ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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I debate putting this up, but it seems a few are asking about these here. This will either put folks off, or make them consider one. But like all things, I should start from the beginning. From a young age, I was not a Beemer fan. To me, they were: -Driven by folks who thought they knew best -Driven like they had been stolen -Sounded nice -Had an image problem. This opinion wavered when my dad got a 1995 E36 325tds SE Auto. Sure, it proved that diesels weren't quite there yet as petrol alternatives, with the venerable M51 lump, but it had a character and I liked it.  My dad's was like this example, but in Titan Silver. Years went on, and I'd eventually come back into the BMW fold around 10 years later, with a E36 323i Coupe, which I semi-enjoyed, but also found it a letdown for what BMWs were meant to represent, along with the M3, which I've warmed to alot and still have today. My dad even joined in with the fun, and had an E61 535d. Bar the acceptable, but not-so-great fuel economy, as a family car, this was almost all things to all men. I adored it. Classy, spacious, quick, and enjoyable. However, that car would not end up with me. Oh no, I'd end up carrying the lineage of a badge. Y'see, 6 pot diesels had been in the 3-series blood for a while. From the E30 324td, to the E36 325tds, then the E46 330d, which was a bit of a gamechanger, before finally, the E9x 330d. I don't know why, but I fancied either a 330d or a 325d. Maybe the nod to the original engines made me fancy a 325d. There was an issue however. My Mk4 Mondeo was cheap, and great. However, it wasn't the cheapest on fuel, and 200 miles a week to work without expenses pay was becoming iffy to pay for. So that got P/X'd for a CLK off a mate. It was a good car, but not quite for me. Oh no, I needed another BMW and I fancied an E91, for a number of silly reasons -Trying something newer -Old, but new(ish) -An era of nice driving dynamics -Estate, obviously! I was funny on spec initially. I wanted the following: -Le Man Blue, with heater leather -Xenons -iDrive -SE spec (or as I found later, an M-Sport with standard suspension -Parking sensors -Auto : Yes I know, but I was getting sick of traffic jams, and maniacs around town, so I went soft -LCI Obviously, I didn't get one of those. Mainly, as I didn't want to part with £6k at the time, where the cars seemed to be selling. One day, fate would intervene. My friend went to look at a car, and I was his driver to go and get it. The car in question I hear you ask? -Sparkling Graphite, with heated leathers -M-Sport -Parking sensors all round ; a rare option I'd find out later -Auto -Pre-LCI iDrive? No. Standard suspension and non M-Sport? No. Xenons? No. OK, you get the idea. It wasn't my dream car, as Autotrader claims they always are. However, I saw my mate drive it. In the CLK, I couldn't help thinking that I wanted to be in the 325d. Even if it looked this terrible.   Was that the worst of it? Of course not. That's to come. |
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Last Edit: Feb 16, 2024 7:35:46 GMT by ChasR
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Did things get ugly? Yup!
I went down with my friend for him to pick this car up. It was a little smokey when he started it, and then it would randomly stop smoking.
We couldn't figure it out, but we drove back from Gillingham to Warwick, where it drank coolant, alot of it.
Despite it only using 7 litres of coolant from Gillingham back to Warwick, I still wanted it. I've never liked the E91 styling, but they do suit the estate form better, but then every car does! Mad? Maybe? Had my friend talked me into it, not quite.
The way I saw it, used cars weren't getting any cheaper. My CLK at the time was a stop-gap car, but not necessarily the one for me. Unless I wanted to throw cash at metalwork, tyres, A Bluetooth option of sorts, possibly alternative engine mounts, and some nicer wheels, the CLK would quickly become an expensive car. Not for what they go for, but certainly for a car which I was unsure if I would actually ever gel with more. If I wanted a 3 series touring, this may be one of the last chances to enjoy something of the ilk with increasing demand for pricier and cleaner cars. While I may not be made of mine, life is too short to have cars which don't quite fit what you want to do with them.
So I mulled over the 325d and said to my friend I'd buy it with the following, of which some of you will say I am a mug
-Fix the coolant leak ; we both thought we knew what it was
-Keep the 3 MV3 wheels that came with the car as payment for sorting the car out
The leak? It was down to a faulty EGR cooler. As soon as the EGR opened, it let in the steam from the pinhole leak.
He offered me a car a little closer to what I wanted, but it was not for me.
-2007 325d Touring
-Le Mans Blue with Lotus white interior
-Manual
-180k
-£1k cheaper
So it was a little shabbier and leggier, but cheaper than the car I got. It was a cheap car full stop. But we both fancied the auto, so, being men of our words, we agreed a deal on the grey car you see above, in its fixed form
It was then time to get to work, since, as some of you can tell, the car wasn't in the best condition exterior wise!
