Hello guys,

Jeremiah was very kind to send me some pictures of his 1999 BMW E36 M3 with its hardtop on. Honestly, this is a very nice car indeed and as he said in his own words about the hardtop:

I think it makes the car look really low and aggressive and I love how much it improves the overall handling / stiffness of the drive.

With that being said, I decided to feature it as Miss January 2009 as it’s a very good example of how a well-maintained BMW E36 (M3) should look like. I hope you like it:

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 M3 information source.

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Hi Guys,

When I bought my car (it was like 2 years ago), I was taking it for a spin just to test-drive it when I noticed the heated seats buttons. Believe it or not, I didn’t know what these buttons were for at that time as I didn’t have much knowledge about the E36 cars like I do now. I asked the previous owner about the buttons and he said they were for heated seats and pressed them. The funny thing is that he didn’t realize at that time (and I’m sure of it) that the heated seats were not working in his car. After I bought the car, I knew that I have to invest sometime to fix my heated seats as they were not working at all. The weird thing is that the heated seats resistance was indicating that they’re running just fine (I used a multi-meter). I’ve tested the power on the plugs under the car too and they were working fine too. hmmm… that’s odd

I wrote before about Installing BMW E36 Heated Seats and the procedure is straight forward, but it needs some time to accomplish that if you could find the heating elements which everyone said they were not very easy to find. While I was looking for heating elements for my car (thinking it was the reason behind my problem), I’ve found a shop who is ready to give me the heating elements from old BMW E36 seats. I’m sure you can imagine how happy I was after hours and hours of looking.

Anyway, since the guy at the shop seemed to know what he was talking about, I asked him to replace them in my car. Of course he had to remove the seats from the car which is very easy. Then the heating elements replacement process began:

There are 2 heating elements in every seat. One for the back and one inside the seat cushion. The one in the back of the seat was very easy to expose. Simply, he pulled the back leather carefully with a flat screw driver and that was it. To my surprise, I’ve found the heating elements for the back already there and connected. they were also heating just fine. But guess what was the reason why I didn’t feel the heat? Hmmm.. I’m sure you can’t guess because it was the most stupid thing I’ve seen in my entire life. The heating elements were placed behind the sponge. That’s the heating element was heating the sponge instead of heating the leather which I’m supposed to feel. I already know that my seats leather was replaced right before I bought the car, but I didn’t imagine that it was being done by a stupid guy. Damn … stopping heated seats, what were you thinking?!!!

Anyway, the guy at the shop had to separate the leather of the back seat from the sponge and put the heating element there (between them) then make sure that everything returns to its original state.

The cushions were a little bit harder as he needed to remove the knee support part from the cushion, remove 4 screws from the bottom then remove that cushion. After removing the cushion, I was really hoping to find the heating elements in these cushions as well (as in the back), but unfortunately, they were not there. So, he used 2 of the heating elements in the cushions and that was pretty much it. Then put everything together to end up with my heated seats running again… Boy that was fabulous. If your heated seats are not working for some reason, I suggest you fix them right away, you don’t know what you’re missing.

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 M3 information source.

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Hello guys,

It’s time for a new model for the month of December 2008. I believe I’m a little bit late with this post as I decided long time ago to make these posts in the beginning of the month or at least in the middle but not at the end. I guess this month is a special case and I hope you’ll forgive me for that. Take a look at this cool car. It’s really nice and I’m sure many will kill just to get one with such clean exterior and interior. Take a look… Can you beat that?

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 M3 information source.

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Hi Guys,

This is a sweet BMW E36 325 burnout. It looks really fun and especially at the end when you see the tires being ripped apart from this aggressive burnout. Take a look and pay attention to the wires that are popping out of the tires . . . Poor tires :p LOL!

Take a look:-

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate BMW E36 M3 Information Source.

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Hi Guys,

I’ve found this video for a nice collection of BMW E36 cars with various exterior modifications. So, for those of you who want to modify their cars, I guess, you can steel some ideas from this video. I hope you find it useful.

Take a look:-

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate BMW E36 M3 Information Source.

Hi Guys,

Take a look at this awesome drift being done by a BMW E36 318is. Honestly, I didn’t know that a 318is can do this!! but of course, BMW E36 cars are great machines and they’ll keep amazing you every single day. Anyone has tried this before? It needs a seriously good control of your car not to mention that a tiny mistake is going to be very dangerous to the car and the driver.

Take a look:-

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate BMW E36 M3 Information Source.

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Hi Guys,

I wrote a post about replacing BMW E36 brakes switch before as this is a very common problem in the BMW E36 cars. Yesterday, Jeff was very kind and sent me a link to a video on YouTube that may explain the process easier, so I decided to publish it on the blog. I’m sure you’ll find this video very easy to understand and follow.

Note: I’ve already found many useful videos on the YouTube which were created by the user "fiveightandten". Maybe you want to take a look there?

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! The author is not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

Take a look:-

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate BMW E36 M3 Information Source.

My Picks:-

Hi guys,

It’s been a long time since I posted something new on the blog and the reason behind this as usual, is that I’ve been very busy. It’s strange how I can’t even get myself to prepare a post that normally takes half hour or so when I’m busy. So, my apologies ladies and gents

In today’s post, I’ve found pictures of a BMW E36 325 show car. What really caught my eyes was the exterior. It’s very wide and I didn’t even imagine this could be done to a BMW E36 or maybe I thought it will make it look ugly as I don’t like heavy mods to the car’s exterior. It’s amazing how the changes that were made to this car make it look really special and well-taken care of. I’m sure that riding such a car will make some heads turn as it’s a very unusual design and everyone who doesn’t know the BMW E36 very well (or as much as we do) will think hmm… sweet… these guys at BMW are doing a great job with their new 2009 design

If you’re interested in the figures, you can check the car’s website here.

Take a look at the photos, what do you think?

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate E36 information source.

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Hi Guys, take a look at this BMW E36 M3 burnout. It’s nice especially at 00:59 – 01:10 which feels like a burnout in slow motion. What do you think?

Take a look. Isn’t that cool?

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate BMW E36 M3 Information Source.

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I’ve found some pictures of an illuminated BMW E36 M3 shift knob. The shift knob is a little bit different from the OEM style, but it looks very decent and it’s very cheap. Costs just $30 (without shipping) which is a killer price when compared to the OEM one. You can find it on ebay here.  I just want you to notice how fabulous it looks with a short shift kit (well, it looks like one). By the way, I’m not a fan of the yellowish illumination color. It would be better if it was amber. Anyway, take a look, I think even with this flaw, it still looks good. Besides, I think you may be able to open it and somehow get it to illuminate amber instead. I know, I tried this with the OEM one and it worked like charm.

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 M3 information source.

My Picks:-