Finding The Best Parts For Your BMW
For most bmw enthusiasts, once they purchase a car, that is only the start of a long and often expensive process of tuning to result in higher BMW performance. There are many thousands of various choices on how you go about this process. Where does one start, what can be completed by the typical backyard mechanic and what requires professional help? Also, where can one source premium parts economically? Locating parts is the part of modifying that you have the most control over and where you can save time and money, if you do your homework.
There is more than one theory on this issue. For BMWs, significant design and engineering was done by BMW to produce a world class car that is typically a superior performer than most of its competition. It is way too easy to end up heading backwards in your search for speed by buying flawed parts, installing them incorrectly or not matching up the performance levels of various systems on your car. In fact, BMW itself is selling a line of its own aftermarket parts so you can be assured of the same quality and engineering in these parts just like the rest of your car. The negative side is that these parts are frequently more expensive than their non-BMW counterparts.
So, how should one source quality parts for your vehicle? I am a big fan of doing research online using a variety of tools. There are many great user groups out there consisting of many thousands of BMW owners. With very little work you can frequently find someone with your exact car who has already made similar modifications to their car and can frequently provide some valuable insight into what works, which supplier has the lowest price, installation tips and more. Some of my favorites are Bimmerforums.com, e46fanatics and roadfly.org. Time spent here will save you a lot of money and frustration so you don’t have to make the same mistakes as others have.
Another excellent resource that is frequently overlooked is eBay. The number of choices can be overwhelming and there are a bunch of cheap, knock-off parts that you should try to stay away from. However, if you purchase from a reputable supplier with good feedback and do your research on exactly the part you need and at what price, you can significantly maximize your modifying budget. You can source new parts, OEM BMW parts and used BMW parts quickly and easily to make your performance project a winner.
Rand Stuck is an AST certified BMW technician with over 13 years experience working on BMWs and currently manages the BMW parts department for a large BMW dealer. Rand specializes in BMW accessories and sourcing really hard to find BMW OEM parts!
- Rand Stuck
Tags: BMW 5 Series, exact car, source quality, bmw performance, doing research, performance levels, user groupsOriginally posted 2008-03-31 01:04:28.
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Welcome! I truly enjoyed not only the quality of the film, but also the way it captures the essence of motor racing; the people involved and the fantastic joy of attending this kind of races – to the Green Hell, a veritabel pilgrimage – focusing on the human factor and moving away from traditional ‘race reviews’. BMW’s win takes another dimension after watching this film. Congratulations Tim and Nick Hahne! You’re causing quite a stir among BMW enthusiasts!
It's just the new 5-Series with some “BMW Performance? Parts”.
Here’s the problem with Quirky; it’s very difficult to crowd-source quality. In fact, much of the end result at Quirky—from products, to taglines to logos—is the result of the lowest common denominator by a group that knows very little about what they’re voting on beyond being consumers. If the Quirky honchos weigh too heavily on what gets chosen, the crowd gets in an uproar…and so too much is left up to amateur “curators.”The system is set up to pump something into the production cycle week-to-week, which means you’re not finding innovation and you create too much noise in the channel. [...]
I think more progress was made in the last 20 years than 1970-1990. Think about it. We went from muscle cars in 1970 to the Malaise era crapmobiles to cheap and reliable Japanese cars from 1970-1990. In 1990, the best reliable car was probably the Taurus. We went from the Taurus, to Japan’s high tech sports cars, from there to sports sedans, and from there we had a huge styling change that evolved around safety and quality. Enthusiasts these days complain that cars like the Camry and Accord are boring, but if you brought a modern day Camry 20 years [...]
hi well the Veyron has a 7 speed gearbox to start with (MANJ) so no u cant make a bmw as fast at the top end plus ull need a roket to get 0/60mph in 3.3 sec lol plus if u somehow did before u got to 200mph the car would shake to bits. ps im a bmw technician and own a bmw and u never buld a 7 speed box lyk the Veyron has to fit in a bmw with the size of the engine and wot room is left and let me tell u its not a lot
maybe you’re wondering why the BMW has 71% of the 668 votes?! I should mention that this is the “BMW Blog”…. I believe it would be correct to say this was created for BMW enthusiasts so it does have mostly BMW biased readers. C&D and other auto news sites have just as biased readers as BMW Blog, except it’s for a general audience and not a specific vehicle make.
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No, the insurance won't pay for the aftermarket parts. They will pay you what the car is worth at time of accident. Usually the insurance will look at the mileage for the vale of your car.
Ask your insurance agent for a complete details before you decide to put those aftermarket parts in your car. Your insurance premium will go up unbelievably because your car will be classified as a race car.
88 CiviC is an old car, not worth modding. Get yourself a latest SI.
I’m very hesitant to give much credence to this rumor. To cost of testing and making a manual box should be spread over as many markets as possible. And cutting off the market where BMW will see some actual sales (forgive me, but the US is really not about sticks, and BMW owners even less so it seems, maybe because they think it’s too “entry-level”) makes no sense.
Perhaps you should take the and approach to you umbrella topic?
say if you took the automotive industry…you might apply what learnt from each of the classes and apply to different areas relevant to your subject. HRM for the industry. Operation Management. Management in general.