WIBIMMERS

I had my first track day in the car today at Blackhawk Farms Raceway and ran in the intermediate group.  This is my 4th track day in 3 years and it's amazing how quickly you get to know people by attending these things semi regularly.  It's great being able to run with some of the same people year after year and developing a trust on the track. 

Ok now that that's out of the way, the car.  She ran beautifully!  Stock brakes, stock suspension and pss tires.  The car was perfect. It did what it was supposed to with no surprises. I took it slow for the day to feel the car out.  The NA power took some getting used to.  Even though the s65 is a supposed torqueless turd I had a low end power that i didnt expect and it was consistent through the power band.  Power came on easy and steady.  No surging or lag to deal with.  It was great.  Right off the bat I was running similar  times I ran in my 335i but I was way more consistent. My fastest in the 335i was 1:29 and in the M3 I managed a 1:32.  I'm pretty happy with that considering it was my first time out with it and i wasn't pushing very hard.  The DCT was awesome!  It did get a little laggy on up shifts when it got hot but downshifts were excellent.  Being able to focus on braking zones was a really nice change.  I could put my energy into hitting better lines instead of worrying about my feet. 

Of course every driver walks away from an event saying "if I just had this item it'd be that much better!".  For me I'd like to get the Schroth quick fit harness and a slightly better pad with more bite.  These worked and I NEVER had any fade but I'd like the pedal a little more effective sooner.  The car does have a little wiggle under heavy braking which led to some butt puckering moments but I'm not sure how to fix that yet.  The easy answer is coilovers but I'm happy with the ride quality so we'll see if I "fix" that. 

Now for the video!  My go pro only recorded the last 10:25 of each session unbeknownst to me but this was the last and my fastest session.

This week has been crazy for me at work and I haven't had a chance to update everyone on the full story of this car.  It's been a roller coaster but everything turned out alright in the end!

I've been looking for an M3 for a while and a few of you know that I've been obsessing about an M3 for roughly 6 - 9 months.  I have been telling myself that for my 30th birthday I wanted a real sports car.  I tossed around a 996 briefly but it just wasn't practical for me.  I've always loved Skylines and an r32 crossed my mind but again, not very practical.  I have loved the e90 chassis.  It's the perfect size for me, the perfect amount of tech and comfort and I love the looks.  I loved my 335i but I just wanted something different from a car.  I've always compromised on my vehicles because I have always needed a dual use vehicle due to whatever circumstance I was in.  I still need to make some compromise due to my current situation (toddler) but being able to share this car with him is more enjoyable than having no compromises. 

The ups and downs start with me deciding to start the search and then finding out my wife has MS.  We went through the diagnosis process for a few months and after a lot of waiting and a 2nd opinion it was confirmed that she has MS.  During this time there is no way I could continue to search for a car.  Once the diagnosis set in and "normalized" then I started searching again.  And then my basement walls started leaking... I feared the worst and brought in multiple people for estimates.  Once again as a responsible adult I can't justify an M3 when i'm fearing a $20k home repair.  After getting a few estimates the consensus was to add some drainage outside of the wall once the ground thaws.  Woohoo!  Disaster avoided!  So I started searching again.

I test drove a few cars and came up with what I wanted and didn't want in the car. The toughest part for me was deciding on the DCT.  I have owned a MT vehicle since I was 18 and thought I wanted a 6spd M3... until I drove the DCT.  Oh my god is it good!  The shifts are so fast, the rev matched downshifts put a smile on my face every time AND my wife would be able to drive it.  With that and a few other specific search parameters in place I started searching!  The car I ended up buying happened to be one of the first cars I inquired about.  After a week of discussion with the dealer and negotiation we couldn't come to an agreement on the price.  I walked away from the deal.  That was a Friday.  I found an Alpine White 2010 in Fond Du Lac, met Ben to show him my car at the dealer adn we took the M3 for a drive.  It was a mess to the say the least.  A mouse got into it and chewed up connectors, wires and a seat belt.  It had a shitty wrap on the dash trim and many other red flags.  I walked away from that car very discouraged and kept searching.  I was ready to expand my parameters because I was getting impatient.  Jordan helped keep me centered on the search and kept reminding me what I didn't want and why some cars were a bad idea.  It's probably thanks to him that I'm not driving a 150k mile jet black 08.