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Last Edit: Feb 16, 2024 7:27:01 GMT by ChasR
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Feb 16, 2024 16:38:05 GMT
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Nice! I'd have had an E91 if I could've found one in the spec I wanted at the money I wanted, but I love the E90 I ended up with. Looking forward to seeing where this thread goes, I should start one for mine at some point...
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Nice! I'd have had an E91 if I could've found one in the spec I wanted at the money I wanted, but I love the E90 I ended up with. Looking forward to seeing where this thread goes, I should start one for mine at some point... Cheers! Truth be told, E91s aren't the best estate when compared to a Mondeo, yet they are brilliant in their own right, and for most folks with only 1 kid. You may not like where it goes, but I'll keep updating this. I have a while to catchup on this car until the present day. Anyway, back to the talking. So, what was the deal with this model. We have that the 325 has a bit of a lineage within BMW, following the petrol and diesel range. Furthermore, this is a mislabelled car, as BMW enjoyed doing since the early 80s. It actually is a detuned 3.0, which I kind of like. The 325d to my knowledge was the last car to have an M57D30 fitted to it, even several LCIs. The range to which the M57 ran is as follows 325d : up to 2010 (I think) 330d : up to 2008 ; Some M57s may exist as an LCI, but not many I'd imagine. Post 2008 cars got the N57. While I fancied an N57, I did like the reliability and well, personal fondness of the M57. Sure, it's no OM606, but it has its own chap, and place in BMW's journey in the game of diesels. This one in particular, is an M57D30TU2. Alot of characters but that can be broken down as follows: -M57 ; The engine -D30 ; Diesel 3.0 litre -TU ; Technical Update -2 ; 2nd Technical update Yup, this was one of the final revisions of the M57. The biggest thing they did for the TU2 was to go for an Alloy block. Not keen for most folks, I know, but it doesn't half make a difference to how the car drives, with me coming from a 535d with an M57D30TUTOP (TOP basically meaning twin-turbo). Sure it didn't have the 535d's pace; it wouldn't with a 60BHP deficit or missing turbo, but my E91 didn't feel like a Suet pudding. It felt agile, and keen to take the corners. Very undiesel like. But we'll get to the handling later. As I said, the car had its issues when I got it, it was needing a clean. But, besides checking the car over, my friend also did me another favour. He threw out the badly painted Silver interior trim that was black, and put in its place a rare and desirable Bamboo trim. This may be out of an LCI, but frankly, I couldn't care, when it improved the interior so much. But, it's fair to say, even with the interior trim replaced, the car still looked like a mosh pit had been inside it:  So it was time to clean it out, before I put it into daily use. After cleaning the seats up, carpets, along with the mats, the smells inside the car improved. Once I threw in a set of mats, was then left with something a little more inviting, and BMW like:    After this, I went to finish off the 'de-chavication of the car. It came with some nasty front grilles which would have look great with me leaning against the car outside a kebab shop. But there's no way they were going to stay on the car. My friend had changed the lower items, as part of the deal, but he hadn't go around to doing the upper parts, due to a lack of time, and issues with the trims. Only the pre-LCIs have this 2 piece arrangement. Peeling off the carbon fibre wrap was just lifting off the chrome trim, which made for it looking poor:   With one side changed, it improved things alot: The other side had a problem : the threaded insert for one of the trim bits had cracked, meaning that it couldn't secure the trim down onto the bonnet. While the 'carbon' part had issues of its own, the carrier was salvageable. So I went about making a good(ish) part out of the trims, using the : -Chrome top 'A-Surface' from what I had been supplied -The carrier from the old carbon trim. Eventually I managed to a full set of Chrome grilles:      Leaving me with this:  Sure, I could have gone with black trims, like many said, but to me -The cheapy items are very variable in fit ; a Neighbour had one grille fly out of his then new F30 320d, yet Matt here has been fine with his cheapies -They IMHO, don't suit the older BMWs, and cheapen the look. It didn't look like a disaster going down the road for once.  It's fair to say after a clean, it scrubbed up well. No polishing, clay barring or what not. Just a simple wash, with maybe some help from a Carnauba based shampoo ; Sure, some short term bling of all a week, but at least I could see a vision for the car.  But I had plans. Sure, the car no longer looked like a joke, but it couldn't stay on those dowdy wheels. So here is a taster of what is to come.   |
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Feb 17, 2024 19:25:29 GMT
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I like that, I would happily daily one and keep the 630 for best, alas I can't afford to do it.😃
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Bicycle x1
Alfa Giulietta (now wife's)
