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BTW, does anyone know which is the correct spelling: bimmer or beamer?
Another question comes to mind, though it's not quite the season yet: How to get rid of the foul smell from the AC? It seems none of the cars I've owned is exempt from this problem, include my 325xi. Thanks!
Ken
what do you guys think of a 1991 318i. I'm looking to buy one. any problems or praises?
Cheers !
Last Friday, I went to my local “Dent Wizard” (by appointment), and using Black Magic, Voodoo, Curses (I heard them from the waiting room ;-)), and some very appropriately applied leverage, my ding was COMPLETELY removed, no trace at all, none, zip zero, zilch, NADA! Total cost: 1.5 hours and $150, a veritable bargain, I shouldn’t have waited so long. ;-)
There are a number of “Paintless Dent Removal” outfits dotted around the country, and I highly recommend exploring this option prior to having a traditional bodyshop breath on any dings or prangs suffered by your car.
Best Regards,
Shipo
For everyone comparing the interior space between the 3 and the 5 series need to actually sit and compare. I find the 5 series a lot more spacious and "open" than the 3. Plus, you get those cool parking lights!
-nobee
For a replacement we are looking at a '94-'95 325iC. I've always wanted a convertible and I finally live in an are where I would actually be able to drive top-down most of the time.
But considering these were the first E36 convertibles I am a little concerned with quality/reliability and the such. If anybody have any experience about these I would appreciate some advice.
Thanks a bunch!
Could not be happier with the car, exceeded my expectations and I am a fan.
Being an audio guy by trade, my only wish is that the stereo was higher end. Not that it is bad, but with a little more amplification it could drive the HK speakers much better. I will be investigating upgradeing this system without replaceing the head unit as I like the steering wheel controls. I will advise of my progress.
Is there a big difference in the sound quality of the standard radio and the HK upgrade? 600+ dollars is a lot and all the dealer had on his lot were HK equiped cars.
Does the 325 have autonmatic on and off headlights? The brochure says soemthing about auto-off, and mentions "automatic" headlights on the 330i.
The last, and most important question, has anyone paid much less that M.S.R.P. for a 325? The only dealer I have visited so far said that he would have to order the configuration I want and that he probably couldn't do better than a couple of hundered off list.
Thanks for all your help to a newbe.
Also, if you're into MP3s, you can add a module that directly interfaces with the stock head-unit. http://www.phatnoise.com
-nobee
Best Regards,
Shipo
Sunday March 17. My wife and I land in Munich at 8:00 AM on a foggy morning; we decide to take a taxi to the Marriott's Hotel as we are too tired to deal with the underground. The taxi is a Mercedes E-Class, and here is the part that I love, the driver is hitting speeds in excess of 120MPH, so with a grin in my face I say to my self, yeap, this is what driving in Germany is all about.
We arrived at the hotel around at 8:45AM. I highly recommend this hotel if you are doing ED, it provides easy access to the train station which takes you right into the delivery center, well almost, you still have to walk about 3 minutes. The hotel staff could not be nicer and/or any more helpful, and the parking for the car was underground and gated, perfect for my new car. Once in the hotel we slept a bit to get rid off the jet lag and then went sightseeing around Munich.
What can I say, Munich is a wonderful city, I loved it, the temperature was in the low 70s, sunny and beautiful cars were everywhere.
Monday March 18 We leave the hotel around 9:00 am to go to the delivery center, we take the underground, and walk for about 100 yards to the delivery center, ring the bell, we show our identification, and they takes us into the delivery center. We are told to go upstairs and have some breakfast while they prepared the paperwork. We get some cappuccinos, and some croissants and orange juice while we waited, in the meantime, I am looking around the center, and saying to myself, this is a very nice place, not what I expected. We finally are called out and the car is ready. This dude (Wolfgang) young kid in his mid-20’s goes over the paperwork, and shows us the functions of the key, and gets a few initials and signatures from us. We were then taken to our car, and there she was. Wow!! What a beautiful car, I could not get over how stunning the car looked. Wolfgang goes through the functions in the car as my wife takes pictures.