That Monday I got an email from the dealer in Atlanta asking if I was still in the market.  I said yes but only if they could meet me at my price.  I got an email back telling me the deal was on!  I was pumped!  I booked a flight, rearranged Easter plans and arranged a ride to O'hare.  I had to travel to Rice Lake and Chippewa Falls the next couple days after that.  That Wednesday I was leaving Rice Lake and got an email from the dealer apologizing to me.  A mistake had been made and the price went up $1000.  I was furious to say the least.  I sent a very strongly worded email to the sales guy and basically said they will meet me at my price or refund me my flight.  I wasn't expecting much but had already planned on calling the Dealer Principle if I didn't get the answer I wanted.  Again, I wasn't expecting much from this plan but one way or another I was going to be doing a lot of yelling at someone or multiple people.  The worst part is I had a 4 hour drive home to think about this.  Well about 2 1/2 hours after I go the original email I received an email from the Sales Manager apologizing for the situation and letting me know that they would keep their word!

The deal was on!  I didn't sleep for the rest of the week!  I went to my brother in laws house on Friday night, left at 5am Saturday morning, go to O'hare, had a Redbull confiscated and waited to board my flight.  Once boarded my flight was delayed... all of a sudden there were 2 cops and an undercover on the flight taking a guy off in handcuffs.  That was unsettling to say the least but there was some peace of mind knowing he was taken off the flight.  A quick 2 hour flight to Atlanta and I was that much closer!  The sales guy was supposed to pick me up at the airport.  Well... there are two airports in Atlanta.  This guy went to the wrong airport and couldn't figure out how to get to me even after I shared my location on google maps.  I ended up hopping on a shuttle to get to him.  That killed an hour of unscheduled time.  After a 20 minute drive we were at the dealer.  I looked over the car and it was exactly what I had expected except for a few rock chips in the hood but nothing major.  The dealer had no idea what kind of exhaust it had and I was very happily surprised to find a Borla exhaust.  I test drove it, came back and said I wanted it.  Well this happened to be a very busy day at the dealer so I ended up waiting an hour and a half for finance so I could finish up.  I had taken care of all of my finances prior to showing up so once I got in the office it was a matter of signing some paperwork and about 5 minutes later I was done.  I hopped in the car and started heading north at about 2:30 pm.

Traffic was shit in Georgia.  Traffic was shit in Tennessee.  Traffic was OK in Kentucky but it was raining.  I did stop in Nashville for some hot chicken at a place called Helen's but the chicken was going to take too long so I got catfish.  It was the best catfish I have ever had! I got to Illinois at 9:30pm and I had never been so happy to be in Illinois.  I told myself that Bloomington would be my check in point since I was familiar with it and I would only be about 2.5 hours away from home if I needed to sleep.  I hit Bloomington around 2:30am and I felt fine so I powered through!  Driving through Illinois I did find that the exhaust has a slight drone at 78 mph BUT at 76 mph it's fine.  Anyways, I kept driving and consuming Redbull and water.  I stopped every hour or so to get out and move around to keep myself awake.  At 5am on Sunday I pulled into my driveway.  I slept for 4 1/2 hours and woke up for my son's first Easter egg  hunt!

Since i've doomed Wisconsin to an eternal winter I've only had a couple chances to drive the car but I love it!  My son's first response was "dada, this is FANCY!  I like it!"  shortly followed by "Can we drive crazy?".  My wife's first response was "It's loud."  We took it to Easter and I let her drive it for a bit.  She had the chance to pass her mom's husband on the highway and with my prodding she put her foot down.  What proceeded was some giggling and a big smile!  She then said "It's loud!" but with much more enthusiasm this time.  I love the DCT but I love even more that my wife will drive the car!  Despite her propensity to buy boring cars she likes fast cars and to share this with her is great!  My son also told me today when I picked him up from daycare "dada, I like your M free!" so that's a win.

This won't be much of a build thread and more of a "look at the silly cosmetic things I bought" and "here are pictures of me driving my car" thread.  Just like the last car she will see track time thanks to a birthday present from my wife!

