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

[SiC]

Final stop to leave here

 

[Cookiesouwest]

Are you there yet?

[SiC]

Yeah sorry. You have met me enough times to know about my verbal diarrhoea problem 🤣 

@purplebargeken van is mega nice.

[Cookiesouwest]

You bought a van??

And everyone on AS was expecting a BMW !

 

 

[SiC]

Pez shot. Going to give it a quick pressure wash at the petrol station as dust from a building work on a nearby house is all over the windscreen.

Need to get going as chin wagging too long and won't be 9pm till I'm back. 

[Matty]

8 hours ago, SiC said:

#breakfastofchampions

 

Your breakfasts just get worse 😂

[Matty]

Obvs I'm a coupe man myself, but z4s have aged really well! Hope you like 👍 

[SiC]

Washed and now time to go!

 

[SiC]

4 minutes ago, Matty said:

Obvs I'm a coupe man myself, but z4s have aged really well! Hope you like 👍 

Coupe ain't £1200 though 😉

[Matty]

2 minutes ago, SiC said:

Coupe ain't £1200 though 😉

True. Cheap fun that. I used my dad's z3 last weekend and aside from the scuttle shake had forgotten just how nice it drives. 2.2 go alright then?

[purplebargeken]

[wuvvum]

@purplebargeken Didn't know you had a T4!  Must have missed that one.

[SiC]

Making good progress and half way.

Heater fan stopped working below half at Stratford area. Now at Birmingham Frankley services to get my glasses out of the boot. Heater fan coming in and out randomly when set to full now. Iirc these are based on E46 and I remember they have a hedgehog something that causes issues? Just some old car fun.

Anyway roof is staying down for now as 18C. Pushing on. 

 

[purplebargeken]

How is she driving Si?

[SiC]

15 minutes ago, purplebargeken said:

How is she driving Si?

Just got to the chippy. 195 miles in and my first proper stop. I've not managed a single journey like that in a car for a long while! Steering started getting sticky around the centre about 80miles ago if you don't move the wheel for a bit. Not sure why it's done that. Giving it a wiggle sorts it for a bit 😄

Drives really well. Feels a bit skittish on the corners when pushed hard. Probably need to check the tyre pressures to make sure everything is spot on. 

But yeah it's a cracking car.

[SiC]

3 hours ago, Matty said:

True. Cheap fun that. I used my dad's z3 last weekend and aside from the scuttle shake had forgotten just how nice it drives. 2.2 go alright then?

Not slow but then not a slouch if you know what I mean?

Drop a gear from 5th to 4th and you don't quite get a punch that you do in other cars. 

It's damn smooth engine though and makes a lot of nice noises. There is a sound pipe from the airbox to the scuttle which gives you plenty of induction noise. 

Can see why the 3.0 is preferred but there is nowt wrong with this engine

[meshking]

My smax used to do a similar thing with the steering. Like the power pump had turned off. Cured it by flushing the fluid through about 5 times. 

[SiC]

Home. Bang on 200miles. Pretty respectable economy. I did get above 40mpg until I got near home and decided to have some fun. 

Need to figure why that airbag light is on. Code reader wasn't exactly clear what was the problem. Something about no communication with a Right Satellite module?

[purplebargeken]

Good point re pas fluid. Haven’t actually checked the level tbh.

[SiC]

Now I need to go back out to pick up my Golf GTI from the train station!

[SiC]

Had a quick Google. It's a fully electric power steering rack. Apparently it's two gears or something that goes sticky. They get worse if you have the cabin hot. So explains why I've probably had it as I've had the heating on max the whole way. 

[purplebargeken]

Oh wow, weird.

[SiC]

So firstly the car is great. I'm mega happy with it. Like any old car they give shenanigans. Especially old German Premium cars. Not least I do tend to go hunting for issues and finding stuff.

What is there to do?

 - Airbag light is on. I took a gamble buying this thinking it was just a loose seat connector. Having read the codes I don't think it is. There is errors relating to the "Satellite B Pillar" module and no communications. Googling says there is a module that lives in the footwell for the airbag system. We can all guess what happens to modules that live in convertible footwells. Go go BMW. Second hand modules can be coded in but you need BMW INPA. I don't have that, so I'll probably have to read and tool up. 

Need to fix the airbag system as the light is on and it'll fail it's MOT unless sorted.

 - Sticking steering. TADIS. Made worse by having the heater on full. Apparently you can replace the grease or something to help sort it. Need to do further reading. Doesn't stop it being used as a car though.