Alfa 156
BMW 630i
Honda rc36
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Feb 19, 2024 22:06:31 GMT
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I like that, I would happily daily one and keep the 630 for best, alas I can't afford to do it.😃 Many thanks! I suppose I have the BMW stable at a reasonable state, but the 325d certainly does the brunt of the daily duties since I bought it. You may not like it as the updates keep on coming! Speaking of which... The drive of the car was great. In theory, this should be curse word to drive. It has an autobox, electric steering being a late pre-LCI, hard M-Sport suspension and so on. However, it drove lovely! It's no M3, it doesn't quite have the magic. But for a daily car, I loved the drive. It was smooth, accurate, had a lovely balance on the road, and it handled lovely. Yes, the steering could maybe use more feel, but it's not exactly dead either; the electro hydralic setup on the Saab is more inert than this. The E9x actually has a nice blend of enough feel to be fun, but not so much so that it feels like you are in a race car. It's a good example of that you can have too much of a good thing. But it didn't have too many good things even then. In short, it had the following issues: -The wheels were not M-Sport wheels and were very tatty : I can't say I was bowled over by the design -I'd eventually find out that 2 of the wheels were cracked ; one was cracked in 2 places -The tyres were mismatched and shot ; wet weather driving was interesting -The front end seemed rock hard over speed bumps : Really hard. That was down to the front tyres having 45PSI in them! Yes, it had quite a few issues. But it actually drove quite nice once I sorted those bits out. But the wheels couldn't stay on. My friend sourced me a set of E89 Z4 wheels for £280, shod with -Bridgestone Turanzas up front -Bridgestone RE050As on the rear, in run-flat form. With loads of tread on, a deal was done. I'll be honest. I only really wanted 2 rims: -A set of 17s. Either the M-Sport 17" wheels or some 5 spoke SE wheels. -A set of very desirable M-Sport wheels, but also the rarest ; Style 216s, which came standard on the rare 320si   The fact that an uncracked set of 216s are less likely to be found than Lord Lucan, in addition to their high price, quickly put me off this idea. It did however leave me with an issue with the E89 wheels I got. Rear offset. The offset on pre-LCI wheels on the rear is around ET32 on 18" wheels, with that figure being 5mm less on LCIs; the rear wheels were spaced on LCIs from the factory. These E89 wheels? ET40. This is where the spacers came in handy, along with some longer bolts. Eventually, I got them fitted, but not before I sorted out the discs. It had brand new discs and pads on the car when I got it, but not coated discs, so the bells were pretty rusty. It's nothing a can of paint coudn't fix. Some folks should probably look away at this point, given that the braked surface got some of the paint too!   With that done, I did the car dance, and eventually got the wheels on:   Do you folks want a peak? Ah well, go on then:      It's funny. But this place does keep on saying this. Chuck on a set of wheels, and it will tranform a car. Did I have issues after this? Of course it did! I still had the following to fix: -The thermostat was lazy. I suspect the EGR thermostat was fine, but if you are there, you may as well change both -It started lumpy, and then settled down after 3 seconds. It would basically start on 4 or 5 cylinders, and then have all 6 join. -It had a hum from the front, which I thought were the front tyres -The diff whined a little when getting to 50MPH -The radio didn't work. -Despite my friend changing many bulbs, more bulbs went, meaning the dash had quite a few gongs! -I didn't quite realise at the time, but it was losing around 2 mins a day on the clock. More on that later. The hum wasn't the tyres. I've almost always had Chinese tyres hum on a car, and I was convinced it was the Triangle tyres on the rims. It was not. Sure, the Bridgestones were less noisy, but it hum was there. I knew what this could be. The handling changed too. Sure, it gained more grip, and it was far more confidence inspiring in the wet, with generally a much more progressive nature. But the back end would skip over bumps, and then regain the grip. The front felt like it understeered initially and then gripped, all in the space of half a second. Not awful but not as nice as I wanted The biggest issue however by far was the ride. The rear with the RFTs was awful. I said it skipped in the wet. It also crashed and skipped in the dry over breaks in the road. It was terrible. It gripped well, but Jesus, the ride of the car was just ruined! When it skipped, you could have sworn it would lose grip, but those Bridgestones just gripped and gripped to their credit. Eventually after 2 months, I decided that I couldn't live with wearing the rear tyres out, so I got a set of Michelin PS4s fitted. What was the result? -It eradicated the skipping completely on the rear -The rear of the car became a little quieter -I now had more rim protection on the rim It also stopped spinning the inside wheel from roundabouts. I suppose that's what good tyres do. That said, I still had more to do. More on that later. |