My daughter was born on April 1st so my time has been finite lately.  I was able to sneak away tonight after everyone went to sleep and install my H&R sport springs and ECS spacers.  The specs are 255/35r19 with 15mm spacer up front and 275/35r19 with 13mm spacers on the rear.  I was a little concerned it would be too aggressive but I love it!  The springs ride slightly stiffer than stock but I honestly don't think someone would notice who doesn't drive it every day.  

To be honest I didn't expect to like this setup as much as I do.  I thought I was compromising until I buy coilovers at some point but I am so in love with this set up!

Another boring update.  I was in Eau Claire for work and kaiser was kind enough to get a video of me launching the car.

https://youtu.be/d9mAJxpgsyE

I had to go grocery shopping tonight and made a mandatory stop in an empty parking lot at Generac to take a picture.  I love this car.

My wife gave birth to our first son on Monday. Jameson Turner Hamilton! We juat got home an hour ago with him.

Thanks to @snap I have a new commuter for my wife!  It's a 2000 Toyota Avalon with 103k miles!  To no surprise it was owned by an elderly woman who was awesome.  She's a dancer on the Bucks senior team and told us hilarious stories while we looked at the car.  I ended up getting it for $3500 which was $0 less than they were asking because i'm not shitty and it was already a great deal.

My aunt's sister in law is selling her house and cleaning out all of her dad's stuff from when he owned a service station and in the process I scored some near perfect metal cabinets for free!

UPDATE: 10/14/2020

I'd like to take a moment to let everyone know that I am no longer running Garage Life Motoring.  With my current job it would be a conflict of interest so regretfully, I had to let it go.  Thankfully I was able to find someone to take the business over and continue to support the community and grow the business!  My brother in law, Devin, has officially taken over the business as of 10/1/2020!  He's a car guy himself and has a passion for euro's.  Audi/VW in particular but please don't hold that against him.  Him and his wife run a photography business full time doing weddings, getaways, elopements and engagements around the world.  He's even had the opportunity to shoot engagement photo's for racecar driver, Kenton Koch!  You can check them out on Instagram and Facebook at degrootfilmco.  Devin can be reached at the same email address I was using, [email protected].  

At this time I'd like to take a moment to personally thank all of you who have supported me throughout this experience!  I have truly been humbled by the amount of support I've received from all of you!  I never would have expected that this small business could have helped me build so many long lasting relationships!  There are quite a few of you that I've grown close to over the years simply because of this business and that's what I'm taking away from this experience.  Thank you!

I'll still be around here obviously and I've committed to Devin to "officially" support him with technical assistance for the next few months but beyond that, unofficially I'm still available to him for any technical support you guys may need.  Some of you have worked with him already and some of you have even met him in person at car shows or at Road America and I trust that you are all in good hands.

Hello!  I'm excited to announce that I am open for business!  I've started a small business selling performance parts with tons of vendors for various makes and models! More details to come!

UPDATE:

We're currently working on putting our e-store together and curating our assortment!  It's exciting stuff for us but a bit tedious.  We're trying to narrow down which models we want to advertise parts for but we can get parts for over 400 manufacturers and 900 lines!  Some of these include:  HRE, Advan, DINAN, AFE, Cobb, BMS, APR, KW/ST, Koni, Corsa, Borla, H&R and MANY MORE!

Rekpoint said:

I think alot of the people here have low expectations from everyone. Everyone should be expecting there gift late. It's just a BMW owner thing. Late for everything....

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Quite the opposite actually, I don't think we want to disappoint each other by sending a late gift.  Now, when it comes to finishing projects, that's a whole other conversation!

She's coming home...

As some of you know I am a Regional Manager of Auto Service.  I oversee 12 locations here in Wisconsin and work directly with the Automotive Service Centers.  I've been with the company 11 years or so and I've worked my way from the ground up.  Over the years I have encountered some "interesting" customers and I thought I'd share some of these stories.  I won't be using any real names nor will I disclose which location these situations happened.  I swear to you these stories are true but you're welcome to believe what you'd like.  I'll use this thread to dump some of these stories as I remember them and as new ones come up. 