After all was said, and done we drove off from the delivery center, thorough a narrow exit, and I mean narrow, wow! The car just about fits. We then head to the Niederlassung dealership in Munich (wow! what a dealership, sorry Jon but this one kicks )where I had scheduled an appointment for 11:00AM, to get my M-steering wheel installed. We drove down to the service area, and here is where it got interesting, and scary. There are tons of BMW’s everywhere in the service area, and all the service men were driving them like maniacs and fitting them into tight spots, while driving at 100 mph (not exactly but you get the idea), I was like, oh no!!! someone is going to bang my new car, but as I looked around the guys were very skillful drivers and very careful when opening the doors, I guess when you do this for a living, it becomes second nature. Well, I left the car with them and walked over to the waiting area, the service man had said, that the installation would probably take about 30 minutes or less. He came back 20 minutes later and said, that the steering wheel was not in stock, I told him how we had communicated by e-mail at least ten times and he had said that it was ordered, then he said, well, we can get one from a dealer in Austria, and it will be here this week, I said, its ok, I will just get it from my dealer in the US. The deal that I was getting for the wheel was not that great anyways, it was 345 euros and 35 euros to install. Well, needless to say, the guy was really sorry.
We left the dealer and went back to the Marriott’s, I was a bit nervous while driving the car in the city, it was my first time driving in Germany, and also driving stick, which I had not driven in years. Of course, as I am coming out of the dealer, and I reached the light, next to me some Fiat rear-ended an older BMW, so that just made the situation even more tense, but I got through it.
We finally get to the hotel left the car there, and headed over to take the BMW factory tour.
The BMW factory tour is a must, best tour ever. The museum I would skip, pretty lame in comparison to Mercedes, in my humble opinion.
Tuesday March 19 we head off to Lugano, Switzerland (near lake Como), the Italian part of CH.
This is my first time in the autobahn, and lets just say the car is everything that is cracked up to be, acceleration is just awesome, awesome braking, awesome handling (once in the Alps), and the stereo so far sounds good to me, good bass. I keep the car under 100 MPH which is hard to do, cars are passing me as if I was standing still, the roads in Germany and Switzerland are awesome, Swiss are good drivers too from what I saw, and their roads are smooth as a baby’s bottom. Lugano is beautiful, the Hotel we stayed at is the Bellevue AU LAC, and the Temperature was 75F-80F during our stay. The city is right on the lake.
Wednesday March 20 we decide to head over to Ferrari in Maranello, yeap drove the car into Italy, which wasn’t a big deal, Italian drivers still fair better than California drivers. Everyone still speeds like crazy in Italy a la Germany style, drivers still keep to the right. We visited the Museum and saw a few Ferraris being tested (wow what a rush!!). I just love the sound of the engines, that evening we came back to Lugano, and spend it another night.
Thursday March 21 we drove back to Stuttgart. We stayed at the
Hotel Inter-Continental the temperature has dramatically change and it is now about 40F and it is pouring rain
Friday March 22, still in Stuttgart, we got up in early morning and went to visit, Mercedes, and Porsche museum. The Porsche museum is a bit small not worth the trip in my humble opinion once again, but it was nice to see Porsches everywhere (factory is right next to it), the Mercedes museum is the place to see, this is big time car history and a beautiful museum, totally worth the trip.
Saturday March 23, sill in Stuttgart, we head over to visit Neuschwanstein castle. Within an hour into our drive it starts to snow big time, so we turn around, and that is where that trip ended, I did not want to chance it. Still amazing though, how the roads are kept so clear, and yet the fields around the highways where covered with snow.
We went back to Stuttgart, and just did some shopping.
It was snowing big time at one point and I was just concerned, that we would not be able to make it back the next day with all the snow, but the next day, it stopped snowing, and we had no problems getting through.
Monday March 25th saw some more of Salzburg, and headed over to Munich for drop-off. We dropped off the car at 3:30 PM and took the train back to the Marriott’s, where we stayed one more night, before we headed back home.
About the car:
I kept the car under 100 MPH for the first 1200 miles, and after that cruised between 90 MPH and 134 MPH (according to the speedometer, which I’m sure was really 128 MPH, as we all know BMW speedometers are a bit off as per C&D, or maybe it was R&T article, I can’t remember). The car felt solid. This car is worth every penny, the deep growl is just awesome, I would say that the growl is even louder than the 2001s(having driven quiet a few). No complaints with the car. I have driven many cars (IS 300, Maximas, Mercedes, Acura Type-S, new Altima and so forth), but none compare to the feel of this beauty.
About the Speed:
It is just simply amazing, how one can hall you know what,and not worry about cops, on one instance after my break in period I chased a CLK 430 my limiter kicked in, and the dude slipped away, but not by much. It was nice to run in packs of 4 or 5 cars s (mostly Mercedes, Audis and BMW’s) which were all doing over 120 MPH.
