tmase

Finally got home and got my Bluetooth ULF installed! Full voice control, which actually works really well, fully synced my phonebook, clear call quality even without the upgraded microphone and it even integrates with the Place of Interest information database in the nav system. Pretty neat! Next step is to see if I can get the SMS to work with it too. Also got around to changing the crappy grab handle on the centre armrest: For a slightly less crappy one, still managed to scratch the new one within the first two hours - grrrr!

Was in North West Queensland last week and spotted this poor E30 Baur convertible abandoned in a rest area about 150 kms north of Cloncurry. God knows how it got there, this is about 1800 kms from Brisbane. Didn't have a camera on me at the time but I got a work mate to snap a couple of pics on his phone a couple of days later.

My E39 530i gets similar to you round town (13-14.5 l/100km), seen 7.8 l/100km on a run down to Dunedin. Vanos Seals are on my to-do list when I get home. I'll let you know if this improves things (hope it does!)

can't see your pic but I think if you look at your address bar you will see the word 'threaded' somewhere in there, replace this with 'linear' and you should be good to go

Sounds good Dave, work rang tonight and I have to shoot over to Aussie later this week for a while, not sure when I'll be back but I'll let you know.

I've got a Galaxy S3. It replaced my SE Xperia X10 which was a great phone in and of itself. The S3 has a large and very clear screen (720p) I don't think it quite matches the retina display for resolution but I think you'd be hard to pick it in real life. It is a big handset and takes a week of so to get used to holding. The battery life is pretty good, I can get two days easy with light usage which I think is pretty good for a smartphone. I often load up TV shows and movies when I go overseas to pass the time on flights and I can watch 6 hours of HD video (720p) with full screen brightness and still have nearly half battery left. My mate with an iPhone 4 reckons that'd be impossible on his handset. The camera is pretty decent has little lag and has some neat features like a burst mode that takes 8 shots and then selects the best one to keep. Call quality is good too, with a good speaker phone and I got an update to Android 4.04 the other day which boosts the internal speaker volume which is handy for louder environments. Good, fast internet connectivity, though NZ has such crappy mobile data allowances. I don't think NZ handsets are getting 4G LTE compatability - there's no network for it here yet anyway. Not sure what the iphone does but Android 4.0 ICS has the ability to turn your handset into a wi-fi hotspot which is handy and the tethering feature is fast and seamless. The quad core processor is fast, though I just leave my handset on power saving most of the time which disables some of the cores and it still runs flat out. The default email program is pretty average but it's pretty easy to get a better one from the app store, K9 mail works well for me. As for apps, the apple store may have more, but there is pretty much an android app for every useful iphone app nowadays and more are being added all the time. The S3 has a Siri type voice assistant, but it's pretty useless, but then again I hear Siri is pretty useless in a real application too though I haven't compared the two. The bluetooth seems to work really well, I use it to transfer photos to my PC and hopefully this week I'll get my bimmernav ULF so it'll interesting to see how well it integrates there too. One feature I do like a lot is if you are a Google Chrome user on your PC you can install Chrome for android (great browser!) on the phone and all of your bookmarks and search history automatically syncs, and you have an app that can send what ever page you are looking at on your PC straight to your phone, handy if you are leaving your desk. I am not an Apple fan, but I do see why people like them. They are probably slightly more intuitive to use than android. I'd try to hold out until the iPhone 5 (or whatever they're going to call it) comes out and then compare. I'm not sure how much better the S3 is compared to the S2 but it is streets ahead of my girlfriends original Galaxy S. Not sure what network you are with but I got my S3 through Telecom $200 down on a 24 month $80 plan. Pretty sure the S3 prices mirror the current iPhone 4S prices, though this'll change after the iPhone 5 roll out I'm sure. Though at the moment the S3 is probably better specc'd than the 4s in most areas. I've had android since V1.6 and there has been a massive improvement since then, the early phones couldn't hold a candle to the iPhones of the time but they sure have caught up and are improving all the time. Though it'll be interesting to see what ramifications there are to Apple winning their big patent lawsuit against Samsung. Anyways enough of my waffle - there are heaps of reviews out there for the S3 and the 4s and heaps of speculation about the iPhone5, I'm sure they'll be better informed than I am. If you want to know anything more about the s3, just ask! EDIT-S3 has removable battery and upgradable storage (micro SD) which Apple don't do.

Apparently SMS 'might' work, the ULF apparently supports it, but it could just be certain handsets and the Bimmernav people have yet to see it work. From my emails with them: I'll do some playing around once I get it going.

I've looked the Dynavin systems and derivatives, if I didn't have upgraded nav, TV, CD changer, and a retrofitted reversing camera already I'd be keen. But it'd be a shame to pull all that out just to get bluetooth. I'd imagine you'd loose the ability to reset your trip computer when you install a system like that as well. Checked out your thread Greg, looks like a great result, hope the Galaxy integrates as well as your iPhone did. Are you able to access SMS through that system?

Cheers Grant, probably will get in touch if I get into trouble. Bimmernav people seem very helpful, I've exchanged a few emails with them and they got me to take some photos of my wiring to confirm a few things, so I am sure they'll do their best to help out if I come unstuck at install time. I did some digging around and found a PDF which indicates which pins need to be changed out on the 54 pin connector in the boot to make a JBIT system work with the ULF but I can't work out what needs to changed on the 18 pin connector up the front., JBIT_to_ULF_wiring.pdf

25/26 - Vettel? Who knew?