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Feb 26, 2024 23:54:46 GMT
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While the car looked good, I was aware that it didn't necessarily feel good. The front end hummed like the Birmingham New St. to London train, and the way it started in the morning on 4 or 5 cylinders would have pleased any redneck with a Cummins diesel in their pick-up. Clearly, I had to fix these issues. Firstly, I stripped the wheels and brake assemblies off, leaving me with play free, but apparently quiet wheel hubs. The only indication of the hubs being goosed was a slightly 'scratchy' sound, but it was not obvious at all.  I reckon the discs the PO changed didn't come off, so they must have hit the discs hard and pitted the hubs in the process. It's something I've done myself before, as have other friends. In these instances, you are simply better off to cut the disc off, and save the hub. Either way, the hub had to come off. It was a nightmare to undo the bolts. Heat helped, but as soon as the bolts cooled down slightly, I was back to Square One. There was only one thing for it. Get my credit card out and go to Machine Mart to top up my inventory Get an 18mm impact socket, some impact extensions and hope that the bolts would snap off with the DeWalt rattle gun I had. Did the bolts snap? Of course not! The DeWalt with the correct impact bits rattled off the bolts in no time. I had to do a bit of a dance with the bolts, as one bolt is inaccessible with the strut in the way, but with me loosening off the bolts around it, then managing to squeeze the socket in, and loosen off the final bolt, I made short work of removing the hubs.  At the same time, I 'repaired the dust shields. A dirty fix I know, but it did the job. Then it was time for the old vs new. It seems the SKF bearings I bought were Koyo, which is the OE for BMW. A nice result, given that they were priced well  Without further ado, I had the new hub on, and greased up.   At this point, to satisfy my curiousity, I went out for a drive. The car was no quieter and I had wasted my money, fitting the hub. Wrong! It was quiet! Sure, there was a hum left, but from the remaining side. With that changed, the car was silent. That just left the dodgy starting. Upon scanning the car, it had several glow plug faults. To me, this read like a Glow plug controller issue, and maybe bad glow plugs. That would be the next job for me to do.  Yup, that was alot of plastics to remove just to change 6 glow plugs and a controller. More on that next time. |
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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After scanning the car, it came back with quite a few Glow Plug faults. While it sounding like an American truck firing up on 4/5 cylinders for the first second or two may have sounded cool, I knew it wasn't a great long term solution, regarding emissions gear, and other things around the engine. It also started promptly, just not cleanly if the engine had been sat for more than 15 hours. These cars use the glow plugs for a multitude of reasons. Sure, I could have binned the emissions gear, but it would not have fixed the issue of poor starting, and it not running well initially.   Given that on Mx7 engined BMWs, the glow plugs need the intake manifold to come off, I was obviously thrilled at the work that lay ahead. But since I had a free week and weekend, I made the most of that. But I thought I'd try the easy win weeks before this. The Glow Plug controller. I had no idea how folks change the controller in situ with: -Alot of vacuum pipes around it, without them being put back into place correctly -A coolant pipe across the top making it very hard to actually remove it off the block, without the coolant pipe being removed (This could be removed but it would be a blind removal) -The wiring connector being disconnected. Even with the manifold off, the connector is a pain to remove, no doubt to it being heat cycled a load. With that, I got the engine quite hot, and went about removing the intake manifold:  Much to my surprise, from what the forums and Facebook told me, the intake wasn't too carbon'd up inside:   Even the EGR valve didn't seem too bad:  But, without further ado, I cracked on with something I needed the engine to be hot for. The glow plug removal. A task everyone loves:  But I did win. They came out with little fuss, which was a massive relief. Building up the pressure slowly with a long ratchet seemed to help. When I checked, 1 glow plug was bad, but obvously, the car claimed it had multiple issues. It was certainly the glow plug controller at fault. With that, I got another controller, a Beru branded one as well.  But as I said, I'd have more to do, so as to change this. |
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I really should have bought something like this rather than the '6'... But sense was never one of my strong points.
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Bicycle x1
Alfa Giulietta (now wife's)
Alfa 156
BMW 630i
Honda rc36
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2p2g1m
Part of things
Posts: 119
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Great thread as always. Really enjoy reading your posts, so well written and a great read. Car looking good to, always interesting following one of your car journeys.
