project SiC's consolidated moderns - 2004 BMW Z4 2.2, 2005 BMW 330i and (borrowed) 2007 Porsche Cayman

[Split_Pin]

People who spend 5 figures or more on a car have too much money. It's the worst way to spend it IMO.

Like you I prefer something that I like but am not precious over. All my cars can be left anywhere and if someone opened their door on it when I wasn't there, I'd never know. As long as it's clean and mechanically sound, I'm happy.

The only exception I'd make is the E46 and winter salt. If it was already a bit rusty underneath I wouldn't care but it's so damn clean that it would be a shame to ruin that. It'll never be worth much due to a historic cat N but a rust free one is rare now. Part of the reason why I went to the trouble of having the gearbox replaced. 

Ps nice cakes!

[SiC]

It's the worst way to spend it but I guess if you've paid off most/all of your house, kids gone through Uni/etc and a nice pension pot then there is probably not much else to spend your money on. Aka many boomers and why BMWs market heavily themselves towards that demographic for many of their vehicles.  

[SiC]

All the cars had a fair amount of detritus from firework residue on them. As these are cherished* cars, I stuck them all through the car wash to scratch up the paintwork a bit more - the convertible Z4 included. I did take the aerial off the Z4 which required a pair of mole grips to ease it off. Thankfully not completely seized.

I do get intrusive thoughts when in a convertible about pushing the roof open button when the machine is overhead. Probably just me that does...

 

330i start ups have been far smoother since I did the plugs and coils. In fact I can't think of a time recently when it's had a proper lumpy start. 

Interior blower has started squeaking especially at low speeds. Doesn't look a massive job to replace.

Washer jets getting progressively weaker. Monday they barely worked and I presumed it was out of fluid but the low fluid indicator was broken. However topping it up found not much went in to fill it. Pump made pump noises but there wasn't much spraying action going on.

Hmm. 

Internet says there is a little inlet filter on the pump. This gets gunked up and blocks the inlet. Get this, it's a common issue if you don't use the £25 genuine BMW washer fluid. So much so that dealers won't honour any warranty unless you can prove you used it. Literally never had this bullshit on any car.

I've bought a new Febi filter for like £4 off Amazon that I'll fit some time. However as I have a completely full washer tank, I want to use that up rather than wasting it by draining it all over the floor when I get to that filter. It's expensive liquid!

So instead I blasted a bit of compressed air into the washer fluid tube. Also did the washer jets for good measure. This seems to have bought back full pressure again. Albeit I'm aware that it'll probably get the gunk on the filter back on it soon. However hopefully it'll be fine long enough to use the fluid up.

 

I wouldn't normally recommend doing this as it'll put stress on both the pump and electrical system (it'll act as generator back into the body computer). However others have done it and I CBA to pull apart the car ATM, so I took the risk.

 

I was going to say I haven't had the nearly cut out/power loss thing since doing the plugs. However it did it again briefly today. Again on a time where the fluids are at an angle from either a sharp turn or an incline. Today it was an incline and in-between gear changes. Going up a hill, magpies landed in the road so I backed off and honked the horn. They flew off as quick as they landed and I accelerated again. Basically it was shifting up a gear as I backed off and then accelerated shifted it back down. There was a half second or so pause where the revs dropped back to around idle and no response from the pedal. Then bam accelerated hard again. 

Putting my suspicions in that gearbox again.

Tbh the gearbox is not great. I've been driving it gently and it's been okay for the most part. Hard acceleration gives noticeably quite hard shifts. Not painful but you can feel the thud. Hard breaking to a stop give a thud between 2nd and 1st. This is a symptom of box issues on 6HP according to the internet. With this and the weird power loss behaviour, I suspect the box isn't in full health atm.

I really need to get the seals, filter and fluid to sort this box. Pretty hopefully it'll sort it providing no damage/excess wear has been done. At £300 its quite a lot of cash to stump up especially this side of xmas and when it does work absolutely fine 99.99% of the time.

So like any self respecting BMW owner, instead of getting the mechanicals fixed, I spent £310 on car audio visual equipment.

This box of tricks should allow android auto and apple Carplay to show on the main iDrive screen. Pretty nifty and bring the car up to date with AV tech. It'll be the first car I've owned with it and I'm looking forward to it. Certainly beats a windscreen phone mount rattling on the dash and a charger cable draped across the interior.

