The new news 24 thread

[wesacosa]

13 minutes ago, davehedgehog31 said:

Gave the ex @wesacosa XM a pretty thorough wash this afternoon. It really is a pretty straight old thing and it would definitely be worth getting the paint on the roof and bonnet sorted.

I gave the outside a really thorough going over and although I didn't have time to polish it I did quickly put some wax on just for protections sake.

Really delighted with the car, I've long fancied an XM and thankfully this isn't a case of "never meet your heroes", it's as good as I'd hoped and this particular example is a credit to it's previous owner.

blimey its looking good. It does shine up well aside from the roof and bonnet as you say.  Did you change the passenger wing mirror to the ones without the scuffs I left in the boot?

I really did love the car when I got it, then hated it when I was doing the cambelt, thermostat and water pump, then loved it again after that but ashamed to say after the ulez came in and I couldn't really drive it I did neglect it a bit, although I did try and keep washing and waxing it but the paint seemed to fail overnight almost, not long after one of those Sahara sand storm dumps but not sure if that was coincidence or not 

Thrilled its getting some love now, cant be many diesel XMs out there that haven't hit 80k yet

I haven't forgotten I said I'd send you that stuff by e mail, will dig it out this week 

[Popsicle]

As the couriering Caddy is giving me grief with poor running, a crashy ride and shaking brakes, I decided to do what I'm sure a lot of shiters will understand, rearranging the Titanic's deckchairs and painting some wheels.

I picked these 16" wheels up about a year ago and have done bugger all with them, they are from a Yeti and the tyres were all around 12 years old with plenty of perishing. I had a set of decent Falken tyres in amongst many sets of wheels in the garage so had them fitted and just wanted to tidy the wheels up before fitting them to the van.

I rummaged around and found a decent set of kit to attack them with first.

Probably the worst wheel.

Gave them a quick sanding and slapped some Vactan on them, then went with 3 coats of primer, 3 coats of satin black and 3 coats of lacquer.

Not the best job in the world, but they don't look too bad for an afternoons work by a cack handed knob head.

I must admit I'm tempted to run them on the Passat, the alloys are pretty poor on it, but the tyres, while ditchfinders, all have plenty of tread left. They are pretty over sized for the van, current stuff is 195/65/15, these are 215/65/16, so around an 8% increase in circumference. I'm hoping for 200 less rpm at 70, thats the whole point of doing the swap really.

I've left them to go off over night and hopefully will get a chance to try them out tomorrow.

[Split_Pin]

10 hours ago, SiC said:

I've been trying to use the Z4 a bit more recently with the nice weather. At the moment the annual mileage looks to be at 3.5k and would be almost the lowest in it's history. Can't be having that! MOT is up in early June so some time left to rack some more on. 

I'm always find it outstanding how economical this thing is for a 6cyl. Admittedly this is from a mostly motorway journey but it's still better than my wife got from her MX5 MK3. 

For £1200/£1600 (purchase price/what this car owes me) I honestly can't think of a much better value convertible at the moment. Comfortable, nice 6cyl engine sounds, drives well, frugal with fuel, modern mod cons like cruise/air con/electric hood/etc and 178bhp gives reasonable performance. While I love my Spitfire, even a cheap tatty one is like nearly twice the amount and definitely not twice as good! I think about changing to something else but I struggle to justify changing the thing. 

Since going through the intake air leaks and replacing the MAF last year, the EML has stayed off. Likewise replacing the thermostat has cleared the other code it had. Plugging it in earlier and doing a quick scan had it showing absolutely no codes stored. Quite remarkable!

The only thing that could well be an issue for an MOT is the right headlight. I think the back cover is missing and water has got in. Apart from fogging up the insides, the reflectors look to have lost some of the chrome. Usually I'd bung a second hand unit on but the pre-LCI (pre facelift) halogen lights are really expensive and rare. Only one on eBay for £400 - a third of what I paid to buy the car originally. 😳

Interestingly the Xenon headlights are cheaper (like £100 or so) as there is many more of them. Presumably because it was a popular option at the time.

How on earth are you getting 40mpg 😳 is yours a 2.5 and a manual?

I get 25 from mine mixed, maybe 30 on a long run. I doubt the small increase in CC makes a difference although the auto probably has a lot to do with it.

I agree they are good value. I kept thinking of selling mine too but when they're working they are great. The only thing that annoys me at the moment is that the biggest breaker of them is based in Kent and refuses to post. I need a nicer condition front bumper.  He's breaking several nice silver M Sport models every month with cheap bumpers but I can't buy them!

[SiC]

59 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

How on earth are you getting 40mpg 😳 is yours a 2.5 and a manual?

2.2 manual. Probably helps also that the Z4 isn't that heavy as modern cars go either - 1325kg apparently. Still pretty respectable figures. 

Might ask my colleague later, with the low miler 325Ci manual, to see what he's getting. 

20-30mpg is generally what I get from my E90 N52 330i auto. With 35mpg+ on a good motorway run. 

[Split_Pin]

Mine sounds about right for mpg then. I don't mind, I was just initially surprised!

