. There does seem to be some light still getting above the line though for whatever reason. The bulbs seem to be seated correctly, they auto adjust when flicking them on as they should, so I’m thinking given the headlights are quite yellow/cloudy looking perhaps they are diffusing the beam all over the place to some extent. In any case they look crappy so I’m keen to polish them up, does anyone have a restoration kit they can recommend? Looking for something with a decent sealant too so that I’m not doing it again in 6 months…

My wife has one, r53 with a manual trans. Fun car to drive, short wheelbase and zippy as hell. I understand you can put different pulleys on the SC and do a few other mods if you are that way inclined. I don’t actually find it that bad to work on - once you know how to put it into ‘service mode’ (bumper etc comes off) it’s no worse than any of my previous Toyota/Mazda cars. Better in some ways. You will have oil leaks to fix, I’ve done all the common ones in ours (various seals and orings). We have had some issues, throttle body went, I had to do the clutch when the throwout bearing exploded and serviced the supercharger, water pump, hoses and all the front end ball joints and bushings etc. at the same time. First time I’ve done most of that on a car and was done on jack stands in my driveway over the course of a weekend and a week or so of evenings. I don’t regret buying one even though I’ve done a fair bit of work and thrown some money at parts, but perhaps would feel different if I had to pay a mechanic to do it. Watch out for noisy timing chains as that doesn’t look like nice if it goes, I replaced the tensioner on ours as preventative maintenance. This YouTube channel playlist has been extremely useful. There is a video in there on common faults/checking one out for purchase too from memory.

I bought the official space saver from a wrecker, came out of an e60. It fits in my e61 wheel well tightly with the carpet/trim modified slightly, or I understand you can buy different trim to suit (or just take the trim out). If it helps I can check the wheel size when I’m in the boot next?

All good, I was in the same position but found the answer on a uk based forum. If anyone with an e60/61 or e90/91 is lacking Bluetooth etc. I reckon these units are well worth it, having CarPlay (or android auto) makes the car feel much more modern. Not that tricky to install in the case of the Andream I bought, they have a YouTube video and it comes with a plug and play harness.

Good to know. What fluid did you fill it up with out of interest?

No need to change anything in the CCC/I-drive settings in my case, only the settings for the new interface

Mine is a different model to yours, but I had the same problem. On mine I went to “setup”, then “factory settings”. Enter a 4 digit pin, scroll down the options until I got to the “aux mode” setting - changed that to manual. This seems to tell the original car audio system to only change sources from Aux if you manually tell it to. Auto switching gets confused otherwise for whatever reason and has a mind of its own. Hope that helps, I expect it will be similar if not the same. Some photos below, sorry it’s ridiculously sunny in the driveway today and stinking hot so they were quick ones.

The Andream unit runs on aux, I assume yours is similar. I had to code aux in as my E61 didn’t have it from the factory, but no coding was required to stop the automatic switching. The setting I had to change was in the factory settings on the Andream unit itself. Same place that you go to set the screen size, I drive type etc.

I’m running the android based Andream unit in my ccc E61, mine also kept changing off aux mode to radio/tv by itself - I worked out it has a factory setting that needed changing and I needed a pin to get to the setting. From memory it was called “aux mode” or something similar and I had to set it to “manual” rather than “automatic”.

I got a pair last time they were on sale. Fairly short in length, getting my 530i e61 on them requires a couple of bits of plywood in front or the bumper hits them They won’t rust I guess but I don’t think they’ll last that long to be honest.

Are you looking for one of the space savers that fit in the boot of an e60/e61? I managed to find one at a wrecker in Takanini, bit rusty but mostly cleaned up ok. Cost me $200 from memory but after a few days of calling around it’s all I could find.

I have that one, it’s been great for reading codes on my e61 and r53 mini. Not sure if it does those functions, but I hope it does as I’m planning to change my trans fluid soon. You get to choose 1 make when you buy it and can then purchase additional makes from there

Also curious about this, need to get rid of the dealer surrounds and Japan plate holders on my E61 530i. Would this be the tape? https://nzsafetyblackwoods.co.nz/en/3m-vhb-tape-5952-black-clamshell-19mm-x-13-7m-roll-07077175

Finally had a chance to get to a few bits yesterday, started with cabin and air filters and a oil/filter service. Also replaced the headlight gaskets as they were falling to bits and I noticed a bit of condensation staring to form in the top part of the headlights. I pulled the engine cover off to have a good look around, I figure better to look now in case there are any obvious issues to bring to the dealer's attention. Pulled a couple of coil packs, tiny bit of oil around the spark plugs by the look of it so it might be time for a valve cover gasket job soon. Probably not something the dealer is going to be interested in addressing. Should the below distorted spark plug tube concern me? Looks like it's been bent enough that it's started to crack. I've never seen this before but have only ever worked on our r53 mini and my old Caldina - maybe this is an aluminium valve cover so easier to damage and it's had something dropped on it or something? It's the last cylinder, closest to the firewall so I'd have thought it would be hard to drop something there.

Is that shipped to nz? I’ve just ordered filters and some headlight gaskets and tried adding trans fluid to the cart out of interest but the shipping looked incredibly expensive

What does everyone use in their E6x ZF 6 speed auto transmissions? Or E90 etc, I understand these are found in a lot of different cars. The 2005 E61 I have just bought only has 52k on the clock but I'm looking to do some preventative maintenance over the next couple of months, will do a couple of drain/fills and the filter/pan/mech sleeve on the second round I think. I found a couple of threads here from a few years ago but there didn't seem to be any final consensus, and most of the offshore solutions I find seem to be unavailable or extremely expensive here. Seems that ZF Lifeguard 6 is recommended, this is $540 for 20L from cooldrive (bring it in), or $790 from Alltranz (in stock). A couple of threads here mention Fuchs Titan 6006 - $415 for 20L from BNT. Theres a fair bit on the Jaguars etc. which use the ZF about Ford Motorcraft Mercon SP ATF being virtually the same as ZF L6, apart from the colour. The Ford parts store in AKL I tried had never heard of Mercon SP, but had LV (not the same) at about $22/L so $440 for 20L. BM Workshop bring in "SWAG" to suit the ZF 6 speed apparently, $22+GST/L so $505 for 20L for comparison. So far the Fuchs from BNT or ZF L6 from cooldrive are looking best, still spendy though! Anyone used any of these fluids for drain/fills and had good or bad experience?