DIY means Do It Yourself. Fortunately, now BMW fans have the opportunity to purchase parts and to repair and retrofit their machines independently. BMW officially offers to its dealers a program called ETK – which means “elektronischer Teilekatalog” – electronic parts catalog (it has recently been given an access to the online version after registration on the official website of BMW).
In spite of this, there are numerous on-line versions of the catalog made by enthusiasts. One of the oldest community directory was real – oem, but the information on it is rarely updated and selection of components was implemented in not very convenient way – users have to go through several screens before getting to the desired item.
I’ve just recently came across an interesting realization http://www.etk.cc allows to select items based on installed options (such feature is not present even in the original program ETK) plus the built-in ETK search by BMW VIN number http://www.etk.cc/bmw/EN/vin/decoder/online and not just search, which shows the model and year of manufacture, but it can decipher the options installed (even in all languages !) – and this info can be exported to a PDF-file.
In general, this on-line service simply unique and useful for those who are engaged in repairing and retrofitting options for BMW.
