QuoteplunkmanI recently became the second owner of an 87 325e, my first BMW. 213K plus miles. The car runs well, but occasionally beeps at me either once or three times from the buzzer under the dash kick plate, and I can't for the life of me correlate it to anything. Any ideas The chime under the dash has a number of things that will set it off, one of them being when the outside temperat
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteEarendilAnyhoo, thanks for the break down. It sounds like the article had most the generalities correct, and messed up the facts (at least as they relate to our cars). It deductively makes sense to me that a viscous LSD would fail more "gracefully" and revert to an open diff. Is this correct? That is certainly a plus for the viscous diff. Yeah, the generalities were OK, and it is c
Forum: Technical Forum

FYI, a guy on the iX mailing list is giving away two iX diffs for free (plus shipping from Dayton, OH). One is a 3.91 and one is a 4.10. Link is here (you need a yahoo account to view it): http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/thebmw325ixclub/message/25363
Forum: Technical Forum

...Thus exclaimed an astute observer of automotive excellence as he walked by my E30 in the parking lot of the grocery store today. Of course, he was a 4-year-old preschooler holding the hand of his mom, but his keen observation is no less accurate because of that.
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteEarendil I really want a set of 4x100 15" BMW wheels! I always thought that the ix wheels would be a relatively quick replacement. Peter, you say the offset is way off between the two? Is it off in a direction that can be corrected for? The iX originally came with basketweaves just like all the other E30s, except they were 15x7, with a 41mm offset. So yes, you could theoretically pu
Forum: Community Forum

Welcome back! These messages made me realize that although I had submitted this new site to Google last year, I never really followed up on that, and Google has been slow to pick it up. I've just poked around some more with Google's webmaster tools, and hopefully that will result in more people finding us.
Forum: Community Forum

Cool! Can't wait to see the pics. I've always loved the 2002. They're like the grandfather to our E30s. I have no experience to offer, though, as I have sadly never had one. I just know that like most cars from that era, they are susceptible to rust, so be very wary about anything that looks like rust. Someday I would still like to find one to play with, preferably rust-free one
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteEarendilI found this bit particularly interesting... "Viscous LSDs are less efficient than mechanical types, that is, they "lose" some power. They do not stand up well to abuse. In particular, any sustained load which overheats the silicone results in sudden permanent loss of the differential effect.[5] They do have the virtue of failing gracefully, reverting to semi-open d
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteArcheo-peteriXThere was a group of M-Tech cars that BMW put on the road which weren't M3s. Basically it was like the 325iS but had a special interior decoration package and a special suspension package. I didn't know that. Thanks for the education.
Forum: Technical Forum

Quotejimmy_bones BMW built motors for Planes during WWII. The symbols does represent a propeller and the blue and white represents the sky and clouds. Did you read the article?
Forum: Community Forum

Quotejimmy_bones Yeah but here is the odd ball part of my BMW. Has the M series logo on it. And I have been trying to track down some information on it and find out if someone just threw the logos on it or, it is an actual M series. People slap those M logos on non-M cars all the time. (I don't know why -- maybe they think it'll make the cars go faster or something...) Anyway, if you ha
Forum: Technical Forum

I would try to find a used one in good shape. Even if it doesn't last as long as a new one, for $120 you could probably get a trunk full of them. Have you looked at any of the online used BMW parts places? Here are a few places that I've had good luck with over the years: http://www.e30parts.com/E30PartsForSale.htm http://e30bmwparts.com/ http://www.bmwjoe.com/ http://www.theeurod
Forum: Technical Forum

Sadly, up here in Vermont where could actually use the snow, we got almost nothing -- just a few flurries this morning amounting to less than an inch. Still, I had a good day skiing, and driving the iX over the snow-packed roads over the mountains. I've had this car for several years now and it still amazes me how crazy good this car is in snow, especially with good winter tires (studded Hak
Forum: Community Forum

Quoteducatipaso so what's the proper coolant for this car? mine has always had green stuff in it. That's all I've ever used. I think mine has the green stuff from NAPA. It's just ethylene glycol -- nothing much to waste a lot of attention over.
Forum: Technical Forum

Quotealanrw Safest thing is lens paper. I have seen a product that is premoistened specifically for lens and the stuff dries really fast and won't streak. It comes in individual wrapped packets. +1 on the lens paper. That's what I use.
Forum: Community Forum

