By Nate Risch
04/04/2016
Last week I wrote the ending of the E39 Style 42 wheel-refinishing story and solemnly intoned the lesson learned: Don’t buy an inexpensive set of corroded wheels and try to refinish them yourself. The time required to do even a passable job simply isn’t worth it. Even I would never do it again. Even I would pay someone else to do it, or buy a set in better condition. Be smart—don’t be a cheap idiot like me.
By Nate Risch
03/28/2016
This month marks my 40th anniversary as a BMW car-owner. For those 40 years, the BMWs that I have been fortunate enough to own have been excellent, and by excellent I mean fun and reliable—and excellent.
By Nate Risch
03/26/2016
The story thus far: I paid fifteen hundred bucks for a running 2003 530i stick with the sport package. Its main demerit was the absence of the original lovely Style 42 cross-spoke alloys. In their place was a truly objectionable set of corroded Beyerns, like four cruel changelings. I railed and raged at the obvious intervention of a callous, uncaring god in my otherwise perfect world.
By Nate Risch
03/22/2016
Every year at about this time, an alarming number of my friends go crazy and start paying attention to college basketball, which is as good a reason as any to gamble, I suppose. (Hot tip: Put your money on a school with blue uniforms.) But since I consider even professional basketball even more annoying than their farm leagues, I welcome the opening of the real sporting season.
By Nate Risch
03/20/2016
The budget refinishing of my Style 42 wheels will have to wait, as the media-blasting quote from the fellow on Craigslist that sounded too good to be true—$50 to $60 for the set of four—turned out to be, uh, too good to be true (“It’ll take me a while to get to those”).