I am getting close to ordering the Bimmernav Bluetooth retrofit kit for my E39. It is a Japanese import and has the pre-wired JBIT phone prep but according to Bimmernav you can change the pin-outs of the connectors so it should be plug and play. I know it is freaking expensive but I've got a Euro Mk IV Nav system so I kinda like the integration the OEM system offers. Additionally the voice recognition control for the phone and the nav sounds cool as well. Apparently the latest generation of ULFs allow access to your phone contacts and will display texts on the nav screen and/or OBD display. I've looked at after market Bluetooth systems but most of them are setup for i-Phone/Pods, which I don't own and require losing your CD changer functionality, which I do use - I know I'm old school. Though I do admit that streaming music via bluetooth would be nice to do. Before I drop a big wad of cash on this system does anyone know of any reason why I shouldn't. Are there any cheaper aftermarket alternatives that'd offer a similar level of integration? Would a TCU be a better option? I can't seem to find much information on how they'd work in New Zealand. As a bit of an aside, I know this isn't probably the best place to ask but you never know - the phone book and SMS compatibility of the Bluetooth ULF system is apparently contingent on the Bluetooth component of your device supporting something called Message Access Profile. Does anyone know that if a Samsung Galaxy SIII bought through Telecom NZ would support this?

Hoping I find the time to do it sooner rather than later. Looking forward to seeing if it improves the mid-range torque and it'd be nice to get some better fuel efficiency and to cure the rough idling that starts about 20 seconds after a cold start up and lasts until the temp is about a 1/4 of the way up the gauge.

Ordered my VANOS seal kit from Besian

I like it.

That honour belongs to Kalgoorlie I think. More Maloo utes than anything else.

Got it dirty! Drove Christchurch-Timaru-Palmeston-Queenstown-Mount Cook-Geraldine-Christchurch. 1266 kms Averaged 8.6l/100 km

Hard to tell on RealOEM.com but it looks like a couple screws behind the number plate hold it on. http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?mo...hg=41&fg=60

MP4-12C ?

So true! I still remember vividly my first morning in New York ordering a large coffee takeaway in a diner and being handed a bucket of warm brown water. This thing must have been nearly 1 1/2 litres. They were pouring it pre-mixed straight from some sort of ZIP boiler contraption bolted to the wall. Ughh! I don't mind instant coffee if there is nothing else but this was unpalatable. I was grateful for Starbucks after that.

I bought an HP Dv6 just under 12 months ago. Second gen Core i7, 1GB Radeon 6700 series graphics, 4 GB Ram. Doubled the RAM for under a $100. Great specc'd machine and reasonable price and it performs well in CS5 and encoding videos, gaming etc, paid under $1500 at the time. Not overly impressed with HP build quality though, the keyboard was properly seated in, and still pops loose occasionally. HP driver support is woeful, 3rd party components, like the graphics card, are given driver updates via HP. If you try to go direct to AMD for a driver update, they refer you to HP and HP's drivers are normally serveral versions old. The HP switchable graphics (allows you to switch off the graphics card and run the graphics via the onboard Intel graphics adapter) is very good at saving battery life but was really unstable using HPs shitty drivers. I complained and managed to get them to send me drivers direct from AMD and can now update without going through HP, and this has really improved things. Prior to this I had two Asus laptops, paid around $2700 for them. The first one, bought in 2005 was fantastic, rock solid construction, worked great. The second (2009) wasn't quite as good, overpriced for what I got (though this was my own fault as I didn't do enough research prior) and build quality had slipped as well, but still an okay machine and still serves as a media centre connected to my TV. As the others has said, I found Asus laptops a bit thin on the ground when I looked to change up last time so I went with HP. Acer had some good deals as well but the horror stories I had heard about warranty work, build quality, and the amount of bloatware installed on them put me off them. Do plenty of research prior to buying. I found these sites really helpful - http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/ http://www.notebookreview.com/ http://www.priceme.co.nz/Laptops/c-7.aspx http://apcmag.com/notebookhunter/index.htm HP for instance do models that are Australia/NZ specific so sometimes it can be hard to find reviews or information due to the smaller market - something to think about. Hope this helps

I just run Robert Harris 'Harris blend' through my drip machine at home. It may not impress the coffee snobs but I tried most of the other brands in the supermarket but I like the flavour of that one the most.

Alpine white F10 M5 on Rotheram Street outside Westfield Riccarton about 9pm tonight. Too slow getting my phone out for a pic.

They don't bother me, but in saying that I'd never get one myself, I have a terrible needle phobia. The missus has five of them. Anyway, if you want to see some disastrous tattoos check this site out; http://failblog.cheezburger.com/ugliesttattoos

Rear ended us in traffic, but told their insurance company that we had pulled out from the kerb in front of them. The fact the they hit the rear left of my car instead of square on or the rear right, and they were towing a trailer apparently didn't factor into it. My insurance company told us that a claims adjuster from the other guys insurance was the driving force behind all the legal nonsense. All very stressful. In hindsight I should have called the cops when it happened, but as no-one was injured and both cars were drivable I didn't bother.

Could you live with the interior? Nice comfort seats though! Think andyE39 might be having a look.