WIBIMMERS

Yesterday morning while I was at work I received a phone call from the detective that had been working on the case and he asked me "Hey, would you like to come pick up your car?" I was pretty quick to respond with a hard yes and was on my way. The vehicle had been found by the detective via text messages from the recent "owner" of the vehicles phone, and it was hidden behind a storage unit complex here in Eau Claire. This was what it looked like when I got there:

Pretty well snowed in but from what I could tell it didn't look too rough. Unfortunately keys were nowhere to be found so I ran home and grabbed my spare set as the city called a skidsteer over to dig it out. They left about 2 feet on either side of the car by the time I got back and my cousin came by to help me dig out the rest. After another 2 hours of shoveling we were finally able to dig out a spot!

Car wouldnt start via either a jump pack or jumper cables hooked up to my truck, battery was completely froze up. Ran to the local Oreillys and picked up a new battery to just get me by. Once I threw the battery in (using the handy dandy BMW trunk toolkit lmao) and got it started a local tow company came by and couldnt sneak back there to it so we just hooked their chains right up to the hitch of my pickup and pulled it right out of its spot. Honestly it ran pretty good and seemed mostly complete aside from the fact they ripped half the speakers out and broke the speaker covers on the doors. They also did me a great pleasure of smoking cigarettes inside of it and leaving it almost completely empty on gas! How kind!

I proceeded to drive the car back to my work and got it pulled inside. Aside from the fact the brakes were trashed, the tires and everything else seemed to be mostly the way I left it which is pretty crazy. Of course theres a few new scratches and dents here and there, but nothing too crazy.

Either way, I couldnt be happier to have the car back in my possession and overall could have been so much worse than it really was. Insurance claims will be submitted pretty soon. The odds of it being recovered at all, let alone almost complete is absolutely insane. I guess I've used up my luck for the year haha.

Appreciate all the kind words, hope everyone can look forward to updates on getting this thing sorted out and ready for the upcoming summer!

Last week I had a customer come into my work and they asked me if we worked on foreign vehicles. I said "Yeah, I dont think theres really anything were afraid to work on." After talking to him a little while longer I found out that he wanted to schedule getting a radiator replaced in his 96 318ti so he could list the car for sale. I told him that I might be interested and asked how much he'd be looking to get out of it as it sits with a bad radiator, and he told me he was looking to get $2750 for it as is. I then asked him to bring it by so I could take a peak.

The car shows up and it is pretty beautiful, one of the best condition 318ti's that I have seen. At only 120k miles, the boston green glistened, the dove leather interior was damn near spotless, and the A/C was ice cold. It was a southern car almost its an entire life, and was a one owner vehicle until the PO bought it a little over a year ago. It has a small rust spot on the rear quarter and one of the jack pad areas, but the rest of the car was extremely clean. I took it out for a spin and aside from the coolant leak the car drove phenomenal. We shook on $2700 (including a new radiator and hoses), and I drained my bank account and brought her home.

Drove the car around for a couple days and so far I have been pretty happy with it. The car is currently under the knife in my garage at the moment waiting on some new intake hoses that ripped during disassembly, and it turned out the radiator hoses he supplied were some cheap bright red ebay silicone hoses that fit horribly so I am also waiting on a set of all new OEM rubber hoses from FCP.

Current plans arent anything crazy, just want to get the car squared away so I can have a comfortable and quirky summer daily!

The following message is going to be copy pasted from my last update on facebook. If anyone can offer any help, please reach out.

MY CAR IS STILL MISSING

$500 REWARD IF FOUND

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION, DIRECTLY CONTACT ME OR THE POLICE. MY PHONE NUMBER IS 715-FIVE SEVEN SEVEN-0942

I received an update today that the person who broke into my unit has been arrested with proof and confessed to stealing my car. He is not the same person who tried to ransom it back to me. The car is still missing, but supposedly has changed hands multiple times and is still getting used. It was last seen in the Eau Claire area in the beginning of January.

I am now offering a $500 reward for information that results in the returning of my car. Its supposedly still being used and driven. Below I will list the technical specs of my car and some of the aftermarket parts in case anyone sees e46 parts come up for sale or anything like that.

