Neal

May I ask what it was out of interest?

Was a 1995 Penfolds 389 cab Shiraz, about $25 in 1998. Lasted well as half thought it would be corked. Boy was I wrong ?

New job is great thanks. In banking sector so quite a contrast from Government , best part is my team has a number of petrol heads so plenty to talk about in the lunch room.

Finished off a 20 y/o bottle of wine tonight bar a mouthful left over from a wedding present. Life is good

Serves me right of taking a swig of wine before golf appeared. Need clean pollo shirt !

Nice one Neal.

Its gotta be awesome. I have been doing what I do for 19 years this year and am about to quit for a change in career so your post is inspirational.

I am sh*t scared to be honest... but excited I will be able to work with cars in some way.

I had the best part of a month to think it through during the "three interview process" and even then it was a hard decision. I had a great job working with a team I'd put together over the 20 years.

Still st!t scared about the decision, but as they say "feel the fear and do it anyway "

All the best with your own decision but don't over think it :-)

New job. Good to be able to push the comfit zone after 20 years of the same organisation. New people, new challenges, great to get another crack at it !

Conversely to sell cars and trucks into the USA market the diagnostic systems must be an open standard with the various ODB software standards so the indie can work on it.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics

Guessing they don't want to sell tractors in the USA

best part of 3 hrs to travel 28km but feel lucky after a mate took over 6 hrs to get home.

Love the Wellington council advice about using a push bike to get home. Winners !

I always find my e46 M3 will knock when changing to 96 or sometimes on Mobil 98 blend.

Does this not happen with yours ?

Did you not check out the 2002 smg with 28k on the clock at JGBMW a couple months back ?

Best M3 I'd seen in years , was as new condition.

Never knew about the 700s. Nice collection of exotic BMWs

says in the burlb buttons will work including some apps when iPhones is connected. This unit does connect to Ibus so no reason why they wouldn't have mapped the codes.

Take daughter to hospital on a Friday night, no pi$$ed people, no fight victims, no abusive addicts, no long queues.

Great doctor works out her condition quickly , sorts breathing issues to manageable level and we get to take her home on the same evening.

US late M3 spec wheel as they needed to have air-bags at that point. But yeah, certainly ain't pretty.

I appreciate it gives more power to the M3, but there was a very good reason that Paul Rosche and his design team took two cylinders of a very similar engine when developing the M3.

These guys are one of the biggest profiteers in the M3 market at the moment, you see cars sell on eBay (or similar) for $xxx and then appear at EAG with a spit and polish a week later for $10k more.

True about the original m3 concept but I've always liked the Hartage 3.5s . Sure it becomes a fitting nightmare with another 50 kg up front. But also an easy 70 kW over the 2.5 or 20kw up on the works m3s

Not quite tradeMe but maybe something that Brent would build.

I'd be keen to have one in the garage

http://enthusiastauto.com/qsearch/?id=4844&form_display=51#.VUnqJJWJjIU

You could easily spent more than that on a doer upper 2002. Quite a unique car !

Silver ACS s3 e36 in Wellington today. Anyone from here ?

These are quite a decent head unit from a sound quality pov. Are you wanting something with carplay or similar ?

Either way , you should be able to wire in the latest into your exiting setup.

At worst it would be copyright infringement and that's not "stealing" - too many people watching bullshit anti-piracy ads.

Interestingly that stylised Kiwi is also protected, I wonder if BMWCCNZ got permission to use it?

Guidelines here, http://www.bmw-clubs-international.com/en/about_us/_shared/pdf/guideline_5_gestalltungsrichtlinien_auftritt.pdf

I'd reckon the club would have sort permission to use it .

Remind me to park the M3 in the garage if either of these turn up on a track day.

Claims sound about right. just double check that they can dyno 135i. At a recent dyno day we saw issues trying to dyno a 335i wagon. The traction control wouldn't disengage regardless of settings. It limited the rpm to around 4000 rpm from memory.

We did however see a 1M in the mid 400's and 550 nm of torque at the crank so the 3.0 turbo has tonnes of potential.

Pop a post up on bmwccnz Facebook site. think I remember these being available in the late 80s

Andy

Was thinking more http://www1.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/bmw/auction-871338684.htm than early e36 . Only M3s had higher interior spec.

But your probably right about value / costs

Tough one really. My 2.5 year old girl has a BGR / White Mk1 mini at the moment. Her mother isn't keen on it but my thinking is in 13 years time we can trade it for a modern economical multi airbag safe hybrid car.

If I were to get her a car now it would be a dual airbag e36 something or a z3 to get rid of the backseat so to speak. E36's are E30 money but are quite a jump in safety and don't have that wooden brake pedal or non abs of the E30

My wife is still with me because her e36 at the time did a great job at the time when it was involved in a major collision. This model BMW has my respect.

Rant

people who are considered to be "lucky" when they survive or narrowly miss a trerrible accident

usually a dumb decision, either theirs or someone else's, got them there in the first place & I consider them to be terribly UNLUCKY & they should NOT go buy a Lotto ticket

/rant

Exactly. Missed been blown up in London because I slept in a few years back.

Brought a lotto ticket after and won exactly nothing !

Shortly after, on the tube system again, terrorist try again, but this time they get the mix wrong. Get caught on the other side of London which took the best part of the day to get home.

Brought another lotto ticket....... Wtf , nothing again !

Wellington branch dented the bonnet when installing a front screen on my old e36 . Screen also looked like factory second and the window seal and fit was lopsided.. Rang the insurance company who didn't want to know and referred me back to the S&S Got third world customer service from S&S

Couple years on, work colleague takes SUV in. In joking I said check your bonnet ....... guess what happens next. he gets SUV , bonnet dented , all denial by said company.

I sincerely wish you good luck in getting it resolved.