Schaefft's Bargain Barge Extravaganza - Fleet Update

[Schaefft]

9 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

I.... quite like early E65s. Especially on the inside; that analogue/ digital dashboard was a real foretaste of the colour TFT things that are everywhere today, and I love the chest of drawers in the centre stack, with that pop-out phone keypad. Also, the electric seat controls on the centre storage cubby are brilliantly placed.

The E65's shape was a tad* inelegant after the E38, but its bulbousness meant SO MUCH MORE interior space. It's far from pretty, but massively more individual than its W220 S-Class or D3 Audi A8 rivals. The facelift, which many people like because it tamed its excesses somewhat, turned it into a bit of a featureless barge in comparison.

I fully agree with this. BMW really wanted to have a hard break from their design traditions, they certainly succeeded with that and the result was a car that just feels a little different inside. I don't know why but to me the E65 has peak turn-of-the-millenium vibes (a bit like a Renault Velsatis) and I see that as a very good thing.

If any members on here have a little experience in BMW coding using NCSexpert, any help with setting things up would be appreciated. There's plenty of instructions out there, in the end it all always is incomplete and written with the assumption that everything is known already by the user though. I've used INPA for years and got everything on my machine. I can already tell that there's going to be plenty of errors on my way to disabling that rear sear occupancy mat though😂

In other news, turns out the new DSC acceleration sensor still hasn't fixed all DSC errors, it now complains about no voltage to the sensor. At least we are down to 1 error. I wasn't really sent the identical part number sensor, there are a million different part numbers and all of them are supposed to be interchangable (and they look identical connector wise) though. It might be more likely that its the DSC module thats the culprit now:

As you can tell water made its way in there and caused quite a bit of corrosion. I cleaned it all up but I have the feeling that the weak battery doesn't help any of my diagnosing work so a new battery (at a hefty 190 quid price tag...) was ordered. It'll be here tomorrow, fingers crossed it'll accelerate the whole troubleshooting process.

[Schaefft]

18 hours ago, Nyphur said:

I've been catching up over the last year or so's postings and the gratuitous E38 content has me at half-bone. Fantastic.

When I looked at these a few years ago thee internet wisdom was that all of them had fucked leaky fuel tanks and you couldn't fill them more than half way or it'd spill. How do you deal with that on all yours? Or is it all pub bore bullshit like "did you know no-one who owned an Apple Mac died on 9/11"?

Good luck with the new swimming pool! Looking forward to seeing you sort it out.

Ha, you are welcome. The issue of leaking fuel tanks is real, I just got lucky with them I guess, trying to avoid buying cars with rust issues is obviously helping a lot. Unfortunately the last green E38 sold actually did develop a leak literally on the way home with its new owner, I offered to pay for the repair but I haven't heard back. I think that one was caused by the weight of a full tank in the end. The other two (ULEZ refugee and green E38 that needed a cat) were even cleaner underneath, so it was never really a problem.

Speaking of the blue ULEZ refugee, the last weekend was a good opportunity to stretch its legs considering it has barely moved since its MOT. Cold AC certainly helped on the trip up the A1 and to the Northumberland coast, but not before I installed the new rear seat map lights, often referred to as "porn lights" in the community.

The headliner is one of those big tasks in the future (I've yet have to see an E38 with normal cloth headliner thats not saggy) and will probably happen together with the switch over to a glass sunroof.

I'm also still in the search of a replacement rear bumper (cracked) and front corner trims. With those sorted it should look even better:

The E65 did receive a bit more attention as well. Until the replacement DSC module arrives I can only work on various other bits and pieces. After realizing that the backseat has more connectors internally than I initially thought I took it all apart and cleaned it, turns out that is all that was needed to restore communication to the seat occupation mat as the airbag error is gone now, one more MOT relevant issue ticked off the list!

I've also bought a new battery. E65s use slightly more advanced AGM batteries, which meant I had to fork out almost 200 quid for a replacement. At least thats what I thought, turns out early E65 still used conventional lead acid ones. Naturally I could just return the battery and order a normal battery for almost half the price. Instead I ordered a replacement power module that supports AGM batteries from a later car... Fortunately those power modules are dirt cheap as well, and since AGM batteries do have their benefits (and require specific charging voltages/profiles) I believe that installing a newer power module and coding it to use an AGM battery will make sense. I've got NCSexpert to work now so none of this should be too complicated.