2001 BMW 330i

VIN: WBAAV53431FT01049

LAST KNOWN MILEAGE: ~137k mi

3.0 I6 w/ 5spd manual

M-tech I appearance package

Silver on grey interior

BBS RC303 wheels with Hankook Ventus V12 Evo2 Tires

Eonon head unit

Magnaflow catback exhaust

Active Autowerke headers

Fortune Auto 500 coilovers

E39 M5 single mass flywheel conversion kit

Dinan carbon fiber intake

ECS lug stud conversion

15% tint

IDENTIFYING PREVIUS DAMAGE: Car had broken front kidney grills and a damaged hood, passenger side door had some dents, red-tint painted taillights and yellow tinted fog lights, dark grey pinstriping below window line, powdercoated wheels had tire mount residue around the bead stained on the black powder, passenger side front fender has a roughly 2 inch long oval sized spot of missing paint, and small amounts of rust on body panel below rear license plate

Been almost a month since my last post but my car has been successfully rekeyed and is back in my possession!

Last week BMW Motorwerks finally gave me the call that they got a fob and a spare key to work with the car just fine and told me I was welcome to come pick it up. I may have gotten there 2 minutes before close, but luckily enough they still released the car to me. Been enjoying it for just a few days now and I could not be happier to have it back. It drives really well for everything it has gone through and it has been a dream come true that I get to daily drive this thing once again.

Cheers to hopefully enjoying many more miles with this beauty in the future!

Hey all! Its been a minute since my last post, but ive been in the business of acquiring parts recently. I was very lucky to be able to pick up these throwing stars and a UUC BBK for my e36 from @ChrisO!!

So for the throwing stars, they are 17x8 square off of an E34 M5. Also the wheel with the center cap pictured has a small crack, so I am hoping to get that welded up when I get the new tires mounted and installed. The SSBC calipers also seem to be in really good condition. I was very lucky because Chris was also able to supply the mounting hardware and brackets and Im planning on having all the stuff cleaned up before I get it on the car. 

I was also very lucky because @Rekpoint was able to find me this awesome Eibach strut bar for a pretty good deal! I have some more parts on the way, and I will make some more posts as stuff comes in

Today was my 2 year anniversary with this car and the weather turned out nice tonight so I ripped the drivers seat out and got go work. What a disgusting mess.

The rain left a slew of mold, coins molded into the carpet and some pretty heavy staining. I knew the grey carpet wasnt going to look perfect given the amount of time I had to do this job and the lack of proper tools I had but I tried my best to get it clean and looking slightly better.

Not perfect, but substancially better. I cleaned up the rest of the interior following the carpets and I couldnt be happier with the car now.

Did an oil change on the car last night at 134k miles, first time in my ownership. Went with the liqui moly oil change kit from FCP and was pretty impressed overall with the quality of everything. Im hoping when it comes time for the next oil change to utilize their lifetime warranty

My car is too low to get onto the lifts at work so I just chucked it on the alignment rack and while the oil was draining I got a good look under it. Bushings for the front control arms look pretty junk which explains why the front end feels a tad loose, and it also appears my front main seal is leaking. Something to keep an eye out for.

Well, I wish I wasnt making this update but here we are.

Back in December I got a fun phone call from a local police department asking about my E46 and told me they had a traffic infraction that they wanted to discuss with me. I responded with "Wow, thats really interesting given the fact I put my car in storage back in October." The cop proceeded to tell me that there was no traffic infraction he wanted to discuss, but that he was investigating some storage units that had gotten broken into in Chippewa Falls. I immediately ran to my storage unit here in Eau Claire and lo and behold, she was long gone! And not only that, they ripped the wall off the unit to get into the 2 next to me. Enjoy this photo of property damage and a sadly missing space in front of my skyline.

And then to follow everything up, they drove up to Chippewa Falls to use my car to break into more units up there the day after it was stolen which is where I originally got the call about my car from. Heres a fun security camera shot given to me by the owner of the other units:

To say the least, I wasnt very excited about this news. I got police involved right away and started posting on Facebook trying to locate my car. A couple people had seen it here and there, but no solid leads aside from the fact the car was still local. Eventually I had a woman reach out to me that explained that not only did she know who had my car, but she had actually ridden in it! Saw my facebook posts and reached out. Pretty cool, but I still didnt have my car back yet. Turns out she was the roommate of the new "owner." We talked for a few weeks, and eventually I figured out that the current "owner" of the car was going to try to ransom it back to me for a very good price of $2500. Its at this point that I've realized I have reached and met the bottom of the intelligence barrel in this town, so I downloaded a phone recording app, got the number from her, and gave this asshat a call. I told him I was not going to get cops involved and that I was willing to pay $3000 just to get the car back. He was apprehensive at first but told me he'd give me a call back.

