Peter, you took the words right out of my mouth.
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteEarendil I'll keep browsing craigslist and other places, try and get a feel for what the going price for E46 cars are, including the iX. I wouldn't mind having a heavier car, as long as my E30 loses some more weight and stays nimble A couple grand more and I could end up with a manual 325iX... A minor point but a significant one: don't confuse the E46 Xi with the E30 iX -- t
Forum: Community Forum

I'm with Peter on this one. I've been running Linux as my primary OS since its infancy in 1995. Most device drivers are readily available, with few exceptions. I happen to have a Canon multifunction printer at home, which is one of the exceptions. Canon has been awful about releasing Linux drivers, but the support community has come through with drivers that work. There are very few
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteEarendilHow feasible do you think the transmission is as a solo job? I did the Drive shaft solo, which was on the boarder of tolerable. I'm guessing the transmission weighs substantially more. You guess correctly. I've dropped transmissions solo, and it absolutely requires the use of a floor jack to bear the weight of the transmission, and to raise and lower it gently. It's e
Forum: Technical Forum

Good work! My iX has leaked oil since I've owned it, about 1/2 quart every couple thousand miles. I have never had the dedication to determine exactly where it's leaking. It's probably either the oil pan gasket or the rear main seal, and I don't know which would be worse to replace. So I just keep putting in 1/2 quart every couple thousand miles. I think I'm waiting till
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoterkjMy remedy was to take that offending bulb out of the dash cluster, I hate the ABS anyway; it was the first thing I disconnected when I bought the car B) Heh. Y'know, it's funny, on my track car I absolutely refuse to have ABS too, and I can threshold brake from 100 MPH without locking up the wheels. But for some reason, I don't mind it on my street car. And I especiall
Forum: Technical Forum

Recently the anti-lock light came on in my '91 iX, and I'm getting tired of looking at it every day. I've got the circuit diagram from the electrical troubleshooting manual, but there's an awful lot of components shown there that I could check. Is there a most common point of failure in these things that I should look at first? (Maybe something nice and simple like fuse?)
Forum: Technical Forum

You could also check the crank angle sensor. It's hard to say from the symptoms you describe, but a faulty CAS can cause weird intermittent problems like that.
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteArcheo-peteriXConvince me to spend the repair money on the iX ... please Well, let' see... The E30, as we all know, has legions of admirers, possibly a greater fan base than any car of its era. There is, of course, a reason for that -- they are beautiful, well-made, reliable, and above all, fun cars. The iX has its own little subset of fanatics (to which I am privileged to belong).
Forum: Community Forum

Sorry for the scare, guys. I'll try not to let it happen again.
Forum: Community Forum

Have you tried car-part.com? I see a couple there for $100.
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteMichiel 318iS Just out of curiousity: what's the car next to the E30 in the picture? Looks like a 1st-generation Camaro to me. Am I right? What do I win?
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteArcheo-peteriX Two years ago, the forum was hijacked by some Russian hacker. We couldn't make any contact with Gustavo Melo who owned the original BEN and we had to reconstitute it in this newer more secure form. Yup. I was hoping we could keep the old bmwe30.net domain, but at the time Gustavo wanted to keep it, which was understandable. But since then, he apparently let the domain nam
Forum: Registry

Found on Jalopnik: Four minutes of BMW E30 love Link
Forum: Community Forum

Brake pads and rotors are normal wear items, and between the three cars in my driveway I change them frequently, so I wouldn't be too upset about that. (On the one that is my track car I go through about two sets of pads a year; I change rotors less often, but I do change those too.) Tie rod ends are a once-or-twice in a car's lifetime sort of thing. I've never had a steering r
Forum: Technical Forum

Once again, the iX has surprised me with its versatility, and convinced me (as if I wasn't already) that BMW made the perfect vehicle in this gem. In the past I've written about its prowess as an ice racer, as a snow machine over unplowed highways, as a daily driver (of course), and even as a competent autocrosser. Last week I was surprised yet again. I was in the Adirondacks of nor
Forum: Community Forum

Sorry I missed you! I live just across the lake on the Vermont side, but we spent the last two weeks over on the New York side, in the Adirondacks, miles from anywhere (including Internet access). We were probably about 45 minutes from Willsboro. I had one nice adventure with the iX (which I'll write about separately), but mostly it was two weeks of fishing, boating, hiking, and hanging out
Forum: Community Forum

Here in Vermont it's $65/year, or $122 for 2 years. It has gone up a little, but nothing drastic.
Forum: Community Forum

At this point I feel compelled to remind everyone of Hanlon's Razor: QuoteNever attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. An interesting alternate version of Hanlon's Razor appears on Wikipedia: QuoteSir Bernard Ingham Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if the
Forum: Community Forum

Is the check engine light showing any codes?: http://www.unofficialbmw.com/repair_faqs/motronic.html
Forum: Technical Forum

For a very long time (over two years), I've been living with a condition where my E30 starts hard in the cold (see http://bmwe30network.net/forums/read.php?3,813,813#msg-813). I've tested every electrical connection I could think of, and replaced the AFM (it was throwing a 1215 code, which is the AFM), the ECU, the coolant temp sensor, the intake boot, the fuel pressure regulator, and p
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteEarendil Oh, and Beverly (or Bev for short) is the name of my car, NOT a person. Sorry if anyone thought a human was hurt in the wreck. Thanks for the clarification. I was thinking the worst. I'm glad it was just bent metal, and no one was hurt. Parts can be replaced! Good luck getting her back and looking pretty again.
Forum: Community Forum

Here's another thought. Since 14-inch tires are getting difficult to find these days, maybe consider going up or down a step in size. It may affect performance and/or gas mileage, but you'd have a bigger pool to choose from. On my non-E30 I have 195/60-14 Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS Pole Position (Tire Rack has them), and they're fantastic in every way. (My wife's Mazda also h
Forum: Technical Forum

Woohoo! Congratulations to you and Mrs. Cab!
Forum: Community Forum

Quotealanrw Peter, does it run all programs or do you have to get Ubantu specific programs? Cd burning software, movie editing, browsers, etc? Linux has programs that do all of that stuff. I do pretty much all my work within Linux, including all my digital photography. Sometimes there are Linux versions of programs we're familiar with from Windows (e.g. Firefox, Thunderbird), but often they
Forum: Community Forum

Nice! I'm glad to hear you're keeping the E30.
Forum: Community Forum

Quotealanrw Ubantu, Fedora? Who names these things? alan Ubuntu is supposedly an ancient African word meaning 'humanity to others'. That makes at least as much sense as naming an operating system after a framed hole in a wall, or a kind of apple. Fedora is an offshoot of Red Hat, whose logo is a red fedora. BTW, I'm a system administrator, and I've been using Linux as my p
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteFerdinandWe're still trying to get the recorder to survive the wicked vibrations for an entire session without the batteries or video connections buzzing loose. Cool video. I love kart racing. A friend of mine's son is about 18 years old, and has grown from the fastest kart driver I know into one of the fastest race car drivers I know, and he's only been driving race cars for
Forum: Community Forum

Nice seats!
Forum: Community Forum

Great report, Ferdinand. Second by 17 seconds is nothing to sneeze at -- that's a super result! I'm trying to imagine changing a control arm in 30 minutes in a clean, dry, well-lit, and fully-stocked garage, and thinking, nope, I couldn't do it. In a temporary service area? Amazing! I guess you carry spare control arms for times like that?
Forum: Community Forum