Lord '2 Jags' Sterling's fleet of failure - From our Belgium correspondent in Brussels...

[mercedade]

18 hours ago, Lord Sterling said:

 

 

YPLAC

But it's handsome, so why not

[beko1987]

10 hours ago, Lord Sterling said:

We're based in the Midlands/Worcestershire respectively. The welders are based in Stourbridge. West Midlands. These are the guys I'm using:

Of course, its always best to text/WhatsApp these guys instead of calling as they're often busy. 

They replaced the subframe on my old X308 too.

With a name like Transit Weld Centre that's a place that's welded up far worse than you could ever bring in! 

Enjoy being a BMW wanker for a bit 👌

[Lord Sterling]

12 hours ago, mercedade said:

YPLAC

But it's handsome, so why not

😅 To be fair, although it looks like you should park facing the wall, where I'm standing is a narrow-ish gateway which makes it extremely tight for cars to face the wall. When I first discovered the place and started parking there as a business had moved out, most of us would park diagonally but if you parked facing the wall, you'd have to reverse all the way to the road as its a very tight area.

These days, the business that occupies thr shop which owns these spaces all park like I do, even the restaurant which opens next door after then other business closes parks like this, it's much simpler. 

12 hours ago, beko1987 said:

With a name like Transit Weld Centre that's a place that's welded up far worse than you could ever bring in! 

Enjoy being a BMW wanker for a bit 👌

They generally have a lot of classics there.

Now, you'll know thay I've already had training for being a BMW wanker 😅

Not done much to the 5er. Its had a vacuum out which it really needed. My vacuum failed this morning needing a full charge. But thay was done. Back seat bench looked like it had seen out before, it certainly needed a good vac under there too and bench returned with seat belts threaded in properly. Seats had a lightly damp cloth put over them, so inside and out is clean again.

Tried to see what the issue with the other key was. Solder has broken for one button and battery holder has snapped:

Should be easy enough to solder back on, I'll take it into work and see if I can get the engineers to solder it on for me. I'll also change the top button shell as the original one has a broken button.

Old:

Spare:

And before I forget, I'll try and sort another 8/10 spanner that missing from the kit:

[goosey]

On 31/12/2025 at 13:46, Lord Sterling said:

So, we've reached the end of year. What's next...

1. Jaguar XJ8 - It's going to need some major welding. Oh well. I still haven't heard from the welder man, I may just contact him early in the new year and see what's what. Despite the calls on to "squash it" I like this car too much, it looks great, is a rare colour and so on.

2. Jaguar S-Type - Still on loan but just learnt that there may be some brake drag, I'm sure it can be sorted, just awaiting it coming back to Sterling Manor. 

3 Vectra - I'm going to anticipate that it may also need a spot of welding here and there, its certainly going to need some work, but for the moment, its the only legal car I have on the road that's still here.

Spots;

Spotted this booted Skoda Fabia on a YouTube channel about garden fixes/saves. Unfortunately, it was sent to scrap.

Rover 420 Si, originally supplied by Clist & Rattle Rover.

Renault 5, Nissan Sunny and Jag X350 all on the grounds of an accident management company I think.

I covered this here in the "dumped cars" thread. Its been there months.

This lovely Rover Metro 1.4 is owned by an old boy who looks after the gardens of a house around the corner from where that crashed car above is located. I had a chat with him, it came a Clark's Rover garage in Rednal. Its in such a lovely condition. This is the stuff that really takes my heart, older cars that are so clean and looked after.

Chap at my workplace has a Rover 75 2.5 V6.

Happy New year all.

Did you ever see the mk1 escort sat in the field just up the road from the old boy with the Metro? 

[Lord Sterling]

3 hours ago, goosey said:

Did you ever see the mk1 escort sat in the field just up the road from the old boy with the Metro? 

Nah! Never seen that. Is a red one? As there is one of those explorers who spots old forgetten rammle dumped in fields/hedges. The last is Kidderminster based and found a red Mk1 Escort behind a gate (he was actually offered the car but it was too far gone).

[goosey]

28 minutes ago, Lord Sterling said:

Nah! Never seen that. Is a red one? As there is one of those explorers who spots old forgetten rammle dumped in fields/hedges. The last is Kidderminster based and found a red Mk1 Escort behind a gate (he was actually offered the car but it was too far gone).