We are just getting to the fun part now. He gives me a call back and lays out everything, where to bring the money, and even admitted to having the car but did not admit to stealing it. Also threatened me which was really nice! So, I did what anyone would do, and recorded the entire phone conversation and gave it to the detective in charge. The next day he was taken into custody with my skyline keys in his pocket, but the car is still nowhere to be found. He was already on parole until 2030 so it is fair to say he's pretty screwed. The cops are now working through the download on his phone to hopefully track the car down but it's still no longer in my possession.

If anyone sees any parts go up for sale (Active autowerke headers, fortune auto 500 coils, bbs rc303's with hankook ventus v12 evo 2 tires, eonon head unit, etc) please have no problem reaching out to me, I'm scared the car is likely getting parted out already. Hopefully I get it back, but chances seem slimmer by the day. Ill be sure to update if the car gets found but I have a feeling this thread is closing in on the end.

Making my annual new e36 post. The last few I had were very shortlived, i usually just ended up being distracted by one of my other projects. Dont plan on letting that happen to this one, Im starting to think that I finally found the best e36 for me.

So, context. Me and my roommate Jacob were messing around looking on craigslist for a car that he could drive in the winter. During that search, we found 2 E36s. I found a really nice 1995 BMW 325is, and he found a pretty good priced 1995 BMW 318i and they were both down in Chicago. We got a ride from a friend that was going to work in Ohio,  and we picked up both of them.

Definitely happy to be back in an E36, and I am very excited to see whats in store for my latest entry!

Well today I went to the Northern Wisconsin State Fairgrounds for the CVSCC Autocross event! My first time doing anything directly motorsport related and was a good space to see how the car handles some stress and feel if there is anything with it that needs attention.

My first real lap with the car I got a time of 58.9, but I was trying to feel out the course still and it had rained earlier so the track was still wet with a few puddles. By the end of the session I had gotten down to a 52.9 with 1 cone casualty. The drivetrain felt a little bit stressed, but with the current ride height in the front I spent a lot of time riding the fender liners, whoops! I also noticed the front end felt pretty loose and the rear end felt very much all over the place. Before the next session I went to adjust my dampening to all the way hard and noticed both front coils and the passenger rear dampening were all 10 clicks from the hardest setting, and meanwhile the driver rear was all the way soft ‍️ that explained the rear end felt less than ideal.

Next session came and I had my fiancée riding shotgun, by the final lap I had gotten down to a 50.2 with 0 cone casualties which I felt very proud of. The car had more speed in it, but even with the dampening maxed my front end still felt loose and I had cooked my brakes by the end. Plus I am sure my fender liners are worse for wear after all the stress they endured too 

I am going to be moving forward with upgrading the front control arms to ZHP arms, replacing tie rods, getting better brakes, raising the front ride height, and also rolling with a stiffer sway bar setup and seeing how the car goes forward with that setup. The cooling system has not had any hiccups /yet/ but I would like to work on that as well.

Overall a fantastic experience and I cannot wait to get back out there again next year!

Been a while again. Been messing around with a few projects the last couple months and finally got around to getting the E46 back in action for the year.

After a hard winter of this thing sitting outside the whole time (my now ex-fiancée talked me into storing her car last winter instead of mine) upon everything melting and the super cold and rainy spring we had here, I discovered a major water leak on the driver side of the car. There was a roughly 1 inch deep puddle front and back, which pushed me to start vacuuming and drying. Vacuumed it out semi regularly over the last few weeks and left it in the garage with the windows open for over a month and worked on other stuff in the meantime. Once it was plenty dry I got it over to my work and had the guys start looking at it. One of the techs let me know that one of the sunroof drains got unplugged and was leaking water from the A-pillar pretty good. Got that fixed and now she's bone dry!

