This community welcomes newcomers and enjoys assisting “newbies” in resolving their BMW issues. We ask that you observe certain courtesies.

In your registration, please fill out all fields. Members of this board will be better able to assist you if they know the month/year and model of your car, the number of miles or kilometers, where you are located (some issues are country specific), and any prior modifications done to your car.
If you are not sure when exactly your car was built, use this link to get the details on that as well as the exact engine specification and other details:

VIN decoder

Before posting, please look in the archives and/or conduct a thread search. There are a number of problems that are very common and have been covered extensively. We have attempted to save high quality threads that most thoroughly explain these issues and their resolution and they are highlighted. The best way to get to these archives is the www.e38.org/e34 archive link at the right top of the page (see related links).

If you do not find your issue in the archived threads, the next step is to use the “search this forum” tool at the top to search for other threads that deal with your problem. Often, using the search feature will produce an instant answer to your question as certain problems and solutions are fairly common. On the other hand, we get excited about a new wrinkle to an old problem. If you have read and tried the solutions in the archives and they didn’t work, and you have done your own thread search with no luck, by all means, post a new thread. Please indicate in your thread that you have read the archives and what you tried and what happened.

Please include the problem in the thread title. You will get much more of a response to something specific like “My battery is dead and I can't unlock the car” or “How do I get the electric rear seats out”, than something like, “What is this?”.

Please be patient. This is an international community. The person who has the answer to your problem may be on the other side of the globe or may be a person who only checks in every couple of days. It is fairly typical for a thread to take a 3-7 days to run its course.

Consider posting a picture. If you are having trouble describing something, post a picture. Also we also welcome “Self-Introduction Posts” if you plan to be a member who wants to hang around and participate in the fun. Tell us stuff like how long your have had your car, what your car's issues are, etc. It is a good idea to try posting your picture in the Test Forum (see on the right side under Speciality Forums), before going to the main board.

Try to avoid the inflammatory issues. We love to joke here, but off hand comments made in fun about politics, guns, and other divisive topics can spark a back lash that take many a newbie by surprise. Old timers do it, but it is a dangerous activity for a newbie.

Develop a thick skin and don’t take things personally. We try to be really nice to newbies, but in a community this size, there is always someone having a bad day. If there is a factual error in a post, it is likely that a member will correct it so that the error is not perpetuated as truth. Don’t take it personally when it is your error being corrected.

Having read all of this, you are ready to begin posting.

Help Support the Community

As you can probably imagine, running BimmerBoard requires quite a bit of work and a decent sum of money each month for hosting charges and advertising in the Roundel and Bimmer magazines.

If you feel BimmerBoard has saved you some money, proven useful, is a nice alternative to the other boards, or that you would like to contribute to keep it running smoothly, your donations are welcome and will be used wisely to improve and expand the site and it's audience. For further details see on the right side the link to Donations Forum under Speciality Forums. Your donation will be used to operate, improve and expand the site for the benefit of all our members and readers. Everyone who makes a donation will have their account upgraded to 100MB of storage for photos plus get free email forwarding for their username @bimmerboard.com. Your username will be displayed in the forums with the Roundel logo to signify your status as a donating member, too!

• sticky: Welcome to Newbies: Please Read Before Posting (url) - shogun 2005-09-24 14:32:29 (3758 views)