Quotenomis3613Mine only work when the ignition is actually on, just wondering if this is another example of butchered electronics by some previous owner... No, mine are the same way. It's a minor annoyance occasionally, but that's all. The power windows in my wife's '04 Mazda have a nice feature that allows the windows to work for a minute after the key is removed, or until
Forum: Technical Forum

Quoteducatipaso fock the special tools to remove the fan are like $35/each any recommendations on how to do this without buggering it up? You can remove the fan with just a 32mm open-end wrench. Since this is one of the only times you will use this tool (*), and big wrenches tend to be expensive, IMHO it's OK to buy a cheapie for this job. I think I got mine at NAPA. The fan will want to tu
Forum: Technical Forum

Thanks to everyone for all the encouragement and moral support over the past year in getting this new site set up. We are now hosted by a commercial service that has a good record, so we should do pretty well with reliability. Of course, this reliability doesn't come free. We are charged approximately US$100/year to host this site, which your admin pays for out of his pocket. With that in
Forum: Announcements

This Sunday (6 December) will mark the first anniversary of our new site after the agonizing death of the old one. It has been a slow rebirth, but we are up to 73 users now, and still growing. As long as we still have something to talk about, we'll be here! That is, as long we keep paying the bills. I just sent off a payment of US$107 to our web hosting service to keep us going for another y
Forum: Community Forum

Congrats, Cab! My wife and I also had our second kid as I was finishing up grad school, so I know just what you're going through! (Except in my case, kid #2 came before I finished. Your way is better. ) She's now off at college and just turned 18 yesterday. The time flies by. Enjoy those precious years while you have them!
Forum: Community Forum

Yup. Sorry about that. I tried to change my password with our host service, and unbeknownst to me it also changed the database password that the forum software uses, which broke it. And of course I didn't look at the forum all day yesterday or Monday, so I didn't even notice the problem until Rick emailed me this morning. Mea culpa. I won't do that again!
Forum: Community Forum

Sorry for the interruption in service. On Monday I changed the administration password for our hosting service, intending it to change only the login information that I use when dealing with the hosting service. However, it seems it also changed the password that the forums use to connect to the backend database, which broke the forums. Mea culpa. I should have checked after I made the change.
Forum: Announcements

Quoterkj Or is it all down hill from here on.... Rick I'll just say that, as in real life, each higher gear takes longer to get out of.
Forum: Community Forum

QuoterkjI think, the thirty not being your primary car that you trip in, you can do just the side that's hurt now and leave the other side go. Myself, it's a little different; I use the thirty for all kinds of long trips to the middle of nowheresville so my thinking is a little different and it Is my only trip car Actually, the iX is my primary car. It's my daily driver to work, an
Forum: Technical Forum

This is kind of fun. I've asked this question in three different places, and so far the advice to replace one or two is split just about 50:50. Lacking a clear consensus, I am falling back to the first principal that has served me well through the years: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." So I* will be replacing just the known bad one, and seeing how long the other on
Forum: Technical Forum

1988 was supposedly the first year of Motronic 1.3. Earlier cars used Motronic 1.1, which had a much simpler output with only four codes. Further reading: http://www.unofficialbmw.com/repair_faqs/motronic.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motronic
Forum: Technical Forum

It's time to replace one or both rear wheel bearings in my iX. It's been a little noisy (but not too awful) for a while, and last time a mechanic looked at it he confirmed that one of them needed replacing. His recommendation was to leave the other one alone, but my inclination is that if one of them is bad (after 150K miles), the other one is probably not far behind. What's the th
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteDave_GWhere would I find the main relay and this green wire that connects to it? Never mind, I found it. No corrosion there, and looks good, but I also discovered that the fuel pump itself isn't making any sound. I guess the next step is to test the main relay (is there a test?) and the fuel pump itself. Sorry Rick, I didn't mean to hijack your thread. What code do you get when
Forum: Technical Forum

Wow, is this thread ever timely. I am having a similar problem as Rick. For two years, ever since I replaced the timing belt/water pump/etc., my car has started hard in the cold or wet. I've replaced the AFM (based on a 1215 code shown), coolant temperature sensor, fuel pressure regulator, and checked all the wiring, to no avail. I've just lived with it, because it always started event
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteDave_G Great stuff! Thanks for the into. Looking at my schedule for this summer, I'll probably get around to getting the A/C going about the time that the leaves start falling. Progress report time: Well, I was a little optimistic in my earlier prediction. I finally got the A/C going about the time that the leaves are almost done falling and snow is starting to appear. But it&#
Forum: Technical Forum