[wuvvum]

I used to get mid - high 30s from my 2.5 Z4 on a steady run.

[SiC]

Mine is rarely below 30mpg even on short journeys. 

Tbh I think the 2.2/2.5/3.0 Z4 all have similar fuel consumption. Like a mpg or two less on each as the engine is larger. Given they're quite an old design, the M54 is pretty frugal on fuel. They also run happily off regular 95 octane petrol which makes a big difference to fuel costs (often a 10p/l difference).

My Boxster used to do high 20s/low 30s (did hit 38mpg on a long weekend of ~600 miles with the roof up once) but that was on Super Unleaded. You almost always get better economy on Super in any car from the lower ethanol content in it. 

[Supernaut]

21 hours ago, Sunny Jim said:

Source of the latest coolant leak on the hearse discovered when I removed the fans.

What are the thoughts on attempting a bodge with this?

Let's zoom in

My BMW's radiator did that (in two places) in the summer of 2022.

It got a new radiator.

 

I know that the high temperature warning light on it works, though.

 

 

In terms of mpgs of BMW sixes, my 2.5 M52 hooked up to a manual has seen a brim to brim 39mpg on the run down to Shitefest Wales, but is usually somewhere around 30mpg round the doors with my usual GLF driving style.

[Tayne]

How geeky do you want to get?

Here’s 62k miles of mpg data from my old 330ci manual.

https://www.fuelly.com/car/bmw/330ci/2002/tayne/137883

[Urko]

Uneventful disc and pad change on Ms Urko's Honda CRV.  Easy job, brake judder due to warped discs now gone.

Lidl Impact gun and Lidl 'drivers were great at removing the retaining screws even though they are apparently JIS and I only have Phillips and Pozi bits.

 

[Supernaut]

It saw the light of day properly for the first time in over 30 years less than a week ago.

It's a tractor now.

The clouds did as expected and I drove it back in low range 4WD churning through a fair bit of mud. Took it like a champ.

[SiC]

2 hours ago, Urko said:

Uneventful disc and pad change on Ms Urko's Honda CRV.  Easy job, brake judder due to warped discs now gone.

Lidl Impact gun and Lidl 'drivers were great at removing the retaining screws even though they are apparently JIS and I only have Phillips and Pozi bits.

 

I've got a bit of brake judder on my 330i after only changing the discs about 4k miles ago. Having a look at the manufacturer docs, they reckon it's rare to have warped discs develop normally and usually down to hub distortion. 

Looking at those hubs it makes me wonder if I didn't clean my hubs up well enough. 

[comfortablynumb]

56 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

It saw the light of day properly for the first time in over 30 years less than a week ago.

It's a tractor now.

The clouds did as expected and I drove it back in low range 4WD churning through a fair bit of mud. Took it like a champ.

Series landy doing what they were designed for.

Brilliant 👍 

[richardmorris]

Reasonable Cx review. 

 

[wuvvum]

Been going round changing all the clocks on the fleet.  The one in the Merc hadn't changed, which struck me as slightly odd as when the clocks went back in October it updated automatically.  On closer investigation the clock in the stereo had updated but the clock in the dash hadn't.  I couldn't immediately find how to set the dash clock so I went on YouTube to find a how to video, but when I attempted to follow the instructions it turned out my car doesn't actually have a "time and date" option in the settings menu.

Turns out the clock is supposed to update automatically, like the one in the stereo had done, but it relies on the signal from the stereo to do so.  Now that I've fitted an aftermarket Android radio which isn't sending the correct signal to the BCU, that's no longer happening.  So there's no way to change the clock and I'm stuck with it reading the wrong time unless I refit the original stereo.  Bloody moderns...

[Snake Charmer]

16 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Turns out the clock is supposed to update automatically, like the one in the stereo had done, but it relies on the signal from the stereo to do so.  Now that I've fitted an aftermarket Android radio which isn't sending the correct signal to the BCU, that's no longer happening.  So there's no way to change the clock and I'm stuck with it reading the wrong time unless I refit the original stereo.  Bloody moderns...

Not much help but l swapped my S211 Comand system recently to an Android unit and managed to change the clock to manual with Xentry.

[Popsicle]

4 hours ago, SiC said:

I've got a bit of brake judder on my 330i after only changing the discs about 4k miles ago. Having a look at the manufacturer docs, they reckon it's rare to have warped discs develop normally and usually down to hub distortion. 

Looking at those hubs it makes me wonder if I didn't clean my hubs up well enough. 

It is very rare for discs to warp, its usually thermal transfer. Patches of pad material imbed into the disc, usually a few spirited sharp brakes from 70-30 will clean them up nicely and remove the judder.

Interesting article here about it.

https://alconkits.com/blogs/news/the-real-truth-about-warped-brake-rotors?

 

[SiC]

31 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Been going round changing all the clocks on the fleet.  The one in the Merc hadn't changed, which struck me as slightly odd as when the clocks went back in October it updated automatically.  On closer investigation the clock in the stereo had updated but the clock in the dash hadn't.  I couldn't immediately find how to set the dash clock so I went on YouTube to find a how to video, but when I attempted to follow the instructions it turned out my car doesn't actually have a "time and date" option in the settings menu.

