Eagle

I read Glenns post as front struts are either left or right, not the actual springs. They would have to be labelled if they were somehow specfic.

Haha looks obvious now. I had it in my head they were L or R like the E39's, everything else is shared. Guessing these aren't marked L\R like OE stuff is.

Hopefully it will stay in good nick.

Doubt you could install them upside either with the bottom being eggs shaped

Were they fully seated down into the clamp\pinch bolt? Hard to install them incorrectly otherwise when using old pads. Your install looks fine, the spring doesn't rest against the stop unlike the top and is mostly inline with the indent. Id give them more time. I drive around for at least a week to ensure thing are settled before going for a proper alignment.

Exhaust setup and wheels to a lesser extend would difficult to find or be unobtainable and are certainly worth a premium, but otherwise i don't see these as expensive cars to sort if you bought one in poor condition from DIY perspective. If you had to pay labor for everything like this example then yeah 24k may not cut it. E34 540i6 is still the best pick by a long shot

+1 more lowering to pull off those wheels. E12 based suspension is just too old to worth the hassle though.

Well E36's are the new E30. People buying another box instead of repairing them and MX5 guys fitting them is going to push prices up also.

No reason why you couldn't do it, its more labor than skill based. Having someone program the new key makes it even easier and saves you some $. Money well either way given its sometime you are using all the time. Yes IR key should work fine as spare.

IR is garbage and belongs in the bin with all the other jap import 'features'. Converting to RF shouldn't cost more than $200. RF Antenna, run a few wires, key cut then swap transponders or cut and reprogram new ones with AK90.

Sounds like you need the right 32mm spanner, the one i use is 420mm long, and near 10mm thick at the jaw. Combined with a whack from a mallet or sledgehammer they are always defeated.

I sold mine in '14 which was very similar spec to this, good refresh of most parts but had clear coat damage on boot and roof. With that in mind and 340,000 on the clock it sold for $6000. I would expect 10k to be reasonable price for one in decent nick without any mods. They are certainly trending up in value and are hard to source but that's almost what i would expect an M5 to fetch.

Shipping is cheaper than i expected. Although they are listed for $61 usd now.

How much are new ones? Local I assume?

Ive had success with the shudder fix along with new filter and fluid as soon as the issue appeared. It never completely fixed the the problem but improved it significantly enough that it was only noticeable on hills in conditions Glenn stated. Did at least 20,000km without it getting any worst but it surely would have to be rebuild at some point if i didn't scrap it.

Average km's more like it. Appears reasonably priced for the work done, but its not a msport so would be expect it to be cheaper.

Ive never come across a faulty module in facelifted cars so maybe they corrected the fault in the later versions, or maybe its just a numbers game.

Consumerism sums it up

Looks like it wasn't cleaned enough during its life

ZF's for M5X motors ie S5D 310z and 320z go for around $1000 these days, give or take a couple of hundred either side. I would think you could probably find a Getrag 220\250 for around $500 or a little more. Importing one ZF gearbox by its self didn't seem worth it when i looked into costs.

Germans may of started the trend but plenty of others have joined the club. Euro Ford cars for example are just are just as bad as the German stuff for plastic cooling.

So they can attempt to make money off you or get you to buy a new car. Modern cars are worse off with crammed engines bays, turbos etc and possibly even lower grade recycled plastics. At least some manufactures realized their mistake and make a genuine metal replacement version eg https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/car-parts-accessories/toyota/engines/listing-2645493285.htm. Though its pretty stupid of Toyota in first place to use one plastic pipe when all the others are metal.

Do you have budget? Refreshing suspension on most BMW is by far the biggest expense in my experience. B4 are basically OEM replacements and are priced accordingly, you could probably get them and new hardware for under $1000 landed from places like Daemon tweeks, Rockauto or FCP Koni's are a performance upgrade (like the B6 and B8) and are much more expensive (shox.com list Sport adjustables F&R for $1200 NZD). You may get hit with custom import entry fee\paper work\GST and at least a $100-200 freight bill importing them, making them over $1500 landed. Then you got all new bump stops, mounts etc to buy on top of that. Typically most stuff in NZ would likely cost more even if its available.

Used B4's on a few BMW's and a Mercedes with stock springs, similar performance and ride to the sport dampeners they replaced. Good option if you can get them cheaper than Sachs. I wouldn't bother with PU bushings in your case, more hassle\cost than it's worth for a average road car. They need to be re-lubed and rarely worth the improvement over fresh rubber. Ive had good life out of Meyle HD arms\bushings. Yeah the B6 and B8's ive had needed to or were re-valved (like most decent suspension packages seem to do)

A number of Mazda's have VVT, timing chain stretch problems. Had a few come into work not running right due to this. Ford and Mazda have some of the worse engineering design in my books. Given its just for a daily you'd be adding many potential reliability issues. I think buying a cheaper older model in reasonable nick and throwing some money at it would carry less risk from a reliability standpoint.