[IronStar]

Ooooh so you went with a genuine one, not AliExpress knockoff! 
I really think it’s an amazing bit of kit. I love it in friend’s E92, and would 100% buy one if I had a BMW of that vintage. Word of caution - one of the cables you need to plug into it that’s shown as having plenty of slack on their instructions had next to none on this car. Heavily bruised knuckles and tons of fiddling to fit it properly. It also comes with an external mic, and it really needs to be put somewhere sensible as hiding it behind the dash is no good.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback on it.

[horriblemercedes]

16 minutes ago, SiC said:

ere is a little inlet filter on the pump. This gets gunked up and blocks the inlet. Get this, it's a common issue if you don't use the £25 genuine BMW washer fluid. So much so that dealers won't honour any warranty unless you can prove you used it. Literally never had this bullshit on any car.

I've bought a new Febi filter for like £4 off Amazon that I'll fit some time. However as I have a completely full washer tank, I want to use that up rather than wasting it by draining it all over the floor when I get to that filter. It's expensive liquid!

So instead I blasted a bit of compressed air into the washer fluid tube. Also did the washer jets for good measure. This seems to have bought back full pressure again. Albeit I'm aware that it'll probably get the gunk on the filter back on it soon. However hopefully it'll be fine long enough to use the fluid up.

 

The first time this happened on mine, I removed the tank and cleaned the filter. It was disgusting, smelly and horrible.

 

It blocked again a few years later. People will probably say that you shouldn't do this, but I added a small dash of bleach to the washer fluid reservoir. It cleared it quickly without any hassle.

[SiC]

25 minutes ago, horriblemercedes said:

The first time this happened on mine, I removed the tank and cleaned the filter. It was disgusting, smelly and horrible.

 

It blocked again a few years later. People will probably say that you shouldn't do this, but I added a small dash of bleach to the washer fluid reservoir. It cleared it quickly without any hassle.

Yeah for four quid I decided I can't be arsed to clean it for that money. I'll get the tank pulled and give it a good clean through when it's lower. I believe it's in the inner wing and a pain in the arse to remove. 

[mk2_craig]

8 minutes ago, SiC said:

it's in the inner wing and a pain in the arse to remove

Certainly is on the F30 series. I had to do this a while back and I must say there are more enjoyable ways to spend one’s Sunday morning. 

Felt good seeing the problem fixed for £free though, rather than paying BMW main dealer labour ( the official fix is probably supply and fit new tank etc.  )

[Noel Tidybeard]

don't mix different screenwashs as they can react and form a sort of goo that blocks filters/jets

honda dealer (listers) says they use the vag stuff for this reason- they share site with aldi dealers

[Split_Pin]

The 5hp on my E46 was absolutely awful apart from going into limp mode. But Northernmonkey did think that a bloody good service might have sorted it. 

I wanted it changed out though as I'd lost faith in the box. The service kit was almost as much as the gearbox but a 100% must-do.

[horriblemercedes]

1 hour ago, SiC said:

Yeah for four quid I decided I can't be arsed to clean it for that money. I'll get the tank pulled and give it a good clean through when it's lower. I believe it's in the inner wing and a pain in the arse to remove. 

It is in the wing... Not that bad to remove the tank. The filter itself is a bit fiddly (I managed to drop mine into the tank!) 

 

The bleach thing seemed to solve it permanently, with no labour, so I just settled on doing that 

[SiC]

Fitted the Carplay/android auto box at the weekend. Actually took two attempts as the first died shortly after installation. This is where I'm glad I paid extra for a mr12volt units over a cheaper AliExpress special as they shipped a replacement next day. 

Nifty piece of kit really. Resolution is a bit low as mine is the older CCC unlike the facelift CIC display that had a more pixels making it sharper. However the stock screen is much clearer in daylight than most cheap android units. Not touch screen like those android units but the iDrive control works with this. Sound quality is excellent as it pretends it's a CD Changer (required a bit of coding) and the audio stays digital right till the moment the iDrive headunit decode the audio to analog.

Microphone I installed in the light box on the ceiling. Interesting to see two microphones in this car - in installation videos on later cars I only see one. Probably the biggest hassle of the whole job was getting this bit out and the cable up there. Rest was all plug and play into the existing loom.

