No doubt! My E36 M3 was in for warranty service no less than 18 times in less than 18 months of ownership... I finally decided I wanted a car that I could actually drive (other than back and forth to the dealer), so I got rid of the M3.

 

I may be wrapping my roof this weekend. Any tips for dropping the rear headliner for the shark fin? From searching, I found a thread with a user mentioning it's held on by just velcro and just pull down. But, a replying user bent their liner doing it that way.

 

Fortunately, I never had issues with that on my M3, but then again I never tracked that one. Is it as bad as our cars? I had an '11 370Z that came dangerously close to overheating just during a touring event at Road America. I plan to get an oil cooler for the G37S before it ever sees the track.

I got lucky on this too with my M3, but any over-engineered German car can suffer this fate pretty easily.

 

If you are flexible enough and have strong enough hands then you can just drop the rear section of the headliner and remove the shark fin without any tools. It's not held on by Velcro, but by snap clips on the rear "C-Pillar" sections (and a couple more near the rear window section), so that's where you'll want to start, then work your way inwards. Once you have the rear section undone there won't be much room but it should be enough for you to get your hand and forearm under the headliner to reach the nut for the sharkfin. You need to rotate the nut counter-clockwise to loosen it. It will be pretty difficult to start but it you can get it started then your pretty much home free. Once the nut is removed then all you need to do is press down release on the connector and remove the green connector. Then you will be able to remove the sharkfin from the top of the roof... note: the gasket on the sharkfin may be stuck to the roof, but if you just rotate it a little it should pop free. I was able to do all of this and remove the sharkfin without any tools in the parking lot of the guy you does my clear bra work (since he also wrapped my roof in painted/cleared PPF) in less than 10 minutes. I did end up having to use some long handled channel lock pliers to squeeze the gasket enough and get the nut tight enough when installing the new sharkfin, though, and I accidentally had the pliers slip off the nut and my forearm bent the back of the headliner slights when reinstalling the sharfin... No worries, though, once I snapped everything back together you can't see the bend at all and can't even tell It was off. Good luck!

 

Here's a before and after shot with and without the sharkfin installed... You can actually see that the headliner is pulled down if you look closely through the rear window on the first pic. I purchased the used black sharkfin on eBay for around $40 shipped, so there was no need to wrap it.

 

You definitely got lucky. I had a standard E36 with some very minor mods and once it hit 100k miles I had tons of really annoying problems. Window regulator = $400 for a piece of plastic. paint chipped off the entire roof, OBD II system went haywire. I loved that car but was happy to be rid of it too. would never own another as a DD.

 

2011. Don't you love how "energetic" the engine starts with the new battery!? Its like it can't wait to get going!

 

Yikes! I picked up my '05 E46 M3 when it was 8 years old and it only had a bit over 40k miles on it, but only kept it for about a year as it was only driven in the summer and I was always afraid something expensive was about to break.

 

Has anyone run test pipes without a tune?

 

Still waiting for Winter to end.

 

Rochester you should start a Rim Sharing Program where are people in the North rent their wheels out to people in the south for winter! So many wonderful wheels in storage not being used during the winter. Makes me sad .

 

LOL

 

Do you normally keep your shoes on your carpeting in your Family Room all Winter or did you just bring them in to polish them?

 

My neighbor, who has a 6MT coupe, stopped to tell me his daughter said my "car sounds awesome" and "congratulations, you've succeeded in impressing a 12 year old girl"

 

With just the Q300? Damn, girl got an ear.