The pain became too great...

Well, it's over. After dying twice in the line to drop my son off at school, requiring me to push it out of the way and wait for it to cool off and/or whatever what was wrong with it, I've given up on the '85GP.

After much research and a little negotiation, I shelled out $9700 for this Panzerwagon:



It's a 1999 BMW 540i with a six speed manual. It had been on a local car lot for the better part of a year with a malfunctioning alarm, non-working CD changer, a toasted clutch, and a couple handfuls of other broken bits. During that year, the dealer had put on a new alternator, radiator, and replaced a broken right rear window regulator (and fucked the door panel to hell in the process). They had it advertised for $11,995. I walked out with it for $9700. Spent another $1400 on a clutch and a new set of tires, and off I went.

Since the purchase, I've put almost 2000 miles on it. It's been to Cincinatti and back, and Madison Indiana with nary a hiccup. I've also blasted through a list of minor broken things:

• Replaced broken rear cupholders with a nice little storage cubby
• Fixed the right rear door (outer handle didn't work)
• Replaced the front speakers in the stereo
• Replaced a fuse on the CD changer and got it working again
• Replaced the main battery, which had the side effect of fixing the goofy alarm. The dealer had installed a nice, brand new Interstate, but the one they installed was 200 amps too small and they promptly allowed it to go flat and stay there, ruining it.
• Replaced the leaking valve cover gaskets and changed the oil

That's pretty much everything that was broken on the car. It's nearly good as new.

I'm getting - no joke - 21mpg around town, and we saw 26mpg on our trip to Cincinnati. All the widgets work inside the car. The display under the speedo is missing some pixels, but that seems to be normal for German cars of this vintage. Best of all, it starts every time and doesn't overheat and die in line to drop my kid off at school. It's also the nicest car I've ever driven. Quiet, smooth, handles well, lots of power... it's everything I wanted The Bucket to be, plus it doesn't have any rust. Coil-on-plug also means I no longer have to deal with burned up ignition wires.

And The Bucket? I've already sold the Megasquirt. I'll soon be pulling the drivetrain and electronics (stereo and speakers), pulling the hi-po shocks off and putting the Gabriels back on, and then dragging the car to Pull-A-Part where it will be sold for scrap. The tires are going to my Dad for his in-progress '66 Mustang restoration.

All this means that the original purpose of this blog, to document the work on The Bucket, is gone. I may update this with the deconstruction, and hopefully a memorial to the car when I finally drag it to the scrapyard.