Do you have a link ? 

[Lord Sterling]

5 hours ago, goosey said:

Do you have a link ? 

I'll try and find it. Where was the Mk1 Escort? 

[goosey]

3 hours ago, Lord Sterling said:

I'll try and find it. Where was the Mk1 Escort? 

The escort has gone now (I bought it) Go past the metro house, 100 yards on the left there is a field for the pumpkin farm where the escort was parked for a few years, just wondered if you had ever seen it -was kind of a blink and you would miss it kind of deal 

[Lord Sterling]

Right. BMW failed its MoT. Not on a huge amount, but enough.

It'll cost me a little more than what I paid for the car, so still an absolute bargain abd these will be getting done on Monday next week, the Vectra is due its MoT on Tuesday, so some potential car swappage is due to on Tuesday next week.

The BMW may be temporarily heading to another shiter for borrowage but it'll stay mine as I've no current intentions of selling it. Its just too nice of a car and I'd like to enjoy it myself too at some point.

Whilst up that area, I did go to spy on an old annoying car hoarder I used to know to see a if he still had an S-Type I spotted that was like mine:

Slightly later reg than mine, but horrible alloys and no SatNav screen, otherwise, it didn't look much different from mine. Same engine, 3.0 V6, auto.

Also, speaking of Blue S-Types, I remember seeing one years ago in 2017 when I was delivering an X-Type to @Lankytim:

Funny, I remember thinking to myself at the time how I'd love to own one of these.

(Also, @Lankytim's old X-Type KN55 BNA is still going strong, taxed and currently MoTd as of 2026)

Anyway, back to that annoying blokes mess;

I didn't manage to photo everything I wanted as cars were coming in and out and I needed to get back home.

Also, a random Volvo;

[320touring]

Glad to see FATHA_TOURINGs 520i soldier on!

[Lord Sterling]

4 minutes ago, 320touring said:

Glad to see FATHA_TOURINGs 520i soldier on!

Yep. Hopefully, some fettling next week and it may be off for borrowage in which case it'll be used most days. If not, I may take the Vectra off the road (it is likely to fail its MoT unless I get very lucky) and use the BMW as my everydayer. 

[Imhotep]

19 minutes ago, Lord Sterling said:

Whilst up that area, I did go to spy on an old annoying car hoarder I used to know

 

as soon as I saw this I knew who you meant straight away before even looking at the photos

[Heidel_Kakao]

@Lord Sterling Is that the industrial estate off Powke Lane? I used to work around that area.

[Lord Sterling]

16 minutes ago, Heidel_Kakao said:

@Lord Sterling Is that the industrial estate off Powke Lane? I used to work around that area.

That's the one. The bloke has always dumped his cars at the entrance as some sort of poor attempt at selling them.

[Split_Pin]

Leaf springs??

[Lord Sterling]

7 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Leaf springs??

I think the tester hit the wrong selection or something as 'leaf' and 'saddle' is crossed out on the MoT paperwork, so in fact its just a spring.

I have noticed that the OSR rear spring was broken in late 2012 when an inspection was carried out by Douglas Park BMW. Now it's the otherside. Do these BMWs suffer from rear springs?

[Lord Sterling]

As alluded to previously, the BMW 5er is now fully MoT'd after some rear brakes debacle that saw me sitting at the garage from 8.30am until 5pm. It needed rea brake discs and shoes and NSR spring.

It was, of course, in good company:

The above is a 520d with that later gearbox.  Nice interior but I hate diesels, whatever they are.

This one below belongs to one of the mechanics (520d and for sale)

Around the back was also a couple of F10/F11/F-Whatever estates.

ANYway. I managed to replace the missing BMW spanner:

The spare key, despite being tickled with a solder, decided it didn't want to work. So it'll be taken apart again and I may try and bridge the connection with a bit of foil.

Now, you might notice it has "Douglas Park" on the keyring. Yeah. But thing is, I don't think it was supplied new by them, it came from Dunedin BMW:

But, it had been extensiextensively serviced at Douglas Park so I'm not too bothered about that, besides, I can't find a Dunedin BMW rear sticker, but a Douglas Park will do;

So I'm now down to 2 cars. The Vectra was due to be MoT'd today, but frankly, I'm all out of money now. It'll have to wait until next week.

