Hi all, I'm new here and want to thank you

[Petro135]

I been reading here for a few months. I bought a 135i e88 08 with 85k miles a few months ago and thought I got a great deal. I got taken to the cleaners on it, but got through it and now I have a nice car. Still with a million little things to fix. First day I had every code go off. Brought it back they replaced a faulty ground wire. Then after that constant engine and electrical malfunctions.they kept pushing me off until my 30 day warranty was up. The guys I bought it from said they were bmw specialists. Ha! They were not. I live in southern nj and found a real bmw guy. When it went up on a lift, I went under the car my heart dropped. No protective pans, intercooler was not even clipped on, shocks were bad all around, riding on springs. Replaced shocks, sway bars, shock mounts, bump stops, 3 out of 4 wheels were bent, and 3 out of 4 were front wheels lol. Bought a nice but inexpensive set of vmr wheels. New hoses, belts, and some pulleys and vacuum lines. Walnut blast, it was ugly in there. New plugs, coils, cleaned vanos(which now I believe just needs to be replaced). Had a funny noise coming from engine, so I also had the oil filter housing replaced that was leaking. When my tuner heard this noise he dropped the oil pan and seems someone took off the rod caps and turned them backwards, causing my bearings to loosen. He said it was totally amazing that i didn't have any permanent damage and caught it quickly. But add all new rod bearings to the list and another $2k on my bill. The caps were turned recently and I really think the guys I bought this from did this to get a pricey service call out of me. But I'll never know. They will never touch my car again.
So $7k later I have a nice running and driving 135. Almost as much as I paid for the car. . So my plans to do all the upgrades I wanted and pay it off quickly went to crap.
I put an mhd ots tune, cheapo stepped ebay fmic(which btw works really good, my iat have been great), new red stuff pads, my pads were in perfect shape but just squealing terribly. Red stuff took care of that. I did a bms dci. Have a vrsf chargepipe and turbosmart bov on the way.im sure I have a small boost leak and the oem dv are my guess. I have a metal chargepipe in there but it is set up for DV's so I just got the whole thing new. Maybe I'll keep it and try some forge DV's down the road.
Doing some body work today, banged out some small dents last week and bondo. This week I sanded and primed them next week I will paint and clearcoat, and then I'll sand and polish the following week. I just bought a billion little plastic fasteners off ebay and need to use them everywhere. Got loose stuff all over. Took everything off to make sure I got the right fasteners. My vanos solenoids are probably next. Starting to idle a little rough and my bmw guy said he cleaned them but they could be replaced soon. My trunk leaks, I cleaned out the drains which were clogged in the convertible top area and that helped but I'm still getting water in the trunk when driving in the rain and it's coming from underneath. Still working on that. It's much better now the drains were cleared out.
My reason for this post is to thank you guys, I search for every problem I had and found a fix for it all. I'll keep you updated on my progress and I'm sure ask some questions along the way.
First one is my seatbelts warning comes on when no one is sitting in the passenger seat? Eady fix I just buckle the belt, but id like to get rid of it . Any ideas, I searched but couldn't find d that out.
Thanks again
Steve

[olds350]

Welcome to the forums, great folks on here and not much drama. I have to say after reading your post, you make a great example of having a PPI done before buying a car. Glad you have it sorted now.

[chris_flies]

Glad you have a sorted car! Too bad it took so much work to get it there, but at least you know you'll have a LONG time until all those things need replacing again.

I love this forum. There's the odd asshat that ruins everyone's day, but overall the environment here is exceptional, and there is so much information to be learned. Keep in mind that a lot of the mechanical bits of our cars is shared with the 3-series, so E90Post is also a great resource, especially for odd problems.

[Thunderguts]

You know the cliché, there's nothing more expensive than a cheap (insert German car make).

I wouldn't worry too much about it though. After you get it all sorted out, you'll have a 135 in great shape for around $14k. There aren't very many cars that you would enjoy as much for that amount of money. It sucks that you didn't get a bargain, but you'll have a nice car once it's all over.

[Petro135]

Thanks guys and yes I do feel I have a really nice car now. I'm working on making it look right now and still doing the mods slowly. The auto body stuff annoys me, I'm more of a mechanical guy, but I'll get it done. Oh and my side mirrors are delaminating guess I need a pair of those as well.
Thanks again for welcoming me.

[dtla1]

Welcome!

From your first post it seems like you have some good intuition of what all is going on.

Like others have said, it sucks you had to go through all this (+1 for PPI) but you'll definitely enjoy driving this car, especially knowing all the work that's gone into since you've got it. You'll know what's fresh, what to still keep an eye/ear on etc.

[desertman123]

Sounds like you need to take her out for a spin on some nice back roads after all that

Congrats & welcome!!

[Thunderguts]

Originally Posted by Petro135

Oh and my side mirrors are delaminating guess I need a pair of those as well.

Eh, my passenger mirror was flopping around so much on the way home from buying the car that I was afraid it was going to fall out. I pulled it off, put some silicone caulk on it and stuck it back on. It's been rock solid for a year now.

[Petro135]

Yes I'm enjoying this car so much. I'm still scared of WOT thinking my engine is going to blow up. Lol.
I used to own s4's loved my twin Turbos but then traded my 02 in for a 06 v8 and hated it, was a heavy dog and not very tunable. Traded that quickly for an rs4 in 08 and was better and faster but no where near as fun to drive as my 2000 and 2002 6 cyls. So I went the SUV route and haven't had a fun to drive car in nearly 10 years. I originally bought this 1er for my wife, but quickly realized I was keeping it and gave her my pathfinder. Lol.
Thank you all again
Great to he around people who aren't sick of me talking about my car