RECENT ARTICLES
The Fuel Delivery Checklist
A friend messaged me this week with a fuel delivery issue on his ’76 2002. The car had the original-style mechanical fuel pump installed, and a fuel filter before the pump. As I wrote about here, I don’t believe that any carbureted 2002 ever had a fuel filter installed...
Mike Renner Is Living His BMW Dream
In the Seventies, racing wasn’t accessible to a kid growing up in South Carolina. Sim racing didn’t exist. Karting was dangerous and poorly regulated. And that was before considering the cost. Though less than today, it wasn’t what you’d call cheap. Mike Renner had to watch from the sidelines....
Tom Tang vs. The Mountain | The Path and the Goal
BMW News, Featured, Motorsport
Tom Tang has always loved cars. “I’ve been fascinated with cars for as long as I can remember, going back to being a kid and playing with matchbox cars,” he says. “My parents never understood it. When I was in middle school we moved out to California to the...
Multiple BTCC Champion Colin Turkington to Contest British GT Championship
Colin Turkington may be the most successful BMW racer that you’ve never heard of. We don’t see much about the super-competitive British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) here in the U.S., but it’s some of the best racing out there and Turkington is a four-time champion in that series, with...
Three Podiums in Portugal FIM Superbike World Championship Races
BMW News, Motorrad, Motorsport
The FIM World Superbike Championship (WorldSBK) rounds at the Portimão Circuit in Portugal on March 27th-29th were solid for the ROKiT BMW Motorrad team. Portuguese factory rider Miguel Oliveira scored a pair of podium finishes on his #88 BMW M 1000 RR. The Portugal race weekend was only the...
Tech Talk | Trans Noises, Reliability, and Service Record Lookup
Welcome to Tech Talk, where our resident BMW tech Nick Owen answers all your pressing BMW technical questions, frustrations, and issues. Have a question for Nick? Email him at techtalk@roundel.org. Let’s get into it. 540i Reliability Now looking at the 540i; it seems some are hybrid and some are...
How To Get the Most Out of Your Warranty
The BMW warranty system has managed to keep a lot of BMWs on the road with little to no expense out of pocket. But with the evolution of the automotive industry and consumer trends, the warranty coverage for BMWs has shifted over the years. Back when I first started...
This Dinan-Tuned BMW M4 CS Might Have Been the Deal of the Century
Someone may have just gotten a steal, with this 2025 BMW M4 CS that just sold on Cars and Bids. Its original sticker price was $125,325, but it just sold to its new owner for $97,500. OK, so it isn’t unusual for a luxury car to depreciate so much...
Could an Electric Z4 Be On the Way? BMW Is Considering a Two-Seat EV Sports Car
BMW signed the Z4’s death warrant last year when it announced the Final Edition M40i, with no replacement in sight. Just as the Z4 was hitting its stride—with the long-awaited release of a manual transmission—it gets sent off to the junkyard in the sky. Without a new Z4 to...
The Alfa Valve Shim Trick
Well, Bertha and I aren’t going to The Vintage after all. I have a dear 84-year-old cousin with whom Maire Anne and I have done some travel. She has slow-moving lung cancer, but right now she feels fine and wants to enjoy life. She called us last week and...
Autocross Season Is Upon Us. Here’s What You Need to Know
Featured, Lifestyle, Motorsport
It’s time to get off the couch and do stupid stuff in cars. Maybe learn to be a little less stupid, too. Or maybe a more organized form of stupid. Whatever. It is now autocross season. No clue what that is? Basically, it’s a race between a bunch of...
Could an Electric Z4 Be On the Way? BMW Is Considering a Two-Seat EV Sports Car
BMW signed the Z4’s death warrant last year when it announced the Final Edition M40i, with no replacement in sight. Just as the Z4 was hitting its stride—with the long-awaited release of a manual transmission—it gets sent off to the junkyard in the sky. Without a new Z4 to...
The Alfa Valve Shim Trick
Well, Bertha and I aren’t going to The Vintage after all. I have a dear 84-year-old cousin with whom Maire Anne and I have done some travel. She has slow-moving lung cancer, but right now she feels fine and wants to enjoy life. She called us last week and...
Exclusive Event: Take a Sneak Peak Inside Steve Saxty’s “M: Beyond the Badge”
Last year, Steve Saxty—author of the award-winning BMW by Design books—gave some M Chapter leaders an early look at his new project, M: Beyond The Badge, and the presentation generated a great deal of excitement. It is an ambitious undertaking that has involved four months in Europe and more...
The Ultimate Driving Museum’s M3 Exhibit Opens Soon. Here’s What You Need to Know
The Ultimate Driving Museum is thrilled to announce that we will be joined by a distinguished panel of guest speakers for our BMW M3: 40 Years of Evolution Opening Ceremony on Friday May 15, 2026. From its track-inspired beginnings to its modern-day dominance, we are bringing the history of...