Another issue that I finally got around to dealing with was the suspension. When I had the car in the garage I pulled the front wheels off to get a better look at everything underneath and put together a parts list of what I might need. Started looking at my coilovers and realized that there was literally no pre-load at all and the shock collar was able to move freely with just my hand. Likely due to my negligence when throwing the car together in the garage last winter, I properly set the preload, raised the front suspension to a nicer height, and tightened up the collar adjustments. Since then the vehicle rides a lot nicer and is a lot more confident in the corners than it used to be.

Going forward I have a lot of work to do on the interior of the car due to some mold that showed up in the carpet from the flooding, and I plan on taking some time and ripping the seats out to really clean everything properly. The seats also very badly need a lot of love so I am going to try to condition and save them, but we will see.

In the meantime though, enjoy this picture of my 2 main projects right now.

m42b32 said:

Not to derail, but skylines are cool. R32? 

My 1993 R33 GTS25t. Love the car to death, does massive burnouts.

Update for everyone: Sorry, with the lack of BMW and how ridiculously busy I've been recently its been hard to keep an eye on this thread. The car is still missing because when Chief Dumbass Cory Billstrom got arrested the car proceeded to change multiple hands and only god knows where it is now. The detective did his due diligence and interviewed anyone that was roughly connected and obviously anyone not obligated to talk, didnt talk. The car was last known to be in the area beginning of January so chances of it getting returned are extremely slim, and if it would be returned I am very sure it would not be in the same condition it was in when it left. The guy that stole it (Executive Chief Dumbass Chris Lamb) fessed up to everything and even admitted to doing over 130mph in it. The only reason I am upset about that is because that is faster than I ever went in it lmao.

I get to go to court multiple times over the next few months over this bullshit, so so excited. Hoping to scrape up some cash for an E36 325/328 to replace it, E36 M3 prices have gotten a bit ridiculous lol.

m42b32 said:

That's awesome that you found it! Glad to see its in more-or-less one piece. Its a bummer that they smoked in it, but I've found that a good interior clean and a pass or two with an ozone machine works wonders on getting the smell out and keeping it out. My brother bought an XJ Cherokee that had been lightly smoked in and after running the ozone machine in it the smell has never come back, even on a hot day. 

Oh yeah, its gonna get fully detailed at my work, document/photograph everything, and submit the cost to insurance.

Been a while since I have been active on this forum. My BMW ambition left me for a while, but now that this car is back in action I figured it would be a good time to reenter the community.

So, a bit of backstory. June 2020, on my way home to get milk I got in an accident in my BRZ and insurance ended up totalling it. My '90 miata wasnt quite cutting it with no AC, and my truck gets a solid 11mpg on a good day so I went searching for another daily. Ended up finding this 2001 BMW 330i local to me:

Not too interesting of a spec, 330i 5spd with the mtech1 appearance package. Sunroof, fine wood trim, silver on grey interior. I was told there was no mods done to it, which I later figured out to be untrue but I will get into that. It drove amazing and handled great, had really good maintainence history, and  seemed solid aside from 1 issue... it had a bad throwout bearing. Price reflected such, and knowing that I bought the car anyway. Time to get to work.

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew, and I took a hard left down that route right off the bat. I noticed looking under it one day and noticed that there was only 1 exhaust pipe going towards the rear, indicating that somehow the car had a 323/328 exhaust on it. To counteract, I ordered Active Autowerke catless headers and went Magnaflow the rest of the way back. Then I got to thinking, and after weighing my options for a new clutch setup I decided to go with an ECS single mass flywheel conversion kit and went to FCP for a trans refresh kit. On top of those things I ordered Fortune Auto 500 coilovers to pull the suspension together. Mind you, I ordered all of these things knowing I have never pulled a transmission in my life, let alone on a BMW.

Well now it comes time to pull the trans. Start pulling the car apart and I notice the car has rear poly bushings which was a great surprise! Get the trans off with the help of some friends, pull the clutch/pressure plate/flywheel and noticed that it already had a single mass conversion done, and as expected my throwout bearing was trashed. Start working through the refresh, rear main seal, etc and once I am done with that I start going through the process to pull the headers. Comes time to pull the passenger side motor mount and since I didnt have my cherry picker at the time, I go to properly jack up the motor to pull it out and notice that since the trans isnt on the car I cant get it to jack up on that side, only jacks up the front. I made the decision to wait until the trans is back on to reattempt that. I start to reassemble and go to install the flywheel and realize the flywheel lock kit I bought was complete shit and I ordered one.

