Selling my pride and joy 2000 M Coupe. It's also my longest ownership car out of 24 BMWs over the last 10 years. Tons of stuff refreshed, repaired, and upgraded.
65,7xx miles
$28,500

Purchase History
I acquired this E36/8 M Coupe from a BMW/MINI dealer in Austin Texas in September of 2015. The dealer had taken the car in on new MINI trade from the original owner who had purchased the coupe at the same dealer almost 16 years earlier. The in-service date for the car was 1/31/2000. The single previous owner was an older woman who worked at the University Texas at Austin. She did not drive the car much at all early in her ownership, with BMW service records showing only 17,000 miles accumulated by October 2008. Unlike most car dealership interactions, this time I was lucky enough to get some contact information of the son-in-law of the lady, and I have a copy of the brief email exchange we had. It seems she really loved the car from first sight, but overall really didn't do much to the car other than put gas in it. The original wheels are pretty rashed, and had 4 different tires, each of different ages and wear. There are some clear-coat splotches where blackbirds dumped on the car around the university that she didn't take care of soon enough. There are some door dings/dents that need to be addressed by a professional PDR tech. The real shocker to me was that the dealer took it upon themselves to partially 'refresh' the car during the course of the sale... and they should have just left well enough alone. Whomever re-did the headliner did a decent enough job, but the front and rear bumper re-spray job is pretty poor (underneath areas only, with bumpers still on the car is my guess, as the upper parts of the bumpers look original). The real bummer was the seats, as they sent them off to an upholsterer who had no business trying to re-furb M Coupe seats. The work was good, however they replaced some rare Oregon beige panels with plain dyed leather, and then when they were done, the right and left seats didn't even match in color/design! They were an abomination. After all of this piss-poor cosmetic refreshing, they didn't even change the brakes (or tires), which were original and down to near nothing - to the point of it being a safety issue in my opinion. Yet they made sure to replace the airbag module before releasing the car, as they're not allowed to sell a car with an airbag light on (which delayed the shipment of the car until they sourced a new module). Needless to say, I raised hell with the salesman and the dealership; but the damage had already been done, I took delivery of the car. I knew the car was so lightly used, never tracked, and was 100% original so I began my commitment to restore and refresh the little M.

It wasn't soon after I got the car that we decided to drive it to Oktoberfest 2016 in Monterey California, for the 100th anniversary of BMW, and as it turns out, Dorkfest 2016, my first. Thanks to Jon's awesome website, I already had a 3.0i Oxford/Beige Z3 Coupe 5 speed which I did a fly'n'drive trip with a few months earlier. At the time, I also had an S52 M Roadster and an S54 M Roadster, both in Oxford green (yes, I'm a big fan of dark metallic greens!). But now all attention turned to the M Coupe, so that it would be ready for the 1600 mile round trip to Monterey. The following sections outline all of the items I addressed before the trip, as well as the many additional things over the course of my 4+ year ownership. It's been a labor of love for sure, but can be quite challenging when having as many as 7 BMWs at once, which all need attention on some level. So after 10 years of collecting BMWs, I've decided to sell everything off and go in a different direction (TBD!). After sending off about 8 cars in the last 12 months, I'm now down to just my 8 series and this M Coupe (and my E53 X5, which I'm keeping for the time being).

Refreshments, Repairs, Replacements, and Upgrades
I will try to keep the line item details brief here, as some will be obvious due to the fact the car was basically all original with 63,100 miles as received. I will expound on some items if warranted for clarity and transparency.

Cooling system

• new radiator
• new primary hoses and some secondary hoses
• new heater valve (I tried overhauling the valve myself, but they don't make a seal kit for this particular unit)
• new fan
• new fan clutch
• new E36 M3 88°C thermostat with bleed hole drilled (I was contemplating doing a fan delete, and even installed an Innovate digital temp sensor in the head for a while, combined with throttle body coolant bypass, but ended up putting things back to stock)
• new fan switch in radiator
• new expansion tank/cap etc.
• new Stewart water pump
• new BMW blue coolant 50/50
• new metal thermostat housing
• new drive belts

Ignition system

• new spark plugs
• new coils

Engine

• new valve cover gaskets
• new air filter
• oil change/filter with Amsoil 5W-40 Euro Formula (I would be happy to change the oil again before the sale if the buyer would like, as the oil is now 3 years old, even though it only has less than 3,000 easy miles on it)

Fuel system

• new fuel filter

Brake system

• new rotors [twice] (replaced in 2016 with Brembos, but ECS sent me two coated rights, and two uncoated lefts, but since I was in a rush for the trip, I left them as-is... obviously one side rusts the other doesn't, so I just recently replaced 2500 mile old rotors with another new set from ECS, all black coated this time, and they now have only 5 miles on them)
• new Hawk performance ceramic pads
• new StopTech stainless steel brake lines
• new brake pad wear sensors
• new brake fluid
• new master cylinder reservoir gaskets

