I've made a couple of equipment changes lately, and rather than bury them in a long-forgotten post from several weeks ago, it seemed to make more sense to mention them here.  After all, I can -- and likely will -- edit the old list later on.

EURO WIDE-ANGLE OUTSIDE MIRRORS (OEM)

Some of the changes required by U.S. DOT standards make perfect sense to me.  Others make virtually none at all.  For example, I can see the wisdom of safety glass or crash reinforcement bars.  I do not, on the other hand, really see the point of such things as "Unleaded Fuel Only" stickers or a glow-in-the-dark emergency escape handle in the trunk.  Unfortunately, American specification outside mirrors tend fit into the latter category with their narrow fields of view and ridiculous "object are closer than they appear" warning dialogues.  By virtually every measureable standard, the ECE market (Euro) mirrors are far superior.  They offer a wider viewing angle, more uniform resolution, and the same high quality standards as any other OEM part.  In conjunction with a Euro market group buy that I recently agreed to undertake over at M3Forum, I decided to make the change myself.  The difference is profound.

BLUETOOTH RETROFIT KIT (OEM)

My car was among the last to roll off of the assembly line as a 2004 model; as such, it was not equipped with the Bluetooth telephone capability that followed as standard equipment in models produced only a few weeks later.  Of course, I knew all about this when I placed my order, and presumed that if the compulsion ever took hold, I could always retrofit the OEM Bluetooth kit later on.  Eventually it did just that, of course, and that project was completed since my last blog entry.  I may have more to say about this in a future post, but the short version is this: the price of admission is quite steep (especially if you do a full-on powered cradle installation like I did), but the results are nothing short of exceptional.  Mobile phone built-ins are not especially uncommon in Europe, but for whatever reason they remain exceedingly rare in the States.  That said, I'm here to say that this is borne largely of collective ignorance, because the system works wonderfully in a U.S. specification M3.

That's all I have the time for right now, but I'll be back very soon!