Life happens, the car sits and I lose some ambition. Few months roll by I clean up the garage, get a nice heater, and get back to work. Get the flywheel, pressure plate, and clutch installed and its time to reinstall the trans. I have issues getting the starter lined up with the trans bolts I decided it was easiest to pull the intake manifold so that I can properly reinstall the starter and have easier access to some of the other top bolts. Take a day with beer and good friends and pull the intake. Then life happened again and the car sat for another month or two. Come back into the garage and see parts all over the floor (some of which i dont recognize at all), unlabeled bags of bolts, a trans missing half of the bolts, and an ambition level at an all time low. I say "uncle" and send the car unfinished to a shop with a trunk full of parts.

A few hiccups with the shop later, last week it came home and in its best form yet. I got new tires and refinished the BBS RC303s I bought from @Rekpoint and the car has pulled together well. Now its time to dial the car in and clean it up a bit, and enjoy it.

The rear looks a little crunched down like the X4/X6. Rear quarters slope upward a bit too high for my liking and rear window looks tiny.

Despite those (unavoidable) criticisms I still think it looks great. GT look. Doubt it would sell well here in the US unfortunately and I'm sure that will be one of the biggest reasons it never sees production, would love to see it go on sale regardless though.

Hello all! My name is Hayden, or basedspider, and I was showed this forum by Rekpoint. I am currently selling my 1998 318ti so I can afford my newest addition, which is a 100k mile 1994 325i. Got it for a steal over in MN, and I definitely have some things in store for it. Thanks!

Pictured is my recently acquired 325i, and my 318ti to the right of it.

Hey all! Well I got a lot done today last night. Forgot to take a lot of photos, but I got a few little pics.

I fixed my windshield wiper stalk!! Whole new assembly in there, and its working great.

There is the new thermostat housing, and there's a new thermostat in there. It is running great now and up to temp, perfect for winter drifts.

Hey all lol, its been a while.

My E36 has been on jackstands due to life things. Hopefully will be cranking it out in the next couple weeks.

Crashed my BRZ daily, so depending on if it ends up getting totaled I have my eyes on an E46 330i to be its replacement

Did some stuff today! A buddy of mine and I got rid of the cats. Sounds pretty good, but nowhere near as loud as expected. Definitely interesting.

(Before you ask, yes after the new pipes it is backwards. We figured this out when we went to put it on the car and I noticed the hangers were the wrong way.)

I discovered my radiator is cracked, it is leaking after the top radiator hose ends and the hose clamp is definitely tight. I have a new mishimoto racing radiator, mishimoto silicone radiator hoses, and a new fender on the way. 

Also a few days back I put a cone filter and some better brights in. My buddy had them in his garage and the cone filter fit like a glove. I have a plan in the works to get a heat shield and make my own afe style intake. But for now, it should be okay.

Also, enjoy this video of the car running straight off the headers. My dad wasn't too thrilled.

Hey all, just popped in to check in on this thread and kinda wanted to give an update of everything that happened.

So my friend and I went to go pick up my new Miata on Monday the 19th, and once we got about 15 minutes away from the car, the lady struck the rear corner of the semi with the side of her SUV and hit us head on. We were in a 2002 Camry doing about 45-50, and she was in a newer Equinox doing about 60. The crash ended up pushing our car back some even. I ended up flying over the airbag and smashing my head on the windshield so I had a super bad concussion. I had internal bleeding from tears in my smaller and larger intestine, and I fractured my L2 lumbar in my spine. I cant feel part of my leg but I still have full strength. I wasnt able to eat or drink for about 10 days when I was in the hospital, and I finally got home last wednesday on the 28th. Im getting a lot better at walking and functioning normally, and I even started driving again yesterday. The lady who hit us has no idea what happened, and she got the worst injuries out of all 3 of us involved. My friend who was driving just has a back brace for 6 weeks, then he is gonna be back to 100% after he gets that off. I have another surgery scheduled on my back next January to get the 6 screws and 2 titanium rods taken out of my spine, but after then I will be back to normal 100%! Thanks for the support!

Heres the camry after the accident. You can see where I went over the airbag and hit the windshield.

I also did end up with the miata. My dad and brother got the money and bought it when I was in the hospital. I love it so far.

EDIT: Glad to see that bumper going to good use ;D