Driveline

• CDV delete via Z3 3.0i clutch hose installation
• replaced manual transmission fluid (I believe Amsoil 75W-90 synthetic)
• replaced differential fluid (I believe Amsoil 75W-140 Severe Gear)

Suspension

• used K-Sport coil overs (acquired from my S54 M Roadster, only had 500 miles on them)
• new OEM rear spring perch riser pads (to increase the rear body height in addtion to the K-Sport adjustable lower perch)

Exhaust

• used Dinan stainless steel 'grapefruit shooter' muffler (acquired from my S52 M Roadster; 74000 miles on the exhaust which was installed when the M Roadster only had 75 miles on it according to BMW records)

Seats/Belts

• repaired all seat rail bushings with Delrin kit
• new UUC front seat height riser kit on both seats
• new OEM driver's seat belt complete assembly
• new OEM driver's and passenger seat belt receivers and pyro tensioners
• used seat skin leathers for 3 out of 4 cushions (after 4 years, and thanks to my buddy Mark here on the forums, I finally found a set of M Coupe replacement seats - the only original seat leather still in the car is the driver's seat back, which used to be the car's passenger seat back; all other seat leathers came from Mark's used seats - the refurbished motorized seat bases are original to my car however... the used leathers aren't perfect, but they are leaps and bounds better than the botch job leathers I got with the car!)
• repaired seat occupancy sensor wires (no airbag lights for the moment!)
• cleaned and treated seats with Chemical Guys cleaner and conditioner products

Interior

• refurbished passenger door card
• replaced driver's door card (the Oregon point beige leather is sensitive to yellowing with prolonged contact with sweat, lotions etc., so it was easier to replace the door card than try to remove the staining)
• replaced polymer door handle pulls with leather version from S54 M Coupe
• replaced both under-window trim pieces in trunk area (these are two very expensive yet fragile interior trim pieces that often break or crack near the seat belt spool slot; I even received one broken in shipping from ECS)
• replaced headliner fabric (this was performed by the selling dealer as mentioned above)
• removed caustic chemical from rear-view mirror (obviously the auto-dimming function does not work anymore)
• removed un-used factory cell phone antenna amplifier and related wires from circuit
• installed a new factory OEM alarm kit (done better than the dealer installations I've seen; the seller of the kit had been using the key fobs for his car, but the rest of the alarm kit was brand new)
• replaced various plastic trim covers and parts throughout the car
• new OEM illuminated shift knob (installed by the selling dealer)
• repaired HVAC control knob (installed a stainless 4-40 screw into servo arm to replace broken plastic ball joint head - should never be a problem again)
• installed white led light bulbs into the gauge trio (they're much brighter than the stock mini bulbs)
• replaced original glove box with a new European OEM low profile, lightweight glove box (huge improvement in function and look over stock, and no sag!)
• replaced original driver's knee panel and crush box with new European OEM low profile, lightweight driver's knee panel
• new OEM throttle cable bushing
• new Po-boy clutch pedal stop
• new OEM black ///M floormats
• cleaned and treated all interior leather with Chemical Guys cleaner and conditioner products
• cleaned carpets with seats removed

Windows

• overhauled, cleaned, repaired and lubricated both driver and passenger door windows (typical broken white window drive dogs and hardened factory lubricants)
• overhauled, cleaned and re-aligned both driver and passenger door quarter windows

Exterior

• replaced front hood struts
• replaced hatch struts
• refurbished and rebuilt ///M side gills with OEM clips (NeverDone ///M badges)
• replaced headlights with very nice used amber versions
• replaced tail lights with new amber versions
• new amber side turn signals
• new amber bumper parking lights
• new door handle gaskets
• repaired trunk locking mechanism/latch
• new windshield wipers
• full professional paint correction with Opti-coat ceramic coating applied (8/11/2016)
• new ///M badge on trunk
• new OEM European front license plate holder
• new gas door rubber bumper [twice already!]
• new OEM rear underbody air deflectors (in front of the rear wheels)

Wheels/Tires

• AC Schnitzer Type-III Monoblock Staggered [front 18x8.5 ET43, rear 18x9.5 ET21.5] (purchased as new from a forum member, very rare fitment)
• Hankook Ventus V12 EVO [front 245/35R18, rear 285/30R18] (purchased as new mounted and balanced on the AC Schnitzers)
• AC Schnitzer 20mm spacers on rear wheels
• AC Schnitzer extended lug bolts and lock bolt on rear wheels
• ECS Tuning 5mm spacers and extended lug bolts on front wheels