BMW and M Power Owners

My Steel Blue comes up on documents as just blue. Been wondering about the technicalities of letting the various authorities know about a change to a different shade of blue.

Are there any common points for airbag connectors etc to fail? I have a light on. :(
 
Non runflats on BMW's. Those of you who do this; do you follow the same suggested tyre pressures as per what you'd personally put in runflats/as per the door sticker?
 
DannyDrama said:
My Steel Blue comes up on documents as just blue. Been wondering about the technicalities of letting the various authorities know about a change to a different shade of blue.

Are there any common points for airbag connectors etc to fail? I have a light on. :(
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I think you can do it without informing them if the car is the same sort of colour.

To be honest, you don't even need to tell them about vinyl wrapping or plastidip. In fact I'm not even sure you have to tell the insurance company about those..?
 
Acme said:
I think you can do it without informing them if the car is the same sort of colour.

To be honest, you don't even need to tell them about vinyl wrapping or plastidip. In fact I'm not even sure you have to tell the insurance company about those..?
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That was my hope, a dip or wrap in largely the same colour or very similar just to get rid of the poor bits in my paint. Both of those I'm assuming would be 'modifications' though, as I can easily imagine the insurance looking to not pay out because it wasn't declared.

In a similar vein of thought, what about if I spray my interior trim black? The model came with black trim but my car came with wood. Technically it's a mod but realistically how many people declare such a tiny change? How many people change a head unit without declaring that?
 
wingman said:
Wow, £16k on a 12 year old M3 cab with no heated seats or Harmon Kardon, or even a desirable colour scheme.

Bargain!
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Not surprising, It would seem very low miles and condition mean everything, especially 30k mlies and an unmarked interior. ( once the dust has been removed). If it was steel grey with red, that would be very desirable.seem chances are asking over £20k for even worse.

That example isn't for me either because of the colour mainly, but in a better colour combo I'd possibly consider £16k on an immaculate version as long as you kept it clean etc, it isn't going to plummet in price over night as there are very few clean examples left.

I had the same colour issue on a 335i, a 2009 335i dct , 60k miles with lots of options, looked grey but realsed it was bluewater metallic, which a friend has, not the nicest colour on an e93.

Clearly, I am picky on colours...
 
Demon said:
Not surprising, It would seem very low miles and condition mean everything, especially 30k mlies and an unmarked interior. ( once the dust has been removed).
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But it won't have an unmarked interior. It might have 30k miles on it but its also well over 10 years old and unless you keep your car in a heated garage with a dust cover on it then time ages things as much if not more than mileage. It's going to have stonechips. It's going to have marks in the paint. It's going to have an interior that rather obviously isn't that of a brand new car.

People often go mad for low mileage cars under the flawed assumption it makes them fresh and like new. It really doesn't, in reality it makes them overpriced second hand cars that shed value like crazy once you start using it and removing its 'low mileage'.

Personally I'd have an E93 335i DCT over an E46 M3 Cab. Much of what makes an M3 and M3 is somewhat undone by the cabrioness anyway.
 
[TW]Fox;29339027 said:
But it won't have an unmarked interior. It might have 30k miles on it but its also well over 10 years old and unless you keep your car in a heated garage with a dust cover on it then time ages things as much if not more than mileage. It's going to have stonechips. It's going to have marks in the paint. It's going to have an interior that rather obviously isn't that of a brand new car.

People often go mad for low mileage cars under the flawed assumption it makes them fresh and like new. It really doesn't, in reality it makes them overpriced second hand cars that shed value like crazy once you start using it and removing its 'low mileage'.

Personally I'd have an E93 335i DCT over an E46 M3 Cab. Much of what makes an M3 and M3 is somewhat undone by the cabrioness anyway.
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Thanks Fox, and I agree, I am not swayed by mileage to that extent either, it's just one of those factors, that particular one has been stored for 5 years in a collection in reasonable environmental conditions and from other photo's has zero wear on the bolsters etc, has seen very very little use, and I only do <4K miles on a bad year.. but still, for all the other reasons it is not for me.

I think £10K-£12K for a reasonable example (60-75K miles, good history of the key faults etc) would be about right for me.



I am also looking hard for a 335i, but since I am fussy on colour (love space gray, possibly OK with le-mans blue metallic), getting one that isn't white, black or silver seems quite difficult unless I want to spend £20K+ which I could do, but as more of a weekend toy I prefer not to..

This one is almost perfect spec wise: http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201603282391540 but since I have a bluewater 3 series sat outside my office window, I just find it looks quite boring and 'cheap'.. the photo's in the ad make it almost look space gray. other than that with some money set aside for turbo replacment (it's an N54) it'd probably be about

Out of interest, what colours do people think suits the E9x series? here is the colour chart, although admittedly I generally go by examples I've seen with my own eyes..
9i4D3fZ.jpg

I think space gray, black and darker blues suit the lines, but black is just a colour I don't like owning from an upkeep point of view..
 
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[TW]Fox;29339398 said:
Mine is Space Grey. I like it and it still looks immaculate at 6 years old whereas the dark coloured ones always end up looking shabby.
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I must echo that. Granted I took care of the paintwork but it did still look pristine. You'd struggle to achieve that with black or a dark blue.
 
MoRT489 said:
My E93 is space grey with red leather and black trim, looks great IMO.
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I wasn't a fan of red leather, but have come around having been in the Steel Grey E46 with red leather, it looked a nice contrast.. black interiors can be a bit boring, although at least unobjectionable..

The space gray is deffo my preference in E9x shapes.. I am a sucker for Estoril Blue on the M3's, but also very rare..
 
DannyDrama said:
That was my hope, a dip or wrap in largely the same colour or very similar just to get rid of the poor bits in my paint. Both of those I'm assuming would be 'modifications' though, as I can easily imagine the insurance looking to not pay out because it wasn't declared.

In a similar vein of thought, what about if I spray my interior trim black? The model came with black trim but my car came with wood. Technically it's a mod but realistically how many people declare such a tiny change? How many people change a head unit without declaring that?
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A wrap needs to be declared to insurance as a mod but not the dvla as it's not a permanent change of colour.
 
toasteh said:
A wrap needs to be declared to insurance as a mod but not the dvla as it's not a permanent change of colour.
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That's what my logic was telling me but lord only knows, these things are not always logical. :D

So what systems does the PNC or ANPR check? Because I can see people getting tugged an awful lot if the DVLA says blue but they're seeing red for example. There must be some solution for that but finding it is impossible. :confused:
 
toasteh said:
A wrap needs to be declared to insurance as a mod but not the dvla as it's not a permanent change of colour.
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no longer the case (according to Google) - if the car's colour has changed the apparently the DVLA now need to be informed (as well as insurance). It's even now being quoted on website for wrapping companies (e.g. 1st hit on my google: http://www.vehiclewrapfilms.co.uk/content/2014-04-03-dvla-vehicle-wrap-registration-changes)

At the end of the day, if you car is stolen and registered as red, but it's wrapped as white, then surely you would appreciate the police to be looking for a white car instead of red?
 
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