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What's the Full Deal with New South Whales?
Hey guys, finally registered after lurking for quite some time to ask the Aussie guys a few questions.
For about a year it has been my plan to buy a BMW E30 after school finishes. I think it would be a great car to do first time things on and to learn on. The plan continues to a set of nice wheels once I can finally make my mind up and I've always wanted to lower it.
The plan began to slightly fall apart when I spoke about it to the woodwork shop manager at school who was an RTA / DMT vehicle inspector and manager of some sort for over 30 years. I told him my plans and he had a big rant saying modifying wheel track and suspension affects the geometry of the car and I'll never be able to bring it back to the standard of stock settings, making the vehicle dangerous to me and others on the road. This kind of devastated me because we had talked about cars every class for almost 2 years and he had pretty much just forbid my master plan that I had worked up over many hours of frothing over other people's cars. The plan then further deteriorated when he outlined the NSW RTA regulations for modifying suspension and wheel track for a vehicle which kind of just shat on my plan.
So this brings me to the questions for the board referring to regulations in NSW for lowering a vehicle and it's wheel track. I've looked through the documents they have online and basically from what I gather a vehicle can be lowered 50mm from stock height without an engineering certificate and the wheel track can be increased by 25mm in total including both sides.
1) If I was to place the car on coilovers, lowering it more than 50mm, is it difficult to get an engineering certificate and how would I do this?
2) Is it likely a policeman will be able to notice an increase in wheel track over 25mm if it isn't screamingly obvious i.e. rubbing fenders?
3) I've noticed there aren't many guys on the forum from NSW but if you're out there can you comment at all on any trouble or experience you've had with the regulations?
Lastly I vaguely remember picking up some laws in the documents on the following, cannot change a steering wheel containing an airbag to one not containing an airbag and after market wheels can only be 2 inches larger than stock size. Is this the case?
I really find it a shame that NSW seems to be so much stricter than neighbouring states. I'm desperately looking forward to the whole process after school, its been a dream for many years, hopefully its not ruined by the law.
Thanks for your help guys. (Sorry for the formal tone, I'm stuck in HSC essay mode)
For about a year it has been my plan to buy a BMW E30 after school finishes. I think it would be a great car to do first time things on and to learn on. The plan continues to a set of nice wheels once I can finally make my mind up and I've always wanted to lower it.
The plan began to slightly fall apart when I spoke about it to the woodwork shop manager at school who was an RTA / DMT vehicle inspector and manager of some sort for over 30 years. I told him my plans and he had a big rant saying modifying wheel track and suspension affects the geometry of the car and I'll never be able to bring it back to the standard of stock settings, making the vehicle dangerous to me and others on the road. This kind of devastated me because we had talked about cars every class for almost 2 years and he had pretty much just forbid my master plan that I had worked up over many hours of frothing over other people's cars. The plan then further deteriorated when he outlined the NSW RTA regulations for modifying suspension and wheel track for a vehicle which kind of just shat on my plan.
So this brings me to the questions for the board referring to regulations in NSW for lowering a vehicle and it's wheel track. I've looked through the documents they have online and basically from what I gather a vehicle can be lowered 50mm from stock height without an engineering certificate and the wheel track can be increased by 25mm in total including both sides.
1) If I was to place the car on coilovers, lowering it more than 50mm, is it difficult to get an engineering certificate and how would I do this?
2) Is it likely a policeman will be able to notice an increase in wheel track over 25mm if it isn't screamingly obvious i.e. rubbing fenders?
3) I've noticed there aren't many guys on the forum from NSW but if you're out there can you comment at all on any trouble or experience you've had with the regulations?
Lastly I vaguely remember picking up some laws in the documents on the following, cannot change a steering wheel containing an airbag to one not containing an airbag and after market wheels can only be 2 inches larger than stock size. Is this the case?
I really find it a shame that NSW seems to be so much stricter than neighbouring states. I'm desperately looking forward to the whole process after school, its been a dream for many years, hopefully its not ruined by the law.
Thanks for your help guys. (Sorry for the formal tone, I'm stuck in HSC essay mode)
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