Unfortunately I also noticed that the driver side footwell got wet again. I can only speculate on how the water made its way in there, I'll have to wait for the next rain to figure out where it might be coming from. I do however know that every car has scuttle drains, and naturally those on mine were completely filled with crap, on both sides:

Since they sit right underneath the cabin air intake duct I couldnt see them before. The ducts themselves dont look like water got into them either but they needed sorting no matter what. The outlets for these reservoirs were behind the front wheel arch liners and completely clogged with mud:

After pulling out all kinds of crap and flushing them properly they are now looking like this:

Much better, two more causes for wet carpets sorted.

A quick one for the end, the old brittle lower back window seal was replaced with a brand new one, 32 quid new from the dealer.

Hoping to get the DSC module soon. If this is fixing my parking brake/roll stability errors there actually isn't much left to get this back on the road. Right now the inoperable driver seat might be the biggest remaining problem.

[Schaefft]

The BMW isn't even done yet and the next car has already made its way into my possession!

While I'm waiting for a new diagnostics interface for the E65 to arrive (seems like there is a risk of bricking control modules with mine) this Infiniti Q45 made it onto my radar.

A bit of background on the WHY: I always thought that the late 80s/early 90s was a very special time for the automotive industry, especially for Japan as most here will agree. The first Lexus LS400 was a milestone in the luxury car segment, however a lot of people, especially in Europe, completely forget about Nissan's frankly much more ambitious competitor, the Q45. Not only was it an incredibly well rounded luxury car at the time (people praised its capabilities), Nissan actually dared to take a risk with both styling and nature of the car by giving it the response and handling of something much more sporty than what the segment would usually deliver. Nissan's "project 901" program was aiming to create the best handling cars of the industry and looking at their 1989 lineup (S13, Z32 300ZX, R32 Skyline GTR) its clear that they were serious about it. The Q45 was their answer in the fullsize luxury segment, with a super modern DOHC 276hp V8, RWD and LSD standard. Mercedes was still selling the W126 back then, Audi and BMW didn't even have a V8 at all yet. Infiniti even offered proper hydraulic dampers to improve handling under hard cornering, similar to what Mercedes needed another decade to establish.

I've had search alerts up for years so I was pretty surprised to see two of them suddenly come up for sale at around the same time in the last few months. I always wanted an early pre-facelift car, which I only knew one of in the UK (abondoned years ago, probably long scrapped). However, with this being one of those once-in-5-years chances I jumped at the opportunity when the price of this ultra low-mileage example actually went all the way down to a rediculous two and a half bags.

Despite the mileage this one isn't perfect however. It's currently sitting on coilovers of unknown kind. They ride surprisingly well, the ride feels supple but at the same time pretty jiggity. I'm hoping that this can be resolved by raising them up a little. The wheels seem to come straight from a P12 Primera, chances are low that I'll ever find the disc alloys or BBS cross spoke wheels these originally came with:

It came over in 2015 and mostly stayed with its last owner up until recently, without really being driven that much at all. His mate decided to buy it as a flip in the end, no clue how much money he actually made on it. Considering you simply cannot find these cars in the UK, and prices of examples like this being in the 5-digits both in the US and Japan, I think I made a pretty good deal here nevertheless.

So here it is, in all it's JDM goodness:

Naturally, the seats are covered in velour, not squeaky leather:

I have only realized after the purchase that the rear passenger even has their own climate and radio controls, how cool is that!

The instrument cluster seems somewhat inspired by Mercedes. The 180km/h topspeed is typical of the time, there is a small LCD display in the lower left corner, the button next to it appropriately labeled "Advice".

Ah yes, good to know. Thanks car!

Naturally every passenger had their own cigarette lighter. The wood decor was actually only introduced with the facelift. Infiniti didn't want their interior to be cluttered by the stereotypical wood veneer, however with a sea of plastic, albeit high quality and soft touch, its actually badly needed.