 - Heater fan temperamental. Anything above 50% on the climate control puts the fans on full. Then after a minute or two it cuts out. Wait a bit and it cuts back in. Not very useful for roof down motoring. Hoping it's the Hedgehog fan resistor module. Need to buy one and find out how to replace it in the car. Hopefully not a massive dash out job or something stupid. 

 - After a spirited drive off the motorway, I managed to now make the rear right brakes squeal. There is a light squeal when driving, more sometimes turning and louder when braking. Sometimes goes away. Presumably either sticky caliper or sliders. A strip down and clean up job. Had to do the same thing on the Golf too.

 - Wipers don't park at the bottom. Work absolutely fine but it looks like it's had a new windscreen in its past. Whoever did it I don't think put the wiper arms back in the right place. It's an easy enough job to just reposition them.

That's it really. A few cosmetic things I could do like replace the scratched near side wing but tbh I can't be bothered just yet. Just want to drop the roof and go for drives! 

Main thing is to fix the heater fan/fan resistor and the airbag system so the light goes out to pass another MOT in June. Caliper is just a Sunday afternoon/evening job. Steering is annoying but I'm going to leave for now as it's still usable as is. 

[wesacosa]

nice looking car and bargain price for the fun factor 

If the hedgehog is anything like the E46 it's not a dash out job but one of the fixings is an absolute fucker to get to. I ended up upside down in the footwell with various extensions and wobble joints trying to orietate what I was seeing on an endoscope 

[Matty]

2 hours ago, SiC said:

Home. Bang on 200miles. Pretty respectable economy. I did get above 40mpg until I got near home and decided to have some fun. 

Need to figure why that airbag light is on. Code reader wasn't exactly clear what was the problem. Something about no communication with a Right Satellite module?

That dash is an absolute jewel though. Back when BM knew how to do an interior.

[Schaefft]

INPA and a few extra tools. I can send you the instructions.

[Dave_Q]

You can get INPA working with a modified Blue VCDS KKL cable.

https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1505990-My-DIS-INPA-SSS-CARSOFT-NAVCODER-Interface

It was too long ago for me to remember where I got the software from but the wire did work.

[Coprolalia]

I found tyre pressures also made a difference with the electric steering rack. If they're slightly low it seems to get 'sticky' more often. Only really plays up on long journeys, I assume because short journeys don't provide time to get the heat into the gears.

Edit: had missed @Schaefft's comment above.

[SiC]

8 hours ago, Schaefft said:

INPA and a few extra tools. I can send you the instructions.

I definitely going to need it! Seems the main way people fix it is by replacing the module. The module is VIN locked.

Specialists say only new modules can be coded in. 

Forums say that's not true. Basically seems you update the module by reflashing it and in doing that you can flash a new VIN in. After flashing you tell it to load in default coding for the car. Then finally the airbag system has a system timer that needs to be resynced by setting all the modules to zero and restarting the count. Presumably that timer is used in data packet messages to keep an idea of when they were sent. (No idea why it can't just reset it on startup, but BMW). Full doc here

I'm just not used to the BMW way of doing things as I've never properly dealt with one before. I suppose a good learning exercise on doing it. Not one I wanted to do but if right now this will fail it's MOT in June if I don't get this fixed.

I guess for most people who didn't want to or were able to give this a go, it'll be scrapped over it. 

[Schaefft]

16 minutes ago, SiC said:

I definitely going to need it! Seems the main way people fix it is by replacing the module. The module is VIN locked.

Specialists say only new modules can be coded in. 

Forums say that's not true. Basically seems you update the module by reflashing it and in doing that you can flash a new VIN in. After flashing you tell it to load in default coding for the car. Then finally the airbag system has a system timer that needs to be resynced by setting all the modules to zero and restarting the count. Presumably that timer is used in data packet messages to keep an idea of when they were sent. (No idea why it can't just reset it on startup, but BMW). Full doc here

I'm just not used to the BMW way of doing things as I've never properly dealt with one before. I suppose a good learning exercise on doing it. Not one I wanted to do but if right now this will fail it's MOT in June if I don't get this fixed.

I guess for most people who didn't want to or were able to give this a go, it'll be scrapped over it. 

The PDF only describes how to set up SP Daten as far as I can tell. I got the full set of steps, updated by myself to clarify a bit where needed, to setup a used airbag module which absolutely possible as I've done it on my E65. As you mentioned, you flash the module (overwrite to latest factory programming for your car), write the VIN to it and then set the system time. Unfortunately it's all incredibly unintuitive with the default tools and often poorly explained by those handful of people who can be bothered in the first place.