How To Tune Your BMW On A Budget

by IAN WENDT

For most car enthusiasts, once they purchase a car, that is only the start of a long and frequently expensive project of tuning to achieve higher BMW performance. There are literally hundreds of various choices on how to go about this process. Where does one begin, what can be done by the typical backyard mechanic and what requires pro assistance? And, where can you find premium parts economically? Sourcing parts is the area of modifying that you have the most control over and where you can save the most time and money, if you do your homework.

Now, there is more than one opinion on this issue. For BMWs, significant design and engineering was completed by the manufacturer to make a world class vehicle that is arguably a better performer than just about all of its competition. It is far too easy to whind up heading backwards in your objective for speed by selecting inferior parts, installing them incorrectly or not matching up the performance characteristics of various systems on your car. Also, BMW itself is supplying an ever growing line of its own aftermarket performance parts so you can be confident of the quality and engineering in these parts just like the rest of your car. The negative side is that these parts are often much more expensive than their competition.

So, how can you source premium parts for your car? I am a big fan of doing research online using a variety of tools. There are many great forums made up of thousands of BMW owners. With very little work you can often find someone with your exact car who has already done similar modifications to their car and can often give valuable information on what works, who has the lowest price, installation instructions and more. A few of of the best are E90Fanatics, e46fanatics and roadfly.org. Time spent here will save you a lot of money and frustration so you don't have to make the same mistakes as others have.

Another excellent resource that is often overlooked is eBay. The selection of parts can be overwhelming and there are many cheap, knock-off parts that you should avoid. However, if you purchase from a quality supplier with great feedback and do your homework on the part you need and at what price, you can significantly extend your modifying budget. You can find new parts, OEM BMW parts and used BMW parts quickly and easily to make your modding project a winner.

Rand Stuck is an AST certified BMW technician with over 13 years experience working on BMWs and currently manages the BMW parts department for a large BMW dealer. Rand specializes in BMW accessories and sourcing really hard to find BMW OEM parts!