kwhelan

25 minutes ago, Young Thrash Driver said:

My farm bike reads less than 12km, delivered today. It does the metric ton alright so I guess I fall into the first camp?

not at 850rpm tho?

good visibility out the back and side windows, easy to park,easy to judge front and rear extremities. good stereo and heater, good demister, good steering turn radius, good aircon, not likely to get stolen. plenty of cup and storage holders for the commute. something peppy over the first 100m from the lights and  short enough to squeeze into tight parks for a city dweller with short doors that don't open too wide

2 hours ago, BlackrazorNZ said:

Most of the guff I read on the matter inferred that nursing it, especially by putting in lows of non-varying RPM, was just as bad as burying the throttle.

As I understand it, the 'ideal' (which is what I'm trying to do) is as much variance in RPM as possible, under differing degrees of engine load, while trying to keep max RPM below about 4000rpm.

Given it sits at 850 rpm doing 100kph on the motorway, it's a lot easier than it sounds.

850 seriously or is that an exaggeration, you'd have to drive home in 4th in your 8 speed to make it work and you'd be buggered in a cvt

TBH i don't think it really matters with modern motors except the obvious really hard caning from cold,

you don't see rentals or lease vehicles that appear to be any worse than private ones despite peoples lack of care so they must be pretty sorted

there's extremes to both arguments and bit of history to some that probably doesn't apply anymore.

the first gen 1.5 laser/mazda had many stories of glazed bores due to people nursing them too much but that was possibly more a new engineering tolerances type bug,

workshop would take them out and thrash the living daylights out of them to fix it.

not saying that applies to newer models where all the tolerances have been changed significantly over early 70s/80s engines . oils have changed,onboard computers are self adjusting in realtime now

alot of very fancy car makers bench test their engines before they're even installed into the chassis and they're hitting big revs on the testbeds

5 hours ago, zero said:

19s are not great on the e46. The ride would be very harsh as the tyres would have a very small profile. The tyres would also be way more expensive.

agreed I had 19s on a e39 and hated them, the low profile tyres were fine on Auckland motorways but I lived in HB. each pothole felt and sounded like you had hit the rim and rattled your teeth, if you saw one coming you ducked, crunched and waited for impact, it was horrible, even a manhole cover was something you swerved , car was lowered too so that added to the issue. talking to wheel shops the woman driving hubbys v8 commodores can smash a 20" just parking and hitting the kerb.

looks great but just not practical.

its the little things, high kms means wear, seat springs, windows mechs, door handles, key barrels,hinges, rubber seals on doors boot etc the engine and drivetrain can be fine but when you start talking shocks, steering, braking everything has a life, they may still be working but they are never tight like  a low kms car, of course some old cars are immaculate and some new ones are cheap weak crap but generally eventually you do tire of older vehicles when you step in a reasonable newer one

for that money your in the v36 skylines which are bullet proof, don't go 2.5 though as they were built for taxis only in japan to meet there stupid regulations. the 3.5 is better in every way and actually cheaper on gas. I have a 3.7 and its the best car Ive owned in years, cost nothing but an oil change every year and eats long trips at alarming rates 245kw and I get 700km from a tank.

take one for a test , you will be impressed,great brakes, handling too, small boot is the only negative

https://www.drifted.com/vq37vhr/

think the headlights are the giveaway

to be fair you could say that about just about any car in those ranges tho nowdays, Honda seem to be the only ones going their own way slightly by adding on sharp angles and its not surprising when you see the koreans have pinched the same designers who worked on the euros

weirder that its in english?

not sure in your area but decent locksmiths can often do them,

I'd own either of those Porsches, still dam good vehicles and despite having more seats get reasonably good reviews don't see your point at all

agree about the m fun cars though, they won't suddenly become unlikeable, its just progress I guess

28 minutes ago, Eagle said:

 Porsche is the only German marque i can think of that seems to have held up for the most part.

agree Porsche make sports cars and have thrown in a few suvs and things lately to try and keep up market share but you always know its still a drivers car first

jag/aston is probably similar

I don't think you can really say BMW are any different than VAG or merc ,they are mostly about mass producing large numbers of many product lines, they have their niche that helps create a bit of brand difference, (Audi was 4 wd and 5 cyl, bmw was rear wheel drive etc)  but their bread and butter is , saloons, stationwagons and they all include some very hot go faster models that try to cater for the sports driver

It was true in the early days their bread and butter cars e30 etc made great sports vehicles with little changing required but the way the whole industry has improved its knowledge sharing, designer poaching  and engineering its relatively easier for new say korean brands  to achieve those levels now and I guess on a road the theoretical limits of handling/ride and comfort and performance are easily met

bit the same as any cheap smartphone will actually do 90% of what a dearer brand does now

you could argue american muscle cars are getting better and going back oldskool may be the only option for diehard tyre spinners

10 minutes ago, NZ BMW said:

Hehe, I can show you the invoice from Auckland BMW for mine if you want. That’s the price for factory blades. 

That being said, I’ve got two years out of them and they are now in need of replacement so they do last. 

so your saying they are using magic moondust rubber that last 2 whole years, wow seems to be well worth the cost then, you got ripped

theres no logic to it,you just have to suck it up if you want to run a bmw, along with water pumps and various other parts. It certainly hard to justify to any sane person like your wife when your car just keeps soaking up money compared to her bulletproof japper which in the 116 category is no worse in any way than the bmw

bmw owners are masochists

a pulley and coolant tank on a car that's done 60k in 7yrs is pathetic unless your looking through BMW rose tinted glasses. We all know and expect those things to fail through unfortunate experience but its hardly fair to expect a new bmw owner to realize that and just call it maintenance because to nearly any other brand its not expected. Its a small town runabout and should be judged against its competition for expected maintenance. its hardly an M3

I share your distrust and treat a lot of dealers with caution ,sometimes you have no choice especially regarding warranty but I 've caught them out too many times for them to just be all believed as straight up honest.

My nissan warrant for example was passed ok, but needed new rear pads supposedly, odd I thought so never did anything about it and 3 years later still sailing thru warrants at the same nissan dealer

I used to work at a holden dealer in the parts dept myself so I know full well how often wiper blades and things were changed on customers cars.

or some true fan whos it was their pride and joy and who had it all done at dealerships and just burned money, rare but they do exist

Eeeyore

I just bought one off aliexpress, local locksmith programmed it for me for probably a quarter of that