Welcome – Guidelines, information and useful links for new members

    Welcome to 8er.org – The International 8er Community. This online community is dedicated to the 1989–99 BMW 8 Series (engineering platform E31). Please take a few moments to read this short introduction to the forums.


    Main discussion
    You are currently viewing the Main Discussion subforum. Here you can discuss anything related to the E31 BMW 8 Series that doesn't fit in the other subforums. If you need repair, troubleshooting or servicing help, or want to publish repair instructions to help others, please use the Technical subforum. If you want to buy, sell or trade E31 parts or cars, use the Classifieds subforum. If you want to show the world your car in pictures, use the Showroom subforum. For anything else, not related to the E31, please use the Off Topic subforum.


    Forum guidelines
    Here are a few basic guidelines that should make the forum experience better for everyone:

    • Always use the forum search and (if relevant) consult the resources listed below before opening new topics.
    • Use descriptive topic titles. "Need information on heater core replacement" is far more likely to attract the right people than a topic vaguely named "HELP".
    • Try to use proper English spelling and grammar and be careful with abbreviations or slang that not everyone may understand. This forum is visited by members from all over the world and many of those do not have English as native tongue.
    • Be careful with descriptions like "driver side" and "passenger side". We have members of both left-hand drive and right-hand drive countries. In most cases it's better to simply use left and right as from the point of view of being seated inside the car.
    • When asking for help or information, please provide details and (if applicable) what you already tried. What may look irrelevant to you may actually be very important. Don't write "840" but use the exact model designation and include the manufacturing date, type of transmission, engine and market version. For example "05/97 M62 840Ci automatic (UK RHD)". Try to avoid the use of the model year as that is a rather vague indication of the production date.
    • Pictures say more than a thousand words. The pictures do not need to be Pulitzer Prize nominees but imagine yourself in place of those who need to interpret the pictures, so please make good and detailed pictures. If you use a free image hosting service, please do not use a service which automatically deletes the pictures after a certain amount of time or inactivity. That renders the topic useless for anyone visiting the topic later.
    • Once your question is answered, please give feedback in the topic. This is not to boost our egos, but to help others who may have been following your topic or stumble upon it via the forum search. Also if no one here was able to help you but you found an answer elsewhere it is much appreciated when you update the topic with the answer.


    Resources
    The following websites contain production data, electrical diagrams, repair manuals, parts catalogs,... for the BMW E31 8 Series. Every E31 owner or enthusiast should have these bookmarked or downloaded, and consult these first in case of questions.

    • 8coupe.com [production data] – The BMW 8 Series Registry contains detailed production data of all E31 manufactured. You want to know how many 850CSi were imported to the United States or what exterior colors were available? This is the place to be! If you see an E31 for sale, you can also request the BMW 8 Series Registry for more information about this particular vehicle (for privacy reasons only for vehicles which are publicly for sale). The BMW 8 Series Registry currently has photos, sales ads and owner supplied information from over 6000 E31. If you did not yet do so, please help the inventory project by registering your E31 with the BMW 8 Series Registry!
    • e31.net [overall information] – One of the oldest websites dedicated to the BMW E31 8 Series by fellow forum member Mike. The production data is outdated compared to 8coupe.com, but e31.net offers an excellent overview of technical details like performance specifications, dimensions, gear ratios,...
    • bmwfans.info [electronic parts catalog] – The electronic parts catalog (often referred to as ETK) is an invaluable tool for locating parts and part numbers to those who perform their own repairs. Just enter the last seven characters of your VIN (vehicle identification number) for an accurate overview of the parts in your E31. Note that you cannot order parts on this website. The indicated prices are also not exact retail prices, but usually a good indication of whether or not you will have to sell your first born child.
    • realoem.com [electronic parts catalog] – Similar to bmwfans.info, but without the ability to look up cross references.
    • bmwtechinfo.com [repair manual] – The BMW 8 Series repair manual is the wrencher's best friend. In it you'll find detailed instructions on how to perform servicing tasks and repairs. Also covered on this website are the tightening torques (up to 1994 and from 1994)
    • wuffer.ca [electrical diagrams] – Tom Carter aka Wuffer is a Canadian E31 veteran. On his website Wuffer hosts an array of manuals, including the electrical troubleshooting manual (ETM model year 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995/1996) and electrical troubleshooting manual diagnostic procedures (ETMDP).


    Other online E31 communities
    Apart from this International (English) community, 8er.org also hosts a German community with as target audience E31 owners and enthusiasts in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, a French community targeting owners and enthusiasts in France and Belgium, and a Scandinavian community. These communities are open but may not be accessible by default depending on your group memberships (join "Z01: D-A-CH" for the German community, "Z01: FRANCE" for the French community and "Z01: Scandinavia" for the Scandinavian community). Further 8er.org is the home of two E31 clubs; a German/Swiss/Austrian club and a French club. These club forums are only available to paying club members. For pricing and club membership, please contact reinhard (German/Swiss/Austrian club) or fabrice (French club). Last but not at least, there's the 8 series all around the world for regionalized 8 Series discussions.


    Outside 8er.org there are several other online communities worth mentioning:


    Forum Q&A
    The International 8er Community forum runs on the popular vBulletin software also used by many other online communities. Most users will already be familiar with the general usage of the forum software. Nevertheless you may sometimes find the forum software acting differently from what you expected.

    • After being inactive for a few hours, the forum requires me to log on again – The forum session timeout is set to one hour. If you are inactive for longer than this period, your session is automatically terminated and you will have to log on again. This is to protect your account from abuse if you accidentally forgot to log off on a public computer. This behavior may be inconvenient on a private computer at home. Next time you log on, tick the "Remember Me?" ("Angemeldet bleiben?") checkbox and your session will become permanent.
    • Sometimes when clicking on a link in the forum, I get an access denied error ("Access is not granted" or "Der Zugang ist nicht gestattet") – It is possible the topic you were trying to view is in a group you are not yet a member of. Check and if necessary update your group memberships. Please note that not all groups have free membership. More information about the available groups can be found in the previous chapter ("Other online E31 communities"). Another possibility is that the link you are trying to open is on another domain where you are not yet logged on. The International 8er Community has four domains; www.8er.org, www.8er.org, 8er.ch and 8er.org. Each domain leads to exactly the same forum, but since sessions are created per domain you are not necessarily logged on onto all these domains. Users posting links may be logged on onto another domain than you and when clicking such a link you get an access denied error. Just enter your "User Name" and "Password" ("Benutzername" and "Kennwort") in the top right corner and click "Log in" ("Anmelden"). If you are on a private computer, you may wish to tick the "Remember Me?" ("Angemeldet bleiben?") checkbox to create a permanent session. You can be logged on onto all domains at the same moment.
    • After clicking on a link the forum interface turns all German – Similar to the sessions, the forum language preferences are also set per domain. By following a link you may have changed domains without noticing. Returning to your old domain solves the issue, but setting the domain language to English makes domain changes transparent in the future. The quickest way to set the language is by pasting [FONT="Courier New"] &langid=2 [/FONT] at the end of the link in the browser's address bar and hit the enter key. You can also navigate to the "Home" page ("Startseite" in the top right corner) and click the "English" link in the "Willkommen / Welcome / Bienvenue" box. Alternatively go to "Kontrollzentrum" ("User CP") > "Einstellungen ändern" ("Edit Options") and set "Sprache der Benutzeroberfläche" ("Forum Language") to "English". Even if this was already set to English, click the "Änderungen speichern" ("Save Changes") button to apply the changes. On the next page reload, the forum interface should be in English.

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