Your fleet running reports

[Swervin_Mervin]

Are control arms pricey on the Z4? They're about £50 a pop for the E91 for Febi

Febi units are £90 without the rear bush for the Z4 as far as I can see, basically it's the 'modern classic tax' taking a bit of effect.

Mechanic there knows I have a preference for OE or good OE equivalent (not cheapy 'get me through the MOT please' chineseum stuff) so it might even be Lemforder, although retail prices on those (a a kit with rear bush) seem a bit higher than what I paid retail.

Yeah just looked - Lemforder are £140+ on Autodoc for the Z4!

[mik]

I can confirm that lower front arms on the Evora are more expensive.

[Beany]

Are control arms pricey on the Z4? They're about £50 a pop for the E91 for Febi

Febi units are £90 without the rear bush for the Z4 as far as I can see, basically it's the 'modern classic tax' taking a bit of effect.

Mechanic there knows I have a preference for OE or good OE equivalent (not cheapy 'get me through the MOT please' chineseum stuff) so it might even be Lemforder, although retail prices on those (a a kit with rear bush) seem a bit higher than what I paid retail.

Yeah just looked - Lemforder are £140+ on Autodoc for the Z4!

I think the decent Lemforder E46 arms weren't much less (for MSport II packages, the ones with the different suspension, not just a bodykit) and that's basically what the Z4 uses - hence why I'm not going THREE HUNDRED FUCKING QUID FOR LOWER ARMS WHAT THE FUCK etc. I know you can get them for £70/side for cheapy Ridex parts etc, but as we all know for some parts like these, pay half, pay twice. Been there, done that when I had no money, etc....

Anyway, I now have a The List for the things I want to do the car to make it 'bob on'. Some stuff that really needs doing (like the wiper park position that intermittently fails to operate properly), and some that just seems like a decent laugh (remove secondary cats, and resonator), most of it easier to do on a ramp, annoyingly, like changing all the fluids, and some things I can do myself, like swapping out the mirrors for auto-dimming heated ones* - but such is the way of things when you don't have a driveway or regular/reliable offstreet parking.

I can badger my neighbour to use his drive in exchange for a box of ale (and reciprocal help with his cars) but not till it warms up a bit - fuck crawling under a car on gravel in 4deg and rain, it's worth paying £70 an hour to not do that

So I suspect I'll be contributing to the local economy a fair bit this year....

*one dims but doesn't heat, the other was replaced with just a heating one, not a dimming one

[integrale_evo]

Turns out I’m twat of the year.

I was rather annoyed at the alarm / wet electrics issue. After drying, plugging in and checking things I had a couple of fault codes so took it for a rip down the road to charge the battery a bit and see what would clear on its own.

Turns out if you forget to close the bonnet, at around 50mph it will flip up on its own and smash your windscreen and bend the bonnet like a banana.

Looks like I’ve found a bonnet in the right colour, although it’s an 8hr round trip. If it was summer I would have got any random one locally and painted it. Screen had a few cracks, just on the top passenger side. Ripped the top off both bonnet struts (£12 a pair for replacements) thankfully roof seems ok.

£150 and a glass claim is probably getting off quite lightly, but I’m still majorly pissed off about my own stupidity.

I’ve always been paranoid about it too having seen others have theirs flip on the motorway due to corroded or sticking latches. Whenever I close it I always give it a good tug to make sure it’s properly shut. Obviously doesn’t work if you forget you opened it half asleep at 6:30 desperately trying to switch the alarm off.

[IanF]

Ooof! Lucky it didn’t happen on the motorway

[mik]

Gah!

[Beany]

Fuckin' oof.

[Rich B]

Shit! That sort of thing happens when you’re in a rush, and sadly modern life seems to be 99% rushing!!

[nuttinnew]

Feck, but yes, I've seen worse results from similar happening (and also recall an incident with a mk1 Metro on a dc where the bonnet came off completely. Fortunately it got enough height that the car behind drove underneath it).

Whereabouts is the replacement bonnet?

[V8Granite]

Shit happens, no-one was hurt so just a pride battering.

Dave!

[Mito Man]

Question for the BMW owners who have idrive based service history. If you service it and reset the regular service reminder but not the dealer only idrive service history will the car throw a hissy fit and keep saying that it’s overdue for a service?

[integrale_evo]

Replacement bonnet collected from Bolton of all places! 7.5 hours driving, ~450 miles, 2 x 5 min piss stops.