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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It's good to see I've not scared you folks off yet! I really should have bought something like this rather than the '6'... But sense was never one of my strong points. Haha! I don't think there is much sense in buying any old car, or BMWs ! But we do! I do like the parts availability, which is something Fords look to be trickier on for quality parts. Great thread as always. Really enjoy reading your posts, so well written and a great read. Car looking good to, always interesting following one of your car journeys. Thank you very much for your kind words. I have a few updates to go until the present day, but I'll get there. After doing the glow plugs, it was time to start assembling everything back together. Once I had redone the glow plug setup and cleaned out the intake manifold, I assembled the whole lot back together. It was quite a methodical thing to do. Funny, I had spent the last year fixing up the ST220, only to sell it, fixed up the CLK 270 CDI, then sold it, and here was I repeating history. What did Einstein say about stupidity and... . Nope, I can't remember what it is  . I also took the chance to fit new intake gaskets.    I then jimmy rigged up some piping to the vacuum cleaner so as to clean out the ports of any potential swarf:   As I said before, I removed the top hose to get to the glow plug controller. I noticed the gasket was a little flat. Before putting that back on, I got a new gasket.  The new gasket was 1mm thicker. OK, it doesn't sound like much, but I suppose it makes all of the difference. Unlike before, the gasket was now proud of the flange.    Before I knew it, the intake manifold was back on the car. The car now started perfectly from stone cold. No issues, just a clean start. Happy days. I just had the thermostats left to do. Yes, I could have done them then, but I need to use the car, so the thermostats would need to wait another day  |
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Last Edit: Mar 2, 2024 13:50:30 GMT by ChasR
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Good stuff. Thanks for taking the time to write it all up.
I am still half heartedly looking for one of these, you are helping me make my mind up!
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Good stuff. Thanks for taking the time to write it all up. I am still half heartedly looking for one of these, you are helping me make my mind up! My pleasure. I'm intrigued to see if I've put you off! My car wasn't the best example but by far not the worst either. I think it goes to show that these cars do take some cash, like any iffy cars do. But then again, mine is in pretty good order these days, albeit still not perfect. But then it is a 15 year old car. Where was I? Aha, the thermostats. This car had an issue with the thermostats, and it has two of them, like all M57s have from when they left the factory: -The main engine thermostat (88 Degrees) -An EGR thermostat. (72 Degrees) I'll have to double check the above, but it's something like the above nos. The car would warm up reasonably quickly, but it would not go beyond 70 degrees. I suspect the EGR thermostat, which is the lower temperature item of the two, was working, and semi-carrying the main thermostat. With that in mind, I got two new thermostats. I've played with pattern items in the past, and even 'OE' branded thermostats but they have never been as good as genuine thermostats. Even the design differs from what I've seen 90% of the time! I didn't also fancy doing the job again, and wasting more precious G48 coolant! Once I had them, it was a case of swapping the old with the new:   Finally, they were all fitted  I was left with an engine that warmed up correctly and quickly. Ignore the oil temp ; these don't have an oil temp sender.  With this done, I celebrated that weekend by meeting up with a few mates, and having a mini-estate meet. OK, we met up for breakfast. That S124 looks familiar, but it was not mine at the time this photo was taken.  As another bonus, I did not realise this at the time, but this car had a detachable towbar fitted at some point, complete with a CANBUS integration unit for it. A pricey, and handy thing to have on the car. The annoying thing however, was that it didn't have the towing neck for it. Thankfully, someone in the E91 circles wanted rid of theirs, which I was all too happy to take.   For those who want to see the difference between pre-LCI SEs and M-Sports, here is a shot. It is basically the bumpers and wheels which differ between the two. It's also interesting how a colour can look very different when it's dirty. The Graphite Grey actually has a nice tint to it, depending on the lighting conditons:  There is more to come, obviously! The next update is something I wasn't expecting to do. |
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Last Edit: Mar 5, 2024 7:47:08 GMT by ChasR
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Always like your threads Chas. You do things right, and the car is all the better for it.
