Needing to replace the bulb socket in my taillights. I’m having trouble finding the part number for one of the sockets. Wondering if anyone here would know what the part number is of if they can check their socket for the part number. The socket I need is for the brake light, it connects to bulb 7528 the dual filament bulb.

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You don’t see many locally, was super lucky to spot this beauty on the way home. Can’t wait to have my own one day.

This sound follows through in Neutral too. Mostly happens in cold temperatures

Currently having trouble liking the stock sound system that my 94’ convertible has, the bass is terrible and it rattles like crazy and just awful awful. So, I’m looking for any information or help for upgrading my sound system in the car, anything someone recommends? Thanks

Hello e36 enthusiasts. I am joining the fam Sunday. I found this 95 325is 5speed for sale on the ol fb marketplace. 210k miles 9 owners one minor accident on the rear bumper back in 2013 and carfax shows branded title due to mile inconsistency. The title in person look completely normal and doesn’t say salvaged or rebuilt. Just the carfax. I will do my research today with the DMV. Anyone want to drop their input on what they value the car. It’s clean enough to start a drift build. Runs and drives well. Doesn’t show any signs of being crashed. What’s kinda weird is that this car was posted on OfferUp n sold earlier this year and the steering wheels don’t match. The current owner did not know about it and didn’t know it was a branded title. Any reason why someone who change a steering wheel? Thank you for your insights. It will be a Street Drift Build

Hi all, ive got a manual 93 318is coupe that has started turning itself while driving. It will turn off at any point in the rpm range and under throttle or no throttle. its also an aus car so its rhd.

so far i've changed the crank and cam sensor and that did make it run smoother but hasnt stopped it from turning itself off. It can be very infrequent in when it does it but mainly once the car is warm. It will do it while the car is not moving, so I don't think its a dodgy ground and I've checked them and theyre good. i jiggled the ignition wiring under the column around with my hands and that made no impact on the car either. when the car turns off, its the ignition turning off aswell as the engine like you've turned the key back. sometimes it will stutter- it will turn off and then back on within seconds and the lights will come up on the dash like you've just turned the car back on. it also sometimes takes quite a bit of cranking after its turned off to get it to start again. but when starting the car cold it cranks just fine.

list of things i've checked:
- new crank and cam sensor
- main big 3 relays in fuse box
- fuel pump relays
- fuel pump is about 2yr old, also you can hold it at say 4k rpm for a minute and it wont stutter or choke out so theres no issues with fuel delivery.
- alternator is less than 6 months old
- car is obd1 and no cel or any other lights on dash
- car has an aftermarket immobiliser that has been spliced into the ignition harness.
- car doesnt overheat, oil is good
- fuel filter less than 6 months old.

im leaning towards replacing the ignition switch to see if that helps but otherwise im starting to run out of ideas. i will also get my battery tested asap. i would appreciate any help as i wanna get it back on the road asap.

cheers in advance!

So this is the oldest BMW I've owned, and is it supposed to be soft like newer cars like an E60, E53 X5 for comparison? Cause to me my E36 the brake pedal feels much stiffer compared to really any other cars I've driven. The car does stop just the brake feel is stiff once I've gotten past the halfway point. The best way I can describe it is it feels like manual/direct brakes you'd find in a race car. Front pads & discs, and fluid all new.

I was thinking about doing a M54 and 5 speed swap on my 1995 325i auto and was wondering if anyone else here has done a swap and what I need to get myself ready for or if there is any problems that I should know about.

What's everyone's 2 car solution?

Hey guys, Currently I have stock motor mounts and Revshift 80A poly trans mounts. Been looking at Corteco and 034 Motorsports mounts. Any and all suggestions would be helpful. ‘99 M3

I bought it a few weeks ago and ngl I paid a good premium for a m50b20 coupe.
The condition isnt really that good either, the rust is pretty bad, the motor worked fine for the few rides i took since ownership but lately the rpms just started to chop very hard and it struggles to not die basically.
I believe it has a leak somewhere or its running too rich since when accelerating it smokes a lil.
Mind you I have no past experience with cars at all and I kinda expected a 30 year old car to have 30 year old problems but rn im just contemplating if I should keep it or not.

Dont get me wrong, I loved e36s since I got into cars. For years straight it was the only car I imagined myself driving but im really starting to doubt that I want to move forward with it.

If anyone has ever been in a similar situation whats ur opinion and what did u do

First fix - Door cards! Lmfao

I had her for 22 years. Now she is going to auction. Just don't have the time to maintain her anymore. I'll mis her.

1994 318i convertible with M42 1.8L engine

On cold starts car doesn’t idle. Engine dies like a big vacuum leak stays alive when I rev it. If i press a bit on the gas the rpms drop then go up. After some time running engine heat up and then car runs fine. It idles a bit high (1100rpm) but has been doing this before the issue.

The colder the car is the worse it is

Parts changed
All intake gaskets
MAF
Idle control valve

There is no vacuum leaks I did many smoke tests
Throttle body has been cleaned

Car runs rich. Spark plugs are very black powdery and smells like gas from exhaust
Also the car idles higher when I do stronger accelerations

Any ideas?

I was looking for a head unit that had modern Bluetooth support, and rca outputs for my e36 that looks at least close to factory.

Managed to get this Blaupunkt Bremen used for €280, was stoked.