Tech Talk | Door Handle Issues and Hybrid Questions
Welcome to Tech Talk, where our resident BMW tech Nick Owen answers all your pressing BMW technical questions, frustrations, and issues. Have a question for Nick? Email him at techtalk@roundel.org. Let’s get into it. 2004 E46 330i NLA Door Parts I come to you with mounting frustration. My good...
Safety Third | The Diesel F31 Wagon Passes the Test
I’ve had my F31 328d wagon for over six months now, which is usually a good measure of whether a car will stick for a short-attention-span BMW owner like me. By the six-month mark, the novelty has worn off, most mechanical issues have made themselves known, and I’ve made...
Upcoming Electric BMW M3 Design Allegedly Leaked
Someone in Munich might be in a lot of trouble. Some photos were recently leaked to Bimmerpost, showing off what is allegedly the upcoming all-electric BMW M3, codenamed “ZA0.” BMW released official teasers of the M3 earlier this year, but that car was covered in heavy M-liveried camouflage. The...
This Mini Cooper S Looks Like a Sedate Daily Driver. It’s Really an M3 V-8-Powered Track Weapon
When you look under the hood of a Mini, there doesn’t seem to be enough room for a three-cylinder, never mind a V-8. But because David Power, the man behind Powerflex, is a bit of a madman and wanted something truly outrageous for his track-day toy, he figured out...
BMW CCA Dream Car Raffle – Meet the 2026 BMW M2 CS
The 2026 BMW CCA Dream Car Raffle has begun, and the grand prize is one of the most exciting M cars in recent memory: the highly exclusive 2026 BMW M2 CS. Built with a singular focus on performance, the M2 CS takes everything enthusiasts love about BMW’s compact M...
An Unusual Use of a Flashing Power Supply
I haven’t had a lot of flashing in my past. Not that kind—I mean updating the software in a control module. (Well, didn’t really have the other kind in my past either). I believe that there was just one time I needed to contact BMW coding guy Sam Aleksanyan...
Self Propelled | Roadside Repairs
Sixty-one years of owning a series of old, weird, sometimes high-mileage cars—attributes sometimes concentrated in the same vehicle—I’ve accumulated more than a few tales of roadside woe. Fortunately, years of hard-learned fixit lessons meant that I was usually able to effect at least jury-rigged repairs, and thus I was...
Buying a Car Online Is All About Common Sense
Odds are there are few people reading this who have never bought anything online. Before you laugh, my mother never has. She calls and tells me what she wants and promises to reimburse me. But beyond her and folks of her generation, many of us don’t even pause before...
Tech Talk | E39 Touring Air Suspension Saga Solved
Welcome to Tech Talk, where our resident BMW tech Nick Owen answers all your pressing BMW technical questions, frustrations, and issues. Have a question for Nick? Email him at techtalk@roundel.org. Let’s get into it. 530iT Continued… I am having trouble with “New Doug,” my 2001 525iT auto, turned 530iT...
The Mini Column | Not For Sale
And at what price would you sell your beloved car? Several years ago during Minis on the Dragon (MOTD), at a time when second-generation Minis were new, a fellow Mini owner made me an offer on my R53. At first the offer shocked me, since I did not anticipate...
This Dinan-Tuned E28 M5 Made 400 HP But Was Almost Double the Price
I have a confession to make. Despite my deep love for the E28 M5, and the fact that I want one more than any other Roundel-badged vehicle, I didn’t know that Dinan made a turbo kit for it back in the day. The E28 M5 was always sacred, the...
The Fuel Delivery Checklist
A friend messaged me this week with a fuel delivery issue on his ’76 2002. The car had the original-style mechanical fuel pump installed, and a fuel filter before the pump. As I wrote about here, I don’t believe that any carbureted 2002 ever had a fuel filter installed...
The Alfa Valve Shim Trick
Well, Bertha and I aren’t going to The Vintage after all. I have a dear 84-year-old cousin with whom Maire Anne and I have done some travel. She has slow-moving lung cancer, but right now she feels fine and wants to enjoy life. She called us last week and...
An Unusual Use of a Flashing Power Supply
I haven’t had a lot of flashing in my past. Not that kind—I mean updating the software in a control module. (Well, didn’t really have the other kind in my past either). I believe that there was just one time I needed to contact BMW coding guy Sam Aleksanyan...
Spring (finally!), with The Vintage Around the Corner
Back in November, I brought Bertha (my transmogrified ’75 2002 that I turned into a track car in the Eighties, sold to my friend Alex in 1988, bought back 30 years later after it was stored and allowed to self-demolish, and resurrected) back from storage in Monson. The car...
The Risk of Buying a Modern Car That Needs Exhaust Work
About 10 years ago, I wrote a piece about a ratty 850i six-speed that I could’ve bought for four grand. I walked away from it because, even at that price, the numbers didn’t make sense. The problems included James-Bond-fog-level oil burning coming from one of the V-12’s cylinder banks,...
The Vacuum Advance Question
I’m still not quite over my RSV (and thanks to those who have sent me get-well emails), and the garage is still snowed in, so we’re still in non-wrenches-on-bolts mode. And thanks to Mike Self and Tom Jones for alerting me that I was completely wrong last week when...