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Always like your threads Chas. You do things right, and the car is all the better for it. Many thanks bud. I do try to do right by the car, but I also am aware that issues can soon build up on a car, leaving you to wish to sell them. We'll see how long it is until I crack again! Regarding the BMW, with me working on and off the BMW, some would argue that I could have seen better views, but they could certainly be worse:  With the car fairly well sorted, I put it to work, and got a set of tyres for a very reasonble £40. They were winter tyres. Riken branded, with them being owned by Michelin. I'd see how I got along. The Asymettric tyre in the shot is the Run-Flat removed from the rear of the car, which I sold on to a mate, well I sold him the pair of tyres. I'd service the transmission, with a new sump pan on a mate's ramp, which was handy.  I'd also remove some of the last chavvy details. The LED side repeators. Besides them looking like they belonged in Ilford or Soho Road in Birmingham, They also did a 'check' flash every time I started the car up. However, one of them would die. I debated getting DEPOs but I was aware that I also needed bulb holders too. With that in mind, I just got a pair from the dealer, where they were not too stupidly priced. The wiring thankfully had not been cut, but the bulb holders had corroded unsurprisngly.  I then grabbed the new ones. While the difference is not obvious between genuine and DEPOs, the DEPO units IME don't tend to have mirrored internals. Not a massive problem on a side repeator, but it's something to bear in mind.  Finished! I think they look a little better.  However, the car was starting a little slow at times. Besides this it had other issues. -It lost 30 minutes a week on the clock ; Amazingly, it never really did the --:-- on the dash, or not that I remember. -The rest function on the heater almost never worked -If you put the radio on the dash, without the engine running, it would turn off after 5 minutes, with a low battery (amber battery light) on the dashboard, complete with the 'gong' -Other silly things. With that in mind, I got another battery. If the date on the battery was to be believed, it was the original battery the car came with. It was an 800Ah battery, with 460Ah left. Not bad, but not great either. I could get away with it in the summer, but not the winter. I also could not be bothered to live with the above issues. With that in mind, I got a new battery. A friend of mine works for a battery place, and gave me a returned OEM Exide AGM battery for not alot of cash, which was lucky. On the tester, it was basically new, which was handy. It was then a case of comparing it with the old battery, and putting it in. The black box on top is the CANBUS box for the towbar.   Was I done? Of course not. I had to code the battery. Many claim you don't, but considering a friend and I have removed some electrical gremlins like I had, but with a good battery, I simply coded the battery. Because it was a like-for-like replacement, it was simply a registration activity ; that is telling the car it has a new battery. It's interesting as I've seen the voltage drop to 12.8V in the summer when I accelerate hard, and then go up to 14.6V on the overrun. I have seen the alternator charge almost as high as 15V on a cold engine and a cold morning. It seems BMW used this for: -Emissions; many crumbs make a cake ; lots of little things make a big difference -Power : as above, albeit limited -Demand on electrics ; this car has a few features like the walk me home lights, rest function -Weight : I suppose if you can get away with a smaller batter via a fancy management setup, little changes here and there all add up. This car doesn't even had a spare wheel. For those who are bored, here is more info on the BMW IBS setup. That's not Irritable Bowel Syndrome : atlanticmotorcar.com/casestudies/bmw-ibs-intelligent-battery-sensor-what-is-it-what-does-it-do/Anyway, the car never thought it saw another battery. With that seen, I simply registered the new battery, and went about my way.    Did the car treat me right? Of course it didn't! The scene should now be pictured. Folks were coming out of Covid, so there were plenty of weddings, social events, and work just went ridiculous. It didn't help that I started a new job that year. The 325d also had an MOT due. How did it reward me? With a blown damper. In record time, I worked on the car whenever I had spare time, hating using the M3, as -It wasn't a daily -£1.70/80 a litre on Super was getting boring quite quickly, especially with family engagements of a close wedding (a cousin's daughter for those wondering) would potentially have the M3 racking up a load of miles. Luckily, I got it changed in time with a Sachs M-Sport damper.   With it repaired in record time, and with a ticket on it, I was good to go for the wedding. The car performed well, and must have clocked up almost 1,000 miles that week. It was one of the hottest weeks of 2022, and my mental state with alot of weddings, along with folks at family asking 'when will you get married' really began to take its toll on me. Spending a week with said extended family wasn't my ideal way of taking time off work, but I suppose it has to be done. How was I rewarded with going to a 550 person wedding in a slightly undersized, and very AC'd hall? Covid.  The second time that year. I suppose however, if I was well, I could play on the 325d, right?  |
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Last Edit: Mar 7, 2024 18:53:20 GMT by ChasR
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Did I forget to update this? Of course not! The above is the second time I caught Covid. I suppose large family weddings, small venues, and AC'd ones at that during one of the hottest days of the year didn't help. With me being stuck at home, I thought I'd turn my attention to 2 things: -Tidying up the house at my leisure -Mopping the BMW I know this is a marmite area for RR, so I will try not to dwell on it. Personally, I hate starting to 'detail' cars. It reminds us that we are sad folks, it's time consuming, and a pain to do. However, like any task, you eventually build up a rhythm in doing things, and I always learn something more from the last time I picked up a polisher. Seeing the car finally done eventually makes it worthwhile. Oh, and the car becomes miles easier to clean. What did I do to clean it? -Wash it with Meguiars Carnauba Wash and Wax ; I no longer use this, as I use the BH products -Clay mitted it -Hit a panel or two a day in the garage. After all, it's not like I was going to take the car anywhere. So it just stayed in the garage. -The panels were polished as follows: -Compound : Meguiars 105 or Ultimate Compound, as I was running out of the form, with a cutting pad -Polish : Meguiars 205 with a polishing pad : Lake County White from memory. -Clean the heads out of both, as residue control -Wax the car with Collinite 476S It's also something I dabble with at work, so that's an interest for me. It may not look better in the photos, but I can assure you it did pop alot more in reality. The sunlight really made it sparkle, and showed a brown/gold flip in the paint I didn't know Graphite Grey had before. Suddenly, the Grey looked brilliant:    I had to go to a dealer to assist with a couple of things. One, a big job this car would end up undertaking, the second was a new part for the car. However, for those wondering part of what 'pre-LCI and LCI means', here is a shot of my car next to a colleague's 325d LCI ; it's not a 318d . The shine of the grey however is pretty slick I think you'll agree.  