Turns out the clock is supposed to update automatically, like the one in the stereo had done, but it relies on the signal from the stereo to do so.  Now that I've fitted an aftermarket Android radio which isn't sending the correct signal to the BCU, that's no longer happening.  So there's no way to change the clock and I'm stuck with it reading the wrong time unless I refit the original stereo.  Bloody moderns...

Disconnect and reconnect the battery at midnight?

[reb]

10 minutes ago, SiC said:

Disconnect and reconnect the battery at midnight?

If it's stupid and it works it ain't stupid

[SiC]

Just now, reb said:

If it's stupid and it works it ain't stupid

I've done it before!

[reb]

2 minutes ago, SiC said:

I've done it before!

<Blink>00:00</blink>

[Tayne]

53 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

I'm stuck with it reading the wrong time

 

Only for 6 months.

[Urko]

2 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Been going round changing all the clocks on the fleet.  The one in the Merc hadn't changed, which struck me as slightly odd as when the clocks went back in October it updated automatically.  On closer investigation the clock in the stereo had updated but the clock in the dash hadn't.  I couldn't immediately find how to set the dash clock so I went on YouTube to find a how to video, but when I attempted to follow the instructions it turned out my car doesn't actually have a "time and date" option in the settings menu.

Turns out the clock is supposed to update automatically, like the one in the stereo had done, but it relies on the signal from the stereo to do so.  Now that I've fitted an aftermarket Android radio which isn't sending the correct signal to the BCU, that's no longer happening.  So there's no way to change the clock and I'm stuck with it reading the wrong time unless I refit the original stereo.  Bloody moderns...

My 2000 Jeep Grand Cherry had RDS update for the clock.  When I took it to France it changed to French time - I was highly impressed.  When I got back to dear old blighty it didn't change back and never updated automatically again - progress.

[High Jetter]

7 minutes ago, Urko said:

My 2000 Jeep Grand Cherry had RDS update for the clock.  When I took it to France it changed to French time - I was highly impressed.  When I got back to dear old blighty it didn't change back and never updated automatically again - progress.

# shrug 😀

[BorniteIdentity]

3 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Been going round changing all the clocks on the fleet.  The one in the Merc hadn't changed, which struck me as slightly odd as when the clocks went back in October it updated automatically.  On closer investigation the clock in the stereo had updated but the clock in the dash hadn't.  I couldn't immediately find how to set the dash clock so I went on YouTube to find a how to video, but when I attempted to follow the instructions it turned out my car doesn't actually have a "time and date" option in the settings menu.

Turns out the clock is supposed to update automatically, like the one in the stereo had done, but it relies on the signal from the stereo to do so.  Now that I've fitted an aftermarket Android radio which isn't sending the correct signal to the BCU, that's no longer happening.  So there's no way to change the clock and I'm stuck with it reading the wrong time unless I refit the original stereo.  Bloody moderns...

I spend half my working day in GMT and it twists my melon.  Welcome to my world!

[wuvvum]

2 hours ago, Tayne said:

 

Only for 6 months.

7.  Clocks don't go back until the end of October.

[RobT]

Fleet update.  The 406 achieved a new MoT a few weeks back with some minor advisories.  I then did a road trip to the Netherlands totalling 740 miles without incident.  I stayed near a city called Leiden, a 20 minute drive from The Hague. @aldo135 gave me the idea to go there (and Wassenaar) after reading his thread, and I wasn't disappointed in terms of chod spotting opportunities.

There's plenty more so I'll update my spotting thread at some point.

The Forester keeps trundling along, although I've got a list of jobs I'd like to sort out but I never seem to find the time, nor the arsedness.  The intermittent heavy steering has become a PITA so the one thing I have done is buy a new PAS pump and associated hoses and fluid reservoir (the old one has a knackered integral filter) .  I'll have a go at doing that next week.

The 20mpg around town is becoming annoying though, so might get a Panda or something to run as a daily.

[Westbay]

11 hours ago, Popsicle said:

It is very rare for discs to warp, its usually thermal transfer. Patches of pad material imbed into the disc, usually a few spirited sharp brakes from 70-30 will clean them up nicely and remove the judder.

Interesting article here about it.

https://alconkits.com/blogs/news/the-real-truth-about-warped-brake-rotors?

 

Very good article - puts the 'science' behind what a service manager told me years ago, " ... the tendancy is for folks to run down the motorway , up the slip road and hold the car on the brakes while waiting to move off again ... " - localised cooling  where the pads 'pinch' the disc ...

[SiC]

5 minutes ago, Westbay said:

Very good article - puts the 'science' behind what a service manager told me years ago, " ... the tendancy is for folks to run down the motorway , up the slip road and hold the car on the brakes while waiting to move off again ... " - localised cooling  where the pads 'pinch' the disc ...

I have heard this is a thing. As my 330i is an automatic, I'm on the brakes a lot more than a manual where I tend to let the car slow itself down first in an appropriate gear. 

[barefoot]

12 hours ago, wuvvum said:

I'm stuck with it reading the wrong time...

It's always summertime in my campervan.