[B4LL3N]

Hey guys,

Sorry in advance for the long read…

I recently moved out to the Seattle ‘burbs from New York and thought I would do this post to briefly introduce myself and give you a bit of a condensed version of the story behind my experience with my E92.

I did a post when I originally bought the car back in June and joined the forum. Since then, there have been some very significant changes in my life and obviously modifications to my car. I really appreciate the fact that these regional forums are organized as they really bring people together. This is what (in my mind anyways) this passion is all about, something that most people don’t seem to understand.

A brief into about myself, I’m a 26 year old Packaging Engineer originally from Northern Michigan. I moved out to Long Island after college (MSU) to begin my first real job in 2012 and slowly began to resent the New York area to a pretty extreme degree along with its horrific culture and wanted to take the next step in my career with dreams of moving (specifically) to Seattle. After months of disappointment back in NY pursuing job openings here, I got a call from a third party packaging company informing me that Microsoft was interested in me for a contract position in their Global Packaging department. From there, I completely turned my life around in the last two months and really couldn’t be happier to be out here.

Anyways, my Dad originally bought my ’08 335Xi Black Sapphire/ Black AT (easy… it’s my daily and only car) bone stock, sight unseen in 2013 with the original intention of letting me buy it from him once I found the financial means. That came a year later after he put only about 2K miles on it (I’m now at 47,XXX). He liked my car so much that before I had even picked it up from him he went out and bought an ’07 AW 335i E92 6MT in great shape. I had been an extreme BMW enthusiast since a young age and was more than thrilled to get into first one, an E92 with an N54 no less. I picked it up last June and drove it from Traverse City, MI to Bay Shore, NY overnight and still consider it one of the most thrilling memories of my life. It was at that point that I decided that I would keep this car for the rest of my life, constantly modding it along the way. Unfortunately, the events that followed weren’t so pleasant but this story fortunately has a happy ending.

The disasters started a couple weeks after getting back to Long Island with my car. It was an incredibly hot day, my new car was filled with tires (which I wasn’t particularly pleased about), and I was in a foul mood on my lunch hour. I went to make a right onto a 2-lane one way service road just by my office in Melville and let off the brakes slightly so that I could see oncoming traffic past a tree and smashed into something. I thought I had curbed it but looked up to find that the lady in front of me had stopped in the near lane after pulling out so that she could wait for an opening in the far lane. I smashed the front bumper in, luckily the 2 mph collision didn’t damage any other components in that area. Words really can’t describe how upset I was since I had never been in an accident and just dented in the bumper of my new dream car… there were a lot of yelling and curse words involved after everyone left the scene because despite the lady’s idiotic driving, I knew that I was clearly at fault. The silver lining was that Allstate paid for everything including a genuine OEM Aero kit replacement and let me choose a very good painter to perform the job. Before the car was even in the shop I discovered that it had been repainted in many places after removing some trim panels and had done what I would consider a pretty half ass job. Upon even further inspection, I noticed some minor rust underneath (don’t ever buy a car sight unseen), I had it neutralized when I got here, hopefully it’s only cosmetic. After all of this, just before taking it in for paint some douchebag with an ‘01 Mustang in my parking lot decided to take it upon himself to put a huge gouge in my quarter panel to add insult to injury. I took the car in, had the front bumper, OEM Aero kit, a light spot on the rear bumper sprayed, and the dent removed.

Chapter two of my E92 nightmare came when the car was in paint and I NEEDED to get rid of my awful 17’ Style 188’s which accentuated the visual “Xi suspension gap” that was beyond acceptability IMO. I made the huge mistake of trusting someone on the forum and bought his “only cosmetically damaged” set of 19” style 230’s. Not only did they turn out to be pathetic Chinese replicas but were bent to a dangerous level. Good thing this asshole lives down in LA. After countless half measures to correct the many imbalances/ misalignments and TPSM problems, I folded, bleed myself dry, and took it to a dealer to have brand new REAL style 230’s put on. Even after experiencing all of this strife, the wheel would still shake uncontrollably at times. I spent two months (I did several posts back in the fall) trying to figure out why I couldn’t get my wheel balance correct. It turned out that salt had corroded away my Thrust Arm bushings so I had that replaced at the dealer along with a poorly casted rim that they had sold me. Finally, the car was in decent shape and then New York struck back at me again mid-January with a terrible winter. I didn’t have a garage, the “roads” were a joke show, and they insisted on putting more salt on the roads than there was actual snow which did some pretty significant damage to my paint and I’m sure my undercarriage.

When I finally got the car off the transport carrier here in Lynnwood, I had a full exterior detail along with an undercarriage cleanse done by NW Auto Salon. I was happy with their work and professionalism so I took it back a couple weeks ago and had my shadow lines wrapped in gloss black which turned out incredible, completely transforming the look of the car. Now that I finally have a garage out here, I’m able to do my own work which I love. So far I’ve only put on 12mm spacers all around but I have slotted rotors with ceramic pads for the rear axle on the way this week.

As far as future plans for the car are concerned, I really need to have some coil overs installed because there is still a pretty significant “Xi” gap even with the new wheels, will eventually move on to a stage one setup with exhaust (drivetrain is still bone stick), and possibly an ECU upgrade. Cosmetically, fix some of the botched paint job, M sport rear bumper, and M sport (not M3) rocker panels.

Thanks for reading, it’s been quite the ride with this thing but it’s certainly not for sale. I’m very excited to be out here and I look forward to getting to know some of you in the area.

-Bryan

Mod List
• 19” OEM Style 230’s w/ new center caps
• Continental DSW all-season tires
• 12mm spacers all around
• 19% tint job
• Gloss black wrapped shadow lines
• Gloss black kidneys with ///M stripes
• OEM Aero kit
• New thrust arms/ bushings
• Relatively new front brakes w/ ceramic pads, parts on the way for a rear brake job
• Front license plate bracket
• Washington plates! No more horrible NY orange with ugly windshield stickers

[mashimarho]

Nice. Welcome and looking forward to meeting you!

[inline sex]

Welcome, check out PNW BMW on Facebook it's a little bit more active in regards to meets etc

[bimmette]

Interesting story! Welcome to the PNW, Bryan!