So gather round children and listen to my tales...

A few weeks ago within the same week I had what I like to call "hero" customers.  These are customers who will call out another customer usually for being rude or obtuse.  First scenario happened while I was helping at one of the desks to sell tires to customers.  A customer and his father stroll up to the desk and tell me they need four tires and start talking to a newer associate.  He asks for year/make/model as he should and continues on to ask some qualifying questions to get them into the right set of tires.  The son is maybe in his late 40's early 50's and the dad is probably in his 70's and in a wheelchair.  The tires are for the fathers vehicle but the son is doing the talking.  The son told the associate we had a buy 3 get the 4th free sale going on and he confirmed and said that the quote would reflect that.  The associate writes up two quotes and prints them off and begins to show them to the son and explain the benefits/features of the two different tires and goes through the various line items.  Immediately the customer yells at him and says he "fucked up" the quote.  The associate quizzically looks at the customer and asks why he believes that.  The points out that the paperwork says 4 qty and it should be 3.  The associate explains that for inventory purposes we have to put 4 qty on but we take 25% off of each tire to equal the price of one tire.  The customer starts yelling at the guy so I break away from my customer to step in and ask what the concern is.  He explains to me that we're trying to rip him off, this is fraud, bait and switch blah blah blah.  I ask him to give me a moment to look over the paperwork to ensure it's correct.  I write up another order in the mean time at full price and print that out.  I put the full price order next to the b3g1 free order and show him that indeed the associate wrote it up correctly and that the full price order minus the price of a tire equals the quote he was given.  He's not getting it.  Now's he's yelling at me about lying, he should have gone somewhere else, more bait and switch and so on.  The whole time the dad is yelling at him to leave it alone and it makes sense.  Along comes our hero customer...  Another gentleman hears this, walks up to the guy and extends his arm to put his finger in the guys face and yells "HEY! I'm gonna say what this guy can't but your a fucking idiot and you can't do math!  It fucking makes sense!"  The customer spouts off something about how he know's math and that's how he know's he's being ripped off and the hero customer says something along the lines of "NO!  You're a fucking idiot!  Leave the guy alone!".  The customer calmed down enough to let his dad make a decision then he spouts off about how replacing rubber valve stems is a scam because he's never had one go bad in his life.  I explained to him that there is no extra charge for rubber valve stems so there is no scam and yes, rubber does in fact deteriorate over time.  We get past this and his dad pays for the special order tires.  Later on the dad came to me and apologized for "his dumb ass son".

More to come...

So either i got a random poster in the mail or i got my secret santa gift.  Signed by Will Turner!

My lifes been a little nuts lately between work and trying to find a new house while getting ours ready to sell but i've had time to drive the car and fall even more in love with it!  Being able to drive with the windows open makes the driving experience so much better.  I have never owned a car that gets so much attention from random people.  I have had to explain to my wife that an M3 isn't really something seen every day, especially in our area.  I did have a chance to order a few minor mods and install two!  I have a set of led angel eyes just waiting for me to install them.  Without further ado here is the most boring upadate ever.  I installed the BMW Performance black grille and painted side markers.  Done.

This past weekend we had 2 of my wife's friends stay at the house with their kids and husbands.  On Saturday the girls went to get their nails done and go to a beer garden in Waukesha and they took the M3.  When they got back my wife said her friends need to drive the car but were "afraid" so I spent the rest of the day egging them on.  On Sunday one of the girls was ready so I threw her in the drivers seat and we went for a drive.  She eventually fell in love with it and spent the rest of the weekend asking to drive it anywhere so we put a few more miles on it.  Her other friend drove it but it was too stressful of an event and she was done after one drive lol.

This is one of the reasons I bought a DCT.  I love handing my keys to someone and letting them rip!  It's even more fun when they've never really driven a sports car.  With a 6 speed there is a barrier to entry that scares people away.  You have to want to drive a manual trans AND have one available to learn on.  The DCT is a terrible automatic but the fact it can shift on it's own takes one barrier down.  