The centerpiece if the dash, the analog clock:

The Jag inspired grille was the biggest change with the facelift. Personally I would have prefered the less conventional grille-less front fascia but beggars cant be choosers. The aftermarket LED strips will need to go.

The shaken (MOT) sticker in the windshield. I'm not sure what year this blue sticker would be for as the color changes are rolling, its inspection would have been needed on June 27th however.

Despite being sold as Nissan in Japan (Infiniti was only introduced about 15 years later) there is hardly any Nissan branding on the car. In that regard its almost identical to the US model, the country it was primarily designed for.

Last but not least the engine. Pretty much state of the art at the time. 4 cam, all aluminium V8, timing chain driven (metal chain guides for the facelift!), even has variable valve timing. Incredibly smooth, even almost 30 years after it was built.

I'll see if I can make a to-do list of things that need to get sorted soon. I really want this to be my last purchase for a while now so I can actually give each car the attention they really deserve. Fortunately this one won't need a ton aside from wheels and ride height.

[Schaefft]

And a bonus pic, another one of those photos you'd struggle to take anywhere else in the world!

[Vimesy]

What a lovely 90's barge, there was a Cedric, (a close relative to the Q45), at Shite in the Park on Sunday - similar platform I think.

[Schaefft]

2 minutes ago, Vimesy said:

What a lovely 90's barge, there was a Cedric, (a close relative to the Q45), at Shite in the Park on Sunday - similar platform I think.

Yeah, the Cedric (Infiniti M45) is another one of those archetypical Japanese luxury cars. I'd love to own one with the 4.5 V8 and bright wood trim like this but I don't think they were sold with the V8 in Japan. Obviously this is already pretty much in the 2000s styling/technology wise and a little more on the safe side when it came to actual innovation.

[GMcD]

Very cool man! 

[Jim Bell]

How on earth did you find that?!

[D.E]

Wonderful!

The always correct* Wikipedia tells me that this V8 is different from the one in the Y32 Cima?

[Schaefft]

18 minutes ago, D.E said:

Wonderful!

The always correct* Wikipedia tells me that this V8 is different from the one in the Y32 Cima?

Yeah, looks like they destroked it for the Cima to get a V8 sitting a little lower in the hierarchy out of it. The funny thing is that the Cima was eventually used as the base for the next Q45, which then got the biggest V8 Nissan had around 2001 again.

23 minutes ago, Jim Bell said:

How on earth did you find that?!

Search alerts, and waiting for years for one to finally pop up!😂 Its usually that or someone posting a car in the ebay tat thread (everyone please continue to post obscure shite from all corners of the internet!).

[hairnet]

Isn't Phil's q numbers not much more than this

Looks like a cross between a legend and a Camry

Is it juicy or can you get 25 driving miss daisy

[EyesWeldedShut]

12 hours ago, Schaefft said:

And a bonus pic, another one of those photos you'd struggle to take anywhere else in the world!

Makes the Vauxhall look like a Belmont?   It's very, very smooth looking (I know I said that in the collection thread too but I am quite taken by its lines)

[Schaefft]

17 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Makes the Vauxhall look like a Belmont?   It's very, very smooth looking (I know I said that in the collection thread too but I am quite taken by its lines)

Here's a bit of an explanation what the intent was behind the design philosophy. This facelift already compromised it somewhat but it's still visible:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=QpLIP5t_5fc&feature=share8

[Jerzy Woking]

That does look good. I had an LS400 that I should never have sold. It was immaculate inside and out, even though it had 250,000 miles on the clock. Like my Sapphire Cosworth, the new owner was a numpty and it was scrapped within a year. A crying shame.

[Schaefft]

3 hours ago, Jerzy Woking said:

That does look good. I had an LS400 that I should never have sold. It was immaculate inside and out, even though it had 250,000 miles on the clock. Like my Sapphire Cosworth, the new owner was a numpty and it was scrapped within a year. A crying shame.