[Split_Pin]

Dunedin was in Longstone, Edinburgh and the garage was a Mini dealership last time I checked Street View. The name is long gone though.

Nice work on that E60, having the old M54 engine is great as the post facelift 520s had a 4 pot.

[Lord Sterling]

43 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Dunedin was in Longstone, Edinburgh and the garage was a Mini dealership last time I checked Street View. The name is long gone though.

Nice work on that E60, having the old M54 engine is great as the post facelift 520s had a 4 pot.

Cheers! Yes its nice as this one is a 2.2 6-cylinder, so it sounds nice and has the same power ratio as my 2.6 Vectra.

[Split_Pin]

13 minutes ago, Lord Sterling said:

this one is a 2.2 6-cylinder

I know, I owned it 😂

[Lord Sterling]

@Split_Pin Interestingly (or not), the old Dunedin BMW turned into an Eastern BMW dealership by the time the first Google Maps car went by. After that, it was a Speedy gatage for a good few years until recently where its turned into a Rolls Royce and Aston Martin dealership.

[Split_Pin]

I must have been looking at completely the wrong place then 😂

I had hoped it would have been sold by the original Eastern BMW in Roseburn as thats where my dad bought the one and only BMW he ever owned, a 318i Touring H913 NSF.

[Lord Sterling]

Well, that's another one has failed. The Vectra's chassis rails on both sides are split underneath in one area (like it's decended quite badly on a ramp or something) so will need welding.

I'm up to my eyes in cars in for welding/repairs, Jag, BMW etc... so I'll be taking this off the road for a few months until I can get my Jag XJ back and get money together and chuck it at the welders again.

[AnnoyingPentium]

51 minutes ago, Lord Sterling said:

Well, that's another one has failed. The Vectra's chassis rails on both sides are split underneath in one area (like it's decended quite badly on a ramp or something) so will need welding.

Bummer. They're notorious for doing this. Even my low mileage one was showing signs of this before I sold it, and was the reason I walked away from another recently.

[danthecapriman]

35 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Bummer. They're notorious for doing this. Even my low mileage one was showing signs of this before I sold it, and was the reason I walked away from another recently.

What actually happens to them? I guess it’s a know weakness on them?

[Split_Pin]

Is that the chassis rail under the floor pan? Mine started to go there before it died of multiple other things.

[Lord Sterling]

15 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Is that the chassis rail under the floor pan? Mine started to go there before it died of multiple other things.

Yep, the exact ones. I wish I'd have taken a picture. The ones on mine, one side isn't too bad, but is starting to split, the other one has corroded and split at the bottom. A bit like this that I got from MIG Web:

Mine isn't bad as that, but the bottom of it has split and in the gap I can see stones and other collected debris stuffed in there.

[Split_Pin]

Same as mine was going.

 

[Lord Sterling]

Some small updates. Since the fail, I've had a very kind offer to keep it under cover off the road for a while until I can get monies together. Vectra may also be tinkered with. I'm undecided on how to approach the welding issue, I don't honestly think it'll be too much.

I'll be taking up the offer, however, it'll be a month before I can something about it as I need another car back to keep a parking space. That'll most likely be the Jag XJ or possibly BMW depending on which one comes back first. 

The S-Type will now be my daily car and the one I go to Belgium with in the next few weeks, so the Vectra can stay in the space until I come back and get updates on the XJ. I'll probably use the XJ for the summer holiday and suffer the heat as I did last year.

[JMotor]

On 17/02/2026 at 14:43, Lord Sterling said:

Yep, the exact ones. I wish I'd have taken a picture. The ones on mine, one side isn't too bad, but is starting to split, the other one has corroded and split at the bottom. A bit like this that I got from MIG Web:

Mine isn't bad as that, but the bottom of it has split and in the gap I can see stones and other collected debris stuffed in there.

My Vectras all were either plated or rotten there. It's doubled skinned and not very well protected.

The Estate I owned was going to get that area done. Then found the whole arse end was quite BROWN with rot. 

Which was inconvenient.