Fair enough. I’ve only ever wrenched on cars while living in Arizona (I’m originally from NY but I didn’t do any car stuff until I moved to AZ) so all I’ve seen are cars from here and the rest of the southwest. For what it’s worth, cars from Texas and California seem to have similar issues, even though the climates…

I agree! In the meantime I’ve been busy saving all the E34's at my shop here in Phoenix.

That could just be a side effect of the E9x’s being newer than E46's... I’m already seeing all their plastics and gaskets fail in Arizona. As far as the built-in dilemmas go, you’ve got the electric water pumps that fail with no warning, all the usual cooling system plastics rotting apart (especially the coolant line…

My BMW 1992 525i/5 is the highest mileage car I’ve owned, at 271k miles. I’ve owned plenty of other BMW’s into the 200's, but nowhere near 271k. The crazy thing is that it still has its original paint, original engine, and original clutch. The engine still has great compression after all these years, likely because…

E46's are generally pretty reliable, and once you take care of all the common stuff (window regulators, cooling system, vacuum leaks, CCV, DISA, diff bushings, CSB/flex disc, motor mounts, trans mounts, cracking fuel sender housings, O2 sensors) they’re fairly bulletproof. I know that list sounds long, but that’s all…

Normally I hate white cars, but with old (pre-1992) BMW’s, getting a white car is a bit of a lifehack to having good paint, because prior to late 1992, almost all white BMW’s had factory single stage paint. For whatever reason, those single stage white cars have held up better than any of the clear coat cars... my…

This is the one thing that I’m perfectly okay with going electric... as a kid I always hated the diesel fumes from school buses idling next to school, and being in them was just as fumey if the windows were open (which they usually were, because the buses didn’t have air conditioning). I still hate the smell of diesel…

I used to have a scrap pile in my shop with old customer parts like control arms, diffs, axles, brake rotors, etc. When I scrapped it all, I made a whopping $65 off like 1400lbs of scrap. For the amount of space it took up, it wasn’t worth it to me. I’ve only got 1200sq ft to work with...

F80 M3? Ah, so nothing of value was lost. Just another hypebeast car. I’m just glad nobody got hurt.

A sun shade and some spray wax... because I’m in Arizona.

Reminds me of how Gordon Murray sold his F1 because it became too valuable to drive.

Replacing interior bulbs is like the first thing I do in every BMW that I buy. There’s just something so nice about having an evenly backlit cluster, it’s very soothing.

I’ve never liked LED’s in old BMW’s... they look wrong and can cause a lot of electrical issues since the electrical systems aren’t designed to accommodate the needs of LED’s.

Agreed. Plus with companies like Arnott, you can replace the components for much less than dealer pricing. People just get mad at air suspension because it can’t be neglected for 200k miles like a traditional coil suspension... 

The sketchiest car I’ve driven probably has to be a 2009 BMW 135i... it was brought into the shop to have some work done, and afterwards I had to test drive it and run it through the gears to make sure there weren’t any boost leaks or codes that came up. This particular 135i was pretty heavily modified, with pretty…

Welcome to America, the land of doing the right thing— but only if it’s convenient.

Ah, true. I forgot those had air suspension, so many of them locally have been converted to coil springs.

Old news, lol. People were doing this with Range Rovers as far back as 2003. Air suspension is truly amazing... you can have tons of ground clearance when off-roading and have it lower on the highway for better efficiency and stability. My Range Rover is incredible, it goes from off-roading to doing 80mph with no…

I had a 96 Mustang GT 5-speed... that clutch is a freakin’ workout! It definitely had the heaviest clutch out of all the manual trans cars I’ve owned. I did hours of stop and go in that thing, RIP my left leg.

What’s my reason not to change? Owning some of BMW’s best-designed sedans, that’s the reason.