One of the reasons I struggle to sell anything I own. Not only would I regret it/never find another one in many cases, most buyers wouldn't even give them a fraction of the TLC I put into them in the first place. I see that with almost every car I buy. Its not that they are fundamentally bad cars, its just that they were neglected/abused by at least one owner to the point where they became dirt cheap, yet still can be brought back to a pretty decent state with a bit of time and effort. Sell them to the wrong person and they'll be scrap within a year or two, just takes one hard to find, MOT-relevant part for that to happen.

Speaking of effort, I've had a chance to check the service history of the Infiniti yesterday evening. Turns out I have the entire service history from its time in Japan, from new all the way to shortly before it was exported. I absolutely love stuff like this, and it's confirming that the mileage is true. It's hardly done 30k km (18k miles) in the first 20 years. Here's one of the checks:

It also came with this, a friend of mine says it might be the warranty card when the car was new.

A few notes that were stuck into the gauges by the previous owner. With the Primera wheels the speedo is actually overreading right now, the tirewall on them isn't tall enough. That also means the car might have even less miles than the odometer is indicating depending on how far he drove on them, if I'm not mistaken.

Also an interesting quirk: The cruise control is limited to speeds up to 100km/h, I guess another measure to limit speeding in Japan. Naturally that makes it somewhat useless to me, Im wondering if I can replace whatever control module has that limiter in place with one from a US market car.

In other news: I tried to press in the lower control arm bushings for the W140 today and miserably failed. Similar to most other control arms I had to do this for before, it's an absolute pain the ass and I will most likely end up having to fork out hundreds of pounds for a pair of new control arms from Mercedes, they are seriously expensive. 

They apparently changed the design to hydraulic bushings shortly after my car was built, and pressing these bushings in eventually let to their destruction before they were even in place.

I wanted to see if I could get at least one of the control arms done, and while the other side went in only slighly easier, it's looser than any control arm bushing I could ever imagine being on this car. While these weren't OEM or Lemforder (usually the only right choice) they were from a decent German brand and I would have expected these to last the whole procedure. That'll probably the last time I do this on anything hydraulic.

[Jerzy Woking]

I bought an MX-5 Eunos, and spent hours and hours translating all its service records from its early life in Japan.

I bought it for my (then) wife. She took one look at it, and said "I don't like that". Sold it without her ever sitting in it.

[Spottedlaurel]

The Q45 is wonderful! Can't think of a better owner for it, though if ever you need to move it on.........

[JakeT]

I’m normally a BMW licker and have been meaning to comment how well you usually do, Herr Schaefft. But that picture of the senator and Q45. Be still my beating heart.

 

I completely agree RE: the ‘90s, too. A period of excellence from many manufacturers.

 

Also, the velour in the Q45 rocks. Cloth over leather every time for me.

[Schaefft]

2 hours ago, Jerzy Woking said:

I bought an MX-5 Eunos, and spent hours and hours translating all its service records from its early life in Japan.

I bought it for my (then) wife. She took one look at it, and said "I don't like that". Sold it without her ever sitting in it.

Yeah, a lack of taste in cars usually does that, ask me how I know.

38 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

The Q45 is wonderful! Can't think of a better owner for it, though if ever you need to move it on.........

I was waiting for your comment! Its certainly different to an LS400. It'll be hard to compare them with this Q45 being on coilovers right now. Even compared stock for stock the LS400 would be the lazier of the two cars. The Q45 community believes that the actual power output is much closer to 300 than the advertised 276hp, not sure if that would only be the case on the US models.

38 minutes ago, JakeT said:

I’m normally a BMW licker and have been meaning to comment how well you usually do, Herr Schaefft. But that picture of the senator and Q45. Be still my beating heart.

 

I completely agree RE: the ‘90s, too. A period of excellence from many manufacturers.

 

Also, the velour in the Q45 rocks. Cloth over leather every time for me.

Wool even as it turns out! And yeah, you could argue whether a Q45 is an overall better package than a 7-Series. I'm sure it will feel significantly more modern than an E32 (never drove one) but it might not have the same sense of occasion of an E38. However considering its been priced below V8 5-Series money (which wasn't even available for years while the Q45 was on the market, so more like 6-pot 535i) you get one hell of a package, especially with some of the trick suspension and 4-wheel steering available.

