r/HongKong • u/BIZKIT551 • 22h ago

Questions/ Tips BMW owners of HK

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Hi folks,
This post is targeted at those of us who own and drive BMW's in HK.
As an E90 3 series owner, I wonder where I can meet like minded petrol heads in HK.

Every now and then I would see some nice 20+ year old classics of my childhood roam the streets like an E46 3 series, E60 5 series which seem a bit more common and an elusive E63 6 series I spotted at the airport car park a while ago.

Is there a car subreddit and / or fb pages for enthusiasts?

I appreciate everyone's help ^_^

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u/Sonha999 12h ago

Go to some morning drives in Luk Keng/Tai Mo Shan/Shek O and you can meet them in the car park.

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u/BIZKIT551 12h ago

Not a morning person but I guess need to go if I want something out of this HK car culture

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u/Sonha999 11h ago

They organise some night drives but that’s not so regular, and it’s more of a private/smaller group thing. Morning drives are much more regular and it’s spontaneous from everyone. You just need to go to the morning drives maybe once or twice and that will be enough to get you into the groups of enthusiasts, if you are friendly enough.

Be aware of some of the groups tho, some idiots just be doing all sorts of stupid stuff and bring bad names to the whole group.

They used to have some bigger night time car meets in very big car park (in mall or maybe some where like Yan O), but every time the cops just camp outside the entrance and tow all the modified cars. People got tired of that and just stopped having these big meet ups, what a shame.

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u/BIZKIT551 9h ago

yes the cop presence is another thing I'm worried about too. There's even a documentary on YouTube about HK car culture how people are trying to basically stay under the radar. It doesn't seem to matter whether they're driving antisocially or not, if the cops are waiting, they will try to pull them all off the streets.

I guess a better place would be to hang around some tuner mechanic sheds if they do thungs like that here.

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u/Sonha999 9h ago

Yea, you can’t really mod cars like people do in the rest of the world here. If the cops don’t like you, they can tow your car away even if your infotainment system can play DVDs. If you want to modify your car, it’s important to get into those car groups, and also use an app called “DriverGo” (most info are in Chinese but I guess it may still be useful), as people there often warn each other when there is a police checkpoint for modified cars. But at the end of the day, even if you dodge all checkpoints, you will still meet cop cars on the streets, so just don’t mod anything too crazy cosmetically.

I’m not sure if the tuner workshops will let anyone just hang around, unless you become a customer or friend of them, but yea that could be a good place to start.

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u/BIZKIT551 9h ago

I see cars driving in MK especially on that street opposite of where footlocker used to be. I see cops camping there quite often but people still have the balls to drive their tuner cars through there. I also heard that people pass their MOT's here by switching back to stock parts on the day of the test and switch back again after they passed.

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u/Sonha999 8h ago

Is it traffic cops or normal cops? Normal cops usually don’t care that much as they have better things to “do”.

They do actually swap back to stock parts for MOT, you really need to go this far in HK 😂

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u/BIZKIT551 8h ago

Sometimes I see the red stripe cop vans and sometimes I see the uk style checkered design cop vans. Yea the mot parts swap thing is something that took me by surprise when I heard about it. Something that wouldn't fly back home in the UK. 🤣

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u/Sonha999 8h ago

The red ones are normal cops so they don’t have to worry about them, but they are probably praying the hardest they can when they drive past the ones with checkered livery.

One more thing, HK police also uses 540i Estate as unmarked police car (specially to catch speeders and modified cars), and they don’t sell 540i Estate in HK, so if you see one, be careful.

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u/BIZKIT551 8h ago

I saw a few parked up on the eastern corridor by the north point on ramp. Those G31 540i have the B58 and I'm guessing maybe even have x drive, so they're probably very quick. My car isn't straight piped and makes noise under the allowed max db limit, but it's at their discretion if they feel like pulling me over even if I'm well behaved.

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u/Knightmare1688 2h ago

If it's the YT video I'm thinking about then it was stupid and wholy inaccurate. How is meeting at Harbor city or Airside going "under the radar"? 🤣

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u/freshducky69 15h ago

I got a 330d but left in UK sadly

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u/BIZKIT551 12h ago

I had an e82 120d and a rare manual e83 X3 2.5i back in the UK. Miss then both.

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u/freshducky69 10h ago

Wish to have a car here but even a cheap car needs a rental for parking spot, then can't even drive to work. And car parks are annoying AF do most ppl just risk it and park on the side double yellow line and not give a fk lol

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u/BIZKIT551 10h ago

I got lucky because my workplace has it's own parking space for which I don't have to pay for, so I only pay about 2800 for parking st home. If I had to pay for parking at work then the car would really just be used for leisure driving on weekend instead of being a daily. So it comes down to your circumstances really.

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u/freshducky69 10h ago

Think majority of ppl in HK are just weekend drivers tbh and ye dependant on job if there's parking. I know some ppl that don't care and pay for both because they hate public transport so much lmao

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u/BIZKIT551 9h ago

there's an R35 GTR parked where I live and it moves maybe once a month to get a wash. I might be the only one in my car park who's dailying a car.

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u/Knightmare1688 2h ago

Most of the car clubs disbanded after 2019, others went underground with only core members. The ones that are still public are the rich people clubs like Lambos, Ferrari and Porsche that do Sunday morning drives cuz they give zero fucks if they get ticketed or towed.

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u/DwewyNPC 21h ago

You can check out Shek O and big wave bay on Sunday morning 7-9am, you will find like minded petrol heads

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u/Celesticsnow 21h ago

Ayooo, DM me! :)

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u/BIZKIT551 21h ago

done

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u/8ngryW0lf999 19h ago

You can always start your own group.

As a gearhead overseas, what are the prized models in HK? In the US the manual versions are the most sought after by enthusiasts.

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u/BIZKIT551 18h ago

I believe that I might be the only 330i 6MT owner in HK. I'm from the UK and manual 330i are rare over there as well. HK mostly has jdm cars though and most gear heads from what I've seen drive Civics and Accords. Occasionally i would see VW Golf Mk6 as the non jdm tuner cars. However BMW tuner scenes here are comprised of F chasis BMW's. I have nothing against starting a group but I doubt that it would get any traction (no pun intended).

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u/hkg_shumai 21h ago

Perhaps you should try using Google or FB search.

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u/BIZKIT551 21h ago

I have used them before coming here and haven't found anything. I asked on here in case there's a group I don't know about and meet fellow car people while I'm here.

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u/hkg_shumai 21h ago

Did you search in english or canto? All the car groups I know mainly speak canto.

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u/BIZKIT551 21h ago

English because that's what I know. I did see general HK car groups but they are all in Cantonese of course. I guess it would be hard to find any English speaking or mixed groups?