Very lucky with the windscreen, most of the cracking is on the unswept area on the top passenger corner, one horizontal crack which encroaches further if hidden by the rear view mirror.

Also handy the replacement fitted inside the car, I thought I may have had to swap them over and cut the old one in half

[Jimmy Choo]

Question for the BMW owners who have idrive based service history. If you service it and reset the regular service reminder but not the dealer only idrive service history will the car throw a hissy fit and keep saying that it’s overdue for a service?

my '05 5 is iDrive and when I've reset the service indicators, it's not complained afterwards.

[Mito Man]

Question for the BMW owners who have idrive based service history. If you service it and reset the regular service reminder but not the dealer only idrive service history will the car throw a hissy fit and keep saying that it’s overdue for a service?

my '05 5 is iDrive and when I've reset the service indicators, it's not complained afterwards.

On about the next gen version. You have both the usual service indicators and another page which connects to the dealership server.

[integrale_evo]

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It’s slightly lighter in shade, and not in as good condition as mine was before the incident, but it’s a lot better than the bent up one! Wrong time of year to be painting things and a near enough one is better than a completely different colour one would have been. It came with grilles too so now have some oe style silver grilles as well as my painted black ones. I swapped the kidneys, have left the upper ones as need to repaint mine.

Definitely prefer black grilles with the estoril blue paint.

Also did an oil and filter change and oil level sensor change on my step daughters polo, then gave it a wash before it’s MOT tomorrow.

[Matty]

Still amazed it didn't damage the roof. Does it also mean no longer the factory windscreen?!

[integrale_evo]

I’ve seen others where the latches have failed and it’s flipped up at higher speed and destroyed the windscreen and damaged the roof. I guess because I’d left it unlatched it lifted at lower speed and did less damage!

Even my windscreen isn’t that bad, doesn’t affect the drivers vision at all. But yes, will no longer be original when it’s replaced. Tbf it picked up a big rock chip on the m25 a few months ago and looked pretty peppered in low sun anyway so I’m not terribly upset about needing a new one!

[Matty]

Swapped over the my wheels - old 16" BBS off, the OEM 17" are back on with shiny new Kumho PS72s.

Ride is definitely crashier on the 17s. 16's are definitely the way to go on a small car like this...if I wasnt planning to move it on I'd have stuck with them. That being said, I'm impressed with the Kumho so far, although the old F1's were 5 years and near 60k old, so no surprise there.

[MikeHunt]

I have owned the purple z exactly 3 weeks and despite being away for a few days Ive managed to do almost 600 miles or 50% of the break in miles.

Over the last 7 years I have owned 4 other G series BMWs , all have a similar looking dash board which makes the switch to manual even more strange and it has took a good few miles to get used to it. I was pressing down the clutch and shifting backwards into 2nd on the first few drives.

The gearbox doesnt have the artillery like action of an mx5 and it's a lot easier to shift than a 993 or 981, but it has a good feel and is well placed with a natural sitting position putting in in finger tip reach.

I have lightly tinted the rear screen, it's not to everyone's taste but the car is low down enough that sitting in front of a Range Rover or similar sized SUZ at night can be uncomfortable at best. Motive tints and wraps in redditch have worked on a dozens of my cars in the past, he has done an excellent job and made it look oem. It's booked in for a detail and ceramic coating next, the cap has been delayed by the weather but hopefully will work his magic this week.

[V8Granite]

We were in Winchester over the weekend in the Clio and managed a few miles playing with a 2021 RS4. Twisty stuff was easy to keep with and the short squirts were fine but the ability it had to bugger off at silly speed once the road was clearly visible really showed my lack of power
We've done 13000 miles in it in a year now so sits at 145000.

Great fun and he/ she gave a hazard flash as he turned off, good clean fun. The road was from Winchester to the South Downs.

In "oh bollocks" news, the ML needs a gearbox rebuild. It shifts lovely, smooth, as quick as it always has but when doing a gearbox oil change it had brass in there and I've got a bit of a whine. 170,000 miles on it now and 110,000 done by us.

I can't find anything I like that won't cost me 15/20k as an upgrade so I'll get the gearbox refusrbished at about 2.5k and give it a bit of love, some level sensors as the casing has cracked, new drivers mirror glass, fog lamps and possibly send the headlights away to get new reflectors in as I think they are the reason the headlights aren't as good as before, new bulbs made no difference.

Dave!