[Dave_Q]

276hp will be from the "gentlemans agreement" era when Skylines, Supras, etc all put out 276hp on paper, I remember it from Gran Turismo.

[Schaefft]

2 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

276hp will be from the "gentlemans agreement" era when Skylines, Supras, etc all put out 276hp on paper, I remember it from Gran Turismo.

Yeah, most of them were underrated. However, that wasn't the case for the US market cars that showed true output. Its odd that Infiniti would decide against doing that on their flagship, it wouldn't really impact insurance premiums there as much as it did on the sports cars.

[Schaefft]

A quick update on the E65 7-Series:

I'm still waiting for a new diagnostics cable to arrive all the way from the States. It's supposed to be the only cable not bricking certain BMW control modules, and while Im not 100% convinced that my cable is the reason I cannot flash my DSC module it certainly cannot hurt ruling out another potential source of problems.

I'm also still confirming that the car is now 100% leak free. I am still seeing a little pool of water resurfacing from god knows where in the driver footwell despite the sunroof drains and wiper cowl drains flowing freely. It might just be residual moisture from the carpets and condensation but I want to make sure that there is no more water coming in from anywhere before putting everything back together.

In the meantime I polished the headlights. Unfortunately turtle wax has made their kit worse so I'm going back to the 3M kit I've used before. It comes with sanding/polishing discs you attach to a drill, I still have to buy sealant to actually seal the headlight though. The before and afters turned out fantastic, 17 quid that make a huge difference.

The original coating had completely failed and yellowed terribly. I should note that it took quite a bit of effort to get it off of those lenses, the driver side needed several attempts.

After sanding with 500 and 800 grid:

Sanding foam pad:

Done. This side is a little more hazy than the other, I'm not sure why. Might be better once I got a sealer on it.

Makes a huge difference:

Cleaned the residue off since. I'm hoping to get the diagnostics cable soon, those lights (and the seat) are really the only thing keeping this car off the road now.

[Jim Bell]

Cataracts, begone!

Looks much better man. I bet it's putting out more light too. 

[Schaefft]

Minor update again. I was finally able to confirm over the last few days that the E65 is watertight again. I've been wondering for weeks why more water keeps appearing in the driver footwell and underneath the back seat. It never was a lot but still suprisingly much for being just condensation. I knew the carpet and foam were still holding some moisture, turns out it was still holding way more water than I initially expected, particularly right under the driver seat. Taking the heatgun to both the carpet in the back and backseat sound insulation finally put an end to this:

I had the interior apart way more than seen in the photo above. I'll leave the C-pillar trim off for now as I might have to replace the antenna amplifier as well. Fortunately it all went back together without too much trouble.

Not before trying to remove this layer of rubberized coating from the backseats though. I think I mentioned it before but this is actually an issue with almost every single square inch of leather in this car. It looks like someone dyed the seats at some point, however I cannot see any reason at all why anyone would do this on a low mileage car. It also just looks a little too well done to be considering a quick job.

I know some BMW dealers apparently redye interiors on used cars as part of a refresh program before a sale but once again, why bother on a car that barely had any miles on it at the time? The cost of taking the entire interior apart surely wouldn't have paid off. The interior clearly has suffered from a climate of extreme moisture and heat for a while but is this really a thing mid-2000s BMW are doing? I couldn't find much info about peeling leather on BMWs either. It takes a steam cleaner and a lot of patience to get it off, in some cases it won't come off at all (i.e. where the seat belts covered it before).

My diagnostics cable also has finally arrived in the UK after over 2 weeks of waiting. Fingers crossed I can finally sort the rest of the issue.

In other news, the Cadillac has been moved the first time in ages. It drives like an absolute boat, hard to tell whether thats simply as Cadillac intended it to be, which is perfectly possible, or because one of the adjustable suspension height sensors is faulty and throws a code.

[Dave_Q]

Could it be factory paint/colour that's peeling?