While I was under the dash, I set about removing the squeaky interior blower motor. Pretty easy job. Undo an electrical connector, move tab up, twist and pull down. Then negotiate it between bits of plastic and wiring loom.

Date code suggests it was replaced in 2010. This lines up with the fact the retaining screw was missing that should stop it twisting out. So it's had at least one new motor in its life. Pretty crap that it's squeaking already.

I didn't have a replacement so instead I just sprayed both the bearing bushes with some lube.

Seems to have fixed it for now. 

In other BMW news, my neighbour has finally binned his 118d N47 that shat it's chain. He had been holding out to see if scrap prices would rise but they ended up going the other way. I don't think it even quite hit 100k this car. He wasn't too bothered as he owned it 10yrs and felt he got hit monies worth.

[beko1987]

On 13/11/2024 at 17:07, SiC said:

Yeah for four quid I decided I can't be arsed to clean it for that money. I'll get the tank pulled and give it a good clean through when it's lower. I believe it's in the inner wing and a pain in the arse to remove. 

When the washer pump died on my car last winter the best side effect from changing it (bar having screenwash again) was I could flush all the shit out the bottom of the washer tank (by accident more than planned but 🤷) A surprising amount came out, the jets did used to block occasionally too

If you can airline the shite backwards then pop the pulp out easily* a quick rinse with a jug of water should clean it. 

[SiC]

Not a lot has happened recently. Just been motoring for the most part and busy in life.

Drove the Z4 the other weekend and decided I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep it. Mostly fancy something different - quite like something K-Jetronic. So maybe a square light Merc of some flavour. Or a Austin/Morris of some description (Maybe prewar or I'd love another 1100/1300). Now is not the right time to sell a Z4 but probably sell it mega cheap if something comes up that really peaks my interest. Really needs to be a minor project as I'm snowed under with things that I need to get on with.

Civic passed its MOT. Rear shock has a slight leak. Stupid Honda put active suspension on rear of the Tourer. Can only get the shocks from honda and they've over doubled the price from £150 to £350 each. So I'll wait till they really are an issue. Ime with adaptive shocks, it might not be long.

3-series still working away. Not lost power in a bad way for a while but had a few fractions of a second where it's done nothing when accelerating. Seems to definitely be during a gear change and especially on tight turns or hills. My suspicion is still the bridge seals and possibly even the ATF is low. Last owner apparently had the fluid changed late last year so maybe it wasn't levelled off correctly. No idea what actually was changed as they didn't give me the service history and now said they can't find it.

I may order a fluid+filter+seal kit from autodoc but it's more than I want to spend on it now tbh. Given I have no service history, resale value will be shit. Also I don't really fancy lying on my back over the Xmas holidays sorting it either.

If it goes pop I'll just chuck it away and get something else. Maybe a E86 Z4 Coupé. Also noticed you can now get a M135i for under £10k pretty easily now. Small car with big 6cyl engine is something right up my street. Even if they are prone to swapping ends. Really quite tempted - just annoying they never put active cruise on as the intercooler gets in the way.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

This mythical missing service history you mention ( ad infinitum) was never promised, just a vague  thought that it came with one when we bought it in 2021 and if it turned up I’d post it onto to you-it didn’t !
I don’t think the lack of a FSH will make much difference to value of an old end of life BMW , much the same as when you bought it as the cheapest e90 330i , in the World ,delivered to your front door. The work done whilst in my care had no receipts anyway as I pay cash and don’t bother to keep any random bills for odd coil packs and oil changes, my man Waseem said he changed the tranny fluid and it definitely drove better afterwards so that was good enough for me. I’m afraid I can’t get too anal over shit old cars and remember when it was all fun.

Ive always been open about only spending money on cars when they break or stop, similarly I’ve never tried to oversell any of the heaps I’ve offloaded on here, or make any promises about condition or potential for getting past the end of my road. In the last 10 years or so on here I’ve mentioned many times that I wouldn’t buy a car off me , please take this as good advice for the future, apart from the S211 I sold earlier this year , which was a genuinely good car , the only reason to have bought one of my cast offs was because it was very cheap and maybe worth a punt.

Not that snide passive aggressive comments every other post are starting to piss me off or anything, perish the thought.