It also made me think about why these girls were "afraid" to drive my car.  They kept saying they're afraid they'd hurt the car.  It made me ask more then we got to the root.  They know how much I love the car and they don't want to be responsible for disappointing me.  Also, the perception that it's a terribly expensive car if something did get damaged scared them.  I had to go above and beyond to assure them it's a car, I have insurance and they can't hurt it.  I took them for a drive and they saw how I drive.  They won't be harder on it than I already am.

This also reminds me that it just takes once to get someone hooked.  One time behind the wheel to spark something you didn't know you had in you.  It's one thing to always be a passenger and enjoy a ride but to have the opportunity to push the pedal and control the noises coming out of the exhaust pipe is a whole different experience.  The friend who enjoyed it spent the rest of the weekend asking me about how to get into a car of her own like this and convincing her husband that it's do-able.

TL;DR - Don't be a dick.  Share the keys.

Rekpoint said:

Damn. I wish I could look down and see a slightly smaller bulge. 

That'll change when you stop shopping in the kids section and buy pants that fit like an adult.

Jdesign said:

Weird. I took my civic in for the airbag recall and I had a brand new civic loaner for 3 days. BUT 2 of those days was me just not returning the rental because I was too busy doing burnouts and jumping curbs/alleys with it.

Dead Serious. 

Hahaha! I want video's!  I couldn't return my X3 fast enough!  Between the HUD that didn't work when it was sunny, the stupid fucking lane departure warning with a vibrating steering wheel, uncomfortable seats and the 8spd auto attached to an anemic n20 I didn't enjoy driving it at all. 

Funny story, I took my 2 1/2 year old son with me to drop my car off and pick the X3 up and we're outside of Zimbrick loading his car seat in and he's kind of wandering around then I tell him we're ready to go... He starts walking towards me and slowly realizes we're getting into the X3.  His face turns from content to upset and he stops and says "No dada, not this one."  I said "yea buddy, we've gotta take this one for tonight."  His concern turned into an inconsolable sadness, "No dada!  NOT THIS ONE!".  This time louder and more stern.  I tried to convince him we have to but we'll get my car back tomorrow.  He runs to an estoril M235i and says "Dada!  This one! This one!"  I said no we have to take this and he runs to an F82 M4 and begs me, "This one dada!  THIS ONE! NOT THAT ONE!". I walk over and grab him and he starts crying when he realizes we're getting in the X3.  He cried for half of the drive home and wouldn't talk to me the other half.  We stop at the grocery store and go through something similar when I attempt to put him back in the X3.  The next day I picked up my car then picked him up from day care.  He walks out, looks up and see's my car then let's out a big "DADA!  YOUR CAR IS BACK!".  I learned 3 things 1) he hates X3's 2)he loves my car 3) I've trained him well.

TL;DR Even my 2 1/2 year old son know's the X3 wasn't good.

I bought a new house and i'm moving this weekend.  We'll be in North Prairie now right by 83 and 59.  I'll get more pictures up tomorrow but this is all we really care about.  The garages.  Two 2.5 car garages.

i_love_cars said:

just get a used motor. It's gonna cost you $1500 in parts to do a full rebuild which is the only acceptable answer if you are tearing down the engine in the first place. You're not just gonna replace 1 ring or 1 piston. You're gonna do a complete overhaul including pistons. Then you need to make sure you do it right, and whether or not you did it right becomes far more obvious when you're making +350 whp/tq over factory power. So you'll be spending a lot of time here. The engine has too many miles on it to NOT overhaul everything if you tear it down. 

you need to pull the motor regardless, so factoring in what your time is worth, you'll have a lot of hours into a teardown/rebuild on top of pulling/reinstalling the motor. Considering a used motor with less than half the miles on your current engine can be had for $3k and it's a straight swap, I wouldn't even be considering a rebuild. N54 motors are a commodity. When you grenade one, you just go get a used one and replace it. That's just what you do. This isn't an old M50 or something where finding good used examples is hard to do and you have to be more serious about rebuilding (plus parts are way cheaper for those anyway). I can throw a rock out the window and hit 5 n54 motors on the used market within walking distance of my bathroom all with 50k miles on them. 

Why do you have rocks in your bathroom?