I've never seen a cream cow so while we associate the dye/paint with an aftermarket job, it must have been dyed/coloured somehow in the factory, could the extreme damp have done something to the factory colouring?

[Schaefft]

4 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

Could it be factory paint/colour that's peeling?

I've never seen a cream cow so while we associate the dye/paint with an aftermarket job, it must have been dyed/coloured somehow in the factory, could the extreme damp have done something to the factory colouring?

I thought the same. The odd thing is that underneath its exactly the same color. It could be some type of protective layer from the factory but that would certainly be news to me and nothing I've seen on older BMW leather seats before.

[yes oui si]

Pssssst

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256149956339?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Xh3eF6JPTFC&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=Ga-AEWQDS5K&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Saw this, thought of you... 

[Schaefft]

On 7/21/2023 at 8:39 PM, yes oui si said:

Pssssst

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256149956339?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Xh3eF6JPTFC&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=Ga-AEWQDS5K&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Saw this, thought of you... 

I think one Alfa is enough for now.😄 Could be a nice 164 for someone though, the blue velour looks amazing.

No big updates today. Any BMW coder I talk to regarding the DSC module seemingly has zero interest in actually helping/getting back to me. I'll probably have another go at it myself using my new cable now that holidays come up and bricking it again wouldn't cause any delays. I've now also noticed after days of rain that water is actually getting back inside the car again. Turns out that at the angle its parked, water is flowing into the trunk on both sides, and then making its way underneath the back seat again. There aren't many places it can leak into other than the taillight gaskets, I might confirm later. I always thought water in the boot meant clogged sunroof drains, seemingly not he case here. At the age and mileage not something I would have expected to be a problem.

My cabin air/intake air filters did arrive recently though so those got replaced a few days ago. Very easy and straight forward, kinda needed doing as well...

The Corona has passed its MOT for the 3rd time since its resurrection. A few minor things on the advisories I'll look into when I get a chance, you might notice that the LED brakelight in the spoiler doesn't illuminate. First time in a decade its done over 1000km in a year as well, that was mostly for the trip to Fotu last year and one to a Toyota meet earlier this year.

[Schaefft]

Well, that didnt take long. I've used the only 2h of not-absolutely-miserable weather of this summer* weekend to have a closer look at the boot. After removing the million trim panels covering everything I found this:

Somehow the ventilation ducts on both sides of the boot are leaking. The passenger side (top) doesn't have it's seal in place anymore, the other side is looking perfectly fine yet is also leaking. Its not even like they are perished or anything (I manage to rip one trying to remove it though).

No clue how that happened but I'm a little disappointed that stuff like this is actually an issue in the first place. With the slope of my drive and enough rain its pretty much clear now how water made its way into the backseat:

Fun times. Naturally BMW doesn't sell the seal separately. If anyone has a good tip on how to seal this in a relatively clean fashion please let me know.

[yes oui si]

On 23/07/2023 at 16:22, Schaefft said:

I think one Alfa is enough for now.😄 Could be a nice 164 for someone though, the blue velour looks amazing.

No big updates today. Any BMW coder I talk to regarding the DSC module seemingly has zero interest in actually helping/getting back to me. I'll probably have another go at it myself using my new cable now that holidays come up and bricking it again wouldn't cause any delays. I've now also noticed after days of rain that water is actually getting back inside the car again. Turns out that at the angle its parked, water is flowing into the trunk on both sides, and then making its way underneath the back seat again. There aren't many places it can leak into other than the taillight gaskets, I might confirm later. I always thought water in the boot meant clogged sunroof drains, seemingly not he case here. At the age and mileage not something I would have expected to be a problem.

My cabin air/intake air filters did arrive recently though so those got replaced a few days ago. Very easy and straight forward, kinda needed doing as well...

The Corona has passed its MOT for the 3rd time since its resurrection. A few minor things on the advisories I'll look into when I get a chance, you might notice that the LED brakelight in the spoiler doesn't illuminate. First time in a decade its done over 1000km in a year as well, that was mostly for the trip to Fotu last year and one to a Toyota meet earlier this year.

£400 e38 in Durham. 

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/6983490781674794/

Plenty money in breaking that.