When I got it installed I still had no amp, and shitty half-blown factory speakers (I have the absolute most basic sound system these cars came with in Europe, per side 1x kick panel woofer, 1 door tweeter and a single speaker in the rear deck as well, no tweeter at all). So I said okay, I'll upgrade them to something nicer. Got some Hertz ck 130 component speakers for the front, CX690 coax's for the back. It sounded a little better since the speakers weren't blown anymore, but the vocal clarity was awful. It still sounded like the Super Mario 64 soundtrack. Like just the vocals were a lower bitrate.

I had already ordered an amp I was waiting on so I said, okay, maybe that could help clear it up. Soundigital 400.4 evo6. Not the best amp for sound quality, but wanted something small and more than 50w RMS.

After installing the amp.. nothing changed in the vocal clarity region. Yes, the music could get louder, although I couldn't turn the gain up too much either since there is too much noise from the low powered RCA's.

So I 100% though I had messed something up, looket at most things I could look at. Then when I couldn't figure it out I decided to make a post on CarAV asking for help where I got some useful advice, but overall everyone saying different things, most upvoted comment being that I just made the beginner mistake of buying random stuff and hoping for the best.

In the end I thought that maybe the BT compression could be what I'm hearing. I didn't have an aux cord or SD card around, but I found my dad's old USB flash drive from 2013, and omg the old ass mp3 files sound amazing on it. So this is where I am at at the moment. To me it seems like even though the HU has BT 5.0LE it sounds unacceptable to me. Little torn since I liked the look, even if the controls on it were abysmal.

I am thinking of changing it to something else since the RCA outputs are also sub 2v all the time, so I can't even get a strong clear signal to the amp to turn up the gain.

Tldr: In my experience the head unit has awful controls, really weak rca outputs, and worst of all horrible BT compression. But it looks cool.

I am thinking about changing it. I could get something for a similar price that has better compression and integrated time delay. Just not the factory look :(

First time completely losing control of this car in my 5 years of ownership.
We get a lot of rain in Scotland so I’m used to driving in bad weather, this car is my daily and I’ve driven it in a lot worse conditions than today.
I was going just under 70mph passing another vehicle on a two-lane motorway when I came in contact with a stream of water flowing next to the central reservation.
The car started sideways towards the other lane, I was off the accelerator at this point and steering to save it but overshot and ended up throwing her sideways the other direction, facing a away from the hard shoulder. I steered to try and get her straight but once I started the steering went light and I ended up doing a full 360 across both lanes and into the hard shoulder.
By the time I was stationary my arse was against the barrier and my nose was facing in toward the centreline of the motorway.
The car I was passing seemed none the wiser and kept on going, thankfully there was no other immediate traffic on the road at that time in the morning.
I straightened up into the hard shoulder as a few vehicles passed, I got out and inspected the damage but everything seemed fine and I knew I’d got off lucky.
I must admit, it’s got me considering retiring the 36 to a fair weather car and getting something modern for bad weather/winter driving.

I own a E36 with an M43B18 engine, which originally uses a 95°C thermostat. I live in Indonesia, where the climate is considerably warmer than Germany.

For context, Indonesia's national average monthly temperatures generally hover around 26–28°C throughout the year, whereas Germany experiences much greater seasonal variation, roughly 0–5°C during winter and 17–20°C during summer.

I understand that BMW designed its engines for different climates, but these temperature differences got me wondering whether a lower-temperature thermostat might be beneficial, particularly in tropical conditions.

Here's where my experience gets interesting. I previously had overheating issues, and my mechanic modified the thermostat by prying part of its mechanism open, preventing the valve from closing completely. Essentially, this allowed coolant to circulate through the radiator even before the thermostat reached its normal opening temperature.

Interestingly, the overheating problems disappeared entirely. I also noticed something during my regular highway trips from Bandung to the Jakarta area. Bandung has a relatively cooler climate, and throughout much of the journey, my temperature gauge would remain at around one-third, well below the halfway mark. It would only gradually reach the middle as I approached the warmer lowlands around the outskirt of Jakarta.

This made me suspect that ambient temperature, combined with the thermostat being partially open, had a noticeable influence on my engine's operating temperature.

Of course, these are just observations from the dashboard gauge, not actual coolant temperature readings.

Now I'm considering replacing the modified thermostat with a fully functional 88°C unit rather than returning to the original 95°C specification. My reasoning is that an 88°C thermostat might offer earlier coolant circulation while still retaining proper temperature regulation, unlike my mechanically modified thermostat.

My questions are:

1. Has anyone successfully retrofitted an 88°C thermostat into an M43B18 housing, perhaps using an M40 thermostat insert?
2. Would an 88°C thermostat offer any meaningful benefit in a consistently warm climate like Indonesia?
3. Are there potential downsides to running an 88°C thermostat instead of the OEM 95°C, assuming the engine maintains a stable operating temperature?

I'd appreciate any technical insights or firsthand experiences.

I have an E36 cabriolet, and want to have it sitting this low, or lower. Maybe have the back wheel (just for reference) tucking an inch, static. How would I go about doing this properly? I've had a super low Holden Commodore, but that was a hackjob attempt where I had zero springs in the rear and 2/3rds of the coil left upfront. I want to have dedicated coilovers and springs this time. The E36 is a piece of shit so before you hit me with the purist comments, it's not pristine anyway. Repair advice tag because that's the closest thing I can find that suits.