About the Roads:
Road were awesome, no potholes or debris, just smooth.
About the Food:
We stuck to Italian food, as I do not eat veal, pork or rabbit (German food). Beer was good though.
About the Hotels:
I picked all hotels with underground-garaged parking, all very nice hotels. I was planning to do some B&B’s, but before I left, one of my friends told me that parking for B&B is usually, although not all the time, outside or across the street, and that his friends MB that he had rented that week, had been vandalized, so that put me right off the B&B idea.
Other cars:
It was nice to see the new CLK, the new E-series, the new SL 500 (this car is just one bad A** looking car, it is beautiful, one passed me on the Autobahn at at least 140 MPH). Some of the Audis station wagons look pretty sweet too.
Wishes:
If the US implemented a law, where cars must stay clear of the fast lane, and make obtaining a drivers license a lot harder. One can only dream.
Hopefully the pics work,
http://www.geocities.com/haznedarj/album1.html
shipo - wow, that is too weird, what a coincidence. Do you think PDR will work on your wife's van?
Postoak : I will work on the pics. I'am not a computer wiz, but I am assuming the pics might be too large.
Zero2sixty: no, I was not on the BMW tour, I created my own. The car should be here in about 5-7 weeks. I live on the west coast.
I do remember my brother telling me that some major roads in Switzerland are heated. Possibly Germany too? That's one way of keeping roads ice- and snow-free. The mountain and city roads are extremely well maintained in comparison to most US interstates I drove on.
I can't comment on Canadian roads other than the mess we drive through here in TO, since I've only been as far west as Windsor/Detroit and east to Montreal.
I think that I might try to do another ED next year for a 530i. I just will not visit family, probably do a time share in Denmark or Sweden.
By far the two best sounding systems I heard were in a Lexus ES300 and a Cadillac Seville (Bose). Of course, this could have to do with interior acoustics/shape as much as stereo performance. The G35 also had a better sounding system (also Bose) than the 3-series. I am now more convinced than ever to get the HK.
But,...my wife has already started to ramp up the objection to the purchase ("impractical, immature, too expensive, mid-life crisis, wah wah wah..."). This is how she killed the coupe. I think the auto-5-speed issue is a cross she is willing to die on.
Woe is me!
Once you've done that, anything you compose in Word can be pasted here and will post the way you intended.
Hope this helps.
Pat
Host
Sedans Message Board
Hmmm, no, I don't think PDR will work because the extremely slight bending of the metal is about 8" tall right at the rear edge of the sliding door. :-(
Tokfan,
Me too, in fact, my wife would have more than a few choice words for me if I was to ever even think of getting an automatic. Fortunately, that is not even an option for me. ;-)
Best Regards,
Shipo
I opted for the HK upgrade on my 325i so I would say yes. I thought about aftermarket, but you could easily spend twice as much and not have as good of sound. If anyone successfully upgrades their system, let us know.
Nobee and I have an ongoing debate about phatnoise. For around half the cost, you can get an iPod with a 5 or 10 gig hard drive (50-100 hours of music) and a hardwired FM transmitter with a small plug for your iPod. The iPod fits nicely in the little storage bin beneath the radio. Big advantage of the iPod besides price-you can listen to it anywhere.
Does the 325 have automatic on and off headlights? The brochure says something about auto-off, and mentions "automatic" headlights on the 330i.
No, but you can program the inner set of halogen lights as daytime running lights that turn on and off with the ignition.
The last, and most important question, has anyone paid much less that M.S.R.P. for a 325? The only dealer I have visited so far said that he would have to order the configuration I want and that he probably couldn't do better than a couple of hundred off list.
Yes, I paid $1300 under MSRP with floor mats and arm rest ($150) included. Note that the arm rest is not included on the 325i unless you get the premium package. My dealer was saying the same thing before it actually came time to sign on the dotted line. Talk to several dealers when you get serious.
Good luck!
-murray
Can someone point me to a site that lists comparisons of a wide veriety of vehicls?
Thanks
-murray
Another is pathway lighting. If you pull on the high-beam stalk a short time after you turn off the ignition, the low beams will turn on for about 20 seconds and then turn off (automatically).
Excluding the rear-view mirror dimming, I could not find anything more in the owner's manual that was automatic about lighting.
http://home.swbell.net/socwlo/page0002.html
I will probably finish at the time my car gets to the States.
DL