The wheels did not change between models (his is on 4 cylinder M-Sport 17s), but other things did, including: -Rear lights and tailgate -Interior touches, to remove some 'modern classic' touches from inside ; the improved iDrive was the biggest change -5mm less offset on the hubs, meaning LCIs have a more agreessive stance ; more on that later. -Different bumpers, on both SE and M-Sport models, along with the mirrors. It's funny, Ford do things a little differently. They had MY changes, but in old money went with '90 spec etc. with partial facelifts being involved (89 spec being a good example on 89MY cars for 1 year only) Once I stopped comparing two models I would give this car its identity back. It gained a badge someone removed a while ago.    That said, there are limitations to how cool a BMW estate can look. This would become apparent as I recovered, and offered my help to a very good friend of mine. Here is a taster of what is to come:  |
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Last Edit: Mar 16, 2024 8:43:10 GMT by ChasR
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Apr 27, 2024 20:31:03 GMT
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I mentioned in the last post this car would have a part for doing a big job. What big job I hear you ask? It would become a tow vehicle for a mate's parents cars. They were moving out, and due to poor planning on some parts, I said I could offer up the BMW to move the cars, courtesy of the new towing powers enacted the previous year. I had towed previously, but only under a provisional basis. With that in mind I got to work. The first car to tow was a Lotus Elan: Next? A Mini:   This Sport has on 31 miles. A museum piece or something special? I'll let you decide. The CANBUS towbar showed a handy feature. With the connector being poor on the trailer, it had a few errors. Naturally, the car let me know, with adding a numerical reference to the bulb failure indicator. Some would call it annoying, I call it quite handy. After wiggling the connector about, it got clean enough for the bulbs to work again.  Last but not least, I did a load which Kev From Wales would be proud of. 2 cars on a trailer! It was sketchy but it got the job done.   I got a few things out of the deal. Besides helping a mate out and having his help before as always, I also managed to get some racking for my garage. I however, had to take it apart.  Did the 325d swallow them up? Of course it did!. It may have been a bit much in hindsight!   I suppose its one way to lower a car eh? |
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Davey
Posted a lot
Resident Tyre Nerd.
Posts: 2,348
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Did something similar with an A3 and concrete slabs. Bump stops got a good workout that day.
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K11 Micra x3 - Mk3 astra - Seat Marbella - Mk6 Escort estate - B5 Passat - Alfa 156 estate - E36 compact
Mk2 MR2 T-bar - E46 328i - Skoda Superb - Fiat seicento - 6n2 Polo - 6n polo 1.6 - Mk1 GS300
EU8 civic type S - MG ZT cdti - R56 MINI Cooper S - Audi A3 8p - Jaguar XF (X250) - FN2 Civic Type R - Mk2 2.0i Ford Focus - Mercedes W212 E250
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Sept 7, 2024 13:31:15 GMT
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Did something similar with an A3 and concrete slabs. Bump stops got a good workout that day. It's silly but we do find outselves in that position at times eh? It's good to know the car can do what we need it to. I've just spent a short while going through some old photos and I've realised that since we got to the point in the story that I have told (around 2 years ago), a few other things have happened with this car. Other cars have been and gone as well. Since I didn't have another set of number plates for the car, for towing duties, I finally got a set of dealer plates for the car. They were surprisingly cheap too! It's just another thing to make the car look a little less unkempt.  From this point on, all was well, until the end of the year. At this point, one of the rear calipers began to bind. Having a boss who wanted me to come into work no matter what didn't help matters here. I wasn't going to commute on the motorbike, as I didn't have a death wish to ride in sub zero temperatures. Call me a wimp, and it's what folks used to do, but despite my mental state then, even I wasn't that risk averse. I also wasn't going to tax the M3 just for one month, and have that get covered in salt etc. It's not like I could drop the car into a garage and have them fix it within a 1-2 day period. With this in mind, I got to work. Initially, I bodged the pistons by working them a little, and seeing if that improved matters. It sort of did, and the reasons for this would become clear later. I was going to get new calipers off eBay, but given the issues vitesseefi has highlighted with pattern calipers not being machined correctly, I decided to save a little more cash, and rebuild what I had. Within a day, I had a rebuild kit. I rebuilt the first caliper. As soon as I tore it down, the issue was obvious. The teflon coating on the calipers was failing, which probably was as a result of the seals going hard, and the area the seal sat in being iffy as well.   The near side was changed and I had a good brake performance once again. The discs and pads were fine, or so I thought at the time. The other side, I also rebuilt and cleaned up as a precaution. With this done, I decided to try and fix two other issues on the car: - A sticky passenger door handle from when I bought the car
- Attempt to fix the broken bluetooth module in the car
The first one was a simple affair to fix. If you go to BMW to fix this, they will sell you a new doorcard, no doubt due to the car being shipped a doorcard already built up by the supplier. However, many companies, including Febi Bilstein, sell a repair kit for the door handle, which includes a new door handle assembly, with screws to replace the plastic welded rivets that hold the factory door handle in place. For £15, I ordered up a new handle, and got to work. The doorcard stripped off, for the old handle to be drilled off  There is the manky failed old handle, and the new one  The outer piece of the handle:  Finally, the new handle on the old doorcard, with the bamboo trim piece refitted. Doesn't it look great.  It's a small detail which will never bother the driver, but it will improve the experience of passengers, especially those who drive with you alot. That wraps up the journey of me buying the car in 2022. A good buy, a bad buy, or simply life with old cars? I'll let you decide. The main thing is, despite the updates I am about to do, I still have the car now, which can be debated a bit. |
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,307
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Sept 28, 2024 5:16:22 GMT
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2023 came along, and TBH, it was a difficult year for me for a number of reasons. It appeared to start well however. My friend got a G60 and I helped him to get it. Like the G60 however, things would sour:    I even got a set of winter wheels, but more on this later.  The car however, decided to make things a little more difficult, when it did an impression of the head gasket going again. At first, I didn't notice. I did notice the smoke was a little whispy and white at times behind the car, but I thought nothing of it, especially since it was cold outside. This happened over a couple of days. Finally, when things warmed up, it got very whispy behind, when I left work. Uh oh! This is not good. Fearing the worst, I remembered the fault the car had before with the EGR cooler. Off I went to check the the header tank. Sure enough, the header tank was almost empty, but not empty enough to bring the low coolant light on. This was looking like the cooler had gone again. With this in mind, I parked the 325d up in the garage, and put the M3 into daily usage again, pondering what to do about the EGR situation. The way I saw it, I had three choices: - Get a secondhand cooler again
- Get a new cooler
- Delete the EGR cooler, and maybe even the EGR itself
Secondhand again, didn't feel like the right option and it's the option the PO of the car, my mate was convincing me to do. Yes, they are £70, but they are probably on borrowed time anyway, and the history of the cooler is unknown regarding coolant changes and so on. Bear in mind this one lasted a year in the car. New ones, especially from BMW, aren't cheap, being between £175 and £300 for an OEM Mahle unit. The EGR delete route was tempting, and a few folks were putting me down that route. However, knowing how 'some' engine development teams can work, and considering the function of the EGR (which is to lower the inlet temperatures, thus reducing both EGTs, and the NOx emissions, or as some folks say, make the engine ingest its own 'faeces'), I was keen to keep it in ; the fact that I know of a de-swirl flapped, de-EGR'd M57 which holed a piston, also made me wonder if these worked best with an EGR ; did that die due to too high EGTs ; in theory, the map should take car of it, but that car is owned by a very renowned BMW specialist as well. That, and almost every de-EGR'd de-DPF'd diesel I've seen wreaks of the old diesel fumes. In the car park, another E91 4 pot used to stink it out, which a few folks noticed. Maybe the ULEZ isn't the scam folks think it is, and this is the main reason ; after all, it wouldn't fail an MOT or a roadside check, unless you are abroad. Given I take the car to Germany, and near the 'ring, where Brits have become popular to be stopped by the German police for a number of reasons, I didn't fancy another reason for the car to potentially suffer the wrath of them ; Germany is far stricter about deletions of emissions gear compared to the UK, which is possibly reflected in why Euro 4 cars, like this one, can go into most cities over there, which this car has been in a couple. So, being the muppet, I fitted it? Overthinking it and being a muppet or doing it right? I'll let you battle that out in the comments. With this in mind, I got to stripping the car down. Sure enough, the EGR cooler was wet inside:   While I was waiting for the EGR cooler, I thought I'd start early on the major service. Those of you with a single turbo M57 engined BMW will know the air filter is hard to get to. So I figured I'd change it while I was in the area.   As this was all going on, I'd need another car to drive on the salty roads. I didn't fancy getting the M3 out for this, so I got my then trusty W124 230TE out to use.   After a few days, an EGR cooler arrived from BMW, and I threw that into the car. I was tempted to get a Mahle one from Autodoc for less cash, but the Merc was noticably worse on fuel than the 325d! I figured the extra I spent would soon be saved in time and fuel!  With that done, and the coolant refilled, the car was good once again. Just in time to go and see the Mike Oldfield concert in Reading, where the 325d could prove its worth once more.  |
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