OV9

X5 test driven and working nicely. Gave it a few brisk launches which would normally have pinged the lights up and got nothing but noise and acceleration

Be interesting to see if there’s any change in fuel economy now. Previously the front wheels were free rolling which is good, but the engine would have been fighting the drag on the transfer case which was bad.

Quite handy as one of the headlight level step sensors on the mito is borked and has to drive home yesterday at 10pm on unlit nsl roads with the lights pointing about 10ft in front of the car.

integrale_evo wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 11:49 am X5 test driven and working nicely. Gave it a few brisk launches which would normally have pinged the lights up and got nothing but noise and acceleration

Crack out those beers & ibuprofens !

May wait a while, not sure work would approve

Was slightly concerned, I re-used my old actuator as I’d already changed the plastic gear on it and was quicker and easier than stripping the new one.

Would only have been 10mins to swap them back over, but then I’d be questioning whether it was actually the actuator not the box in the first place

Total cost,

Transfer box actuator gear set - £10
Front diff - £200 delivered
Transfer case - £200 delivered
Gear oil - £12
Transfer box oil - £30 ( not yet changed, they’re sealed, but will do it now I know it works )
4 x m8 nuts for exhaust down pipes - in stock

About 30 cups of tea

Job well done Harry.

After waiting more than 2 weeks (thanks to Royal mail strikes) for the 1 way valve to arrive for my washers it finally turned up today. 5 minutes later it was fitted, needed a little warming to soften the pvc pipe and they now work again.
I've decided to paint the grill black over Christmas as I think I prefer the black mouth look to the shiny one.

I have some etch primer and some black paint kicking around so it's a free thing.

Once I've measured them up (handy having a brother with the car and seats you are looking at) I'm going to get a set of S2000 seats as I think they will be right for me (back of the standard seats is too short and seatbelt rubs my neck), will be fun adapting them to take the TVR runners.

Well done Harry, enjoyed following all the.updates

integrale_evo wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 12:51 pm Total cost,

Transfer box actuator gear set - £10
Front diff - £200 delivered
Transfer case - £200 delivered
Gear oil - £12
Transfer box oil - £30 ( not yet changed, they’re sealed, but will do it now I know it works )
4 x m8 nuts for exhaust down pipes - in stock

About 30 cups of tea

If it wasn't for your ability that would have been the worst buy on here since my Navara or jobbos alpina, as I guess you'd have been on the end of a 3k bill from an indy for that lot
Well done.

Probably more. I don't suppose a garage would be happy to chuck a £200 s/h diff in there without rebuilding it first or putting some decent bunce in the price to allow for potential problems.

drcarlos wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:06 am

integrale_evo wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 12:51 pm Total cost,

Transfer box actuator gear set - £10
Front diff - £200 delivered
Transfer case - £200 delivered
Gear oil - £12
Transfer box oil - £30 ( not yet changed, they’re sealed, but will do it now I know it works )
4 x m8 nuts for exhaust down pipes - in stock

About 30 cups of tea

If it wasn't for your ability that would have been the worst buy on here since my Navara or jobbos alpina, as I guess you'd have been on the end of a 3k bill from an indy for that lot
Well done.

I think that’s a given on an old performance V8 though, isn’t it? I bought my 4.8is expecting to spend £2-2.5k in the first year and am probably just over that now (haven’t paid the current bill yet as it’s been sat at the garage for three weeks waiting for BMW to deliver a gasket) -

Front wheel bearing £400
Car play upgrade £250
2 x front tyres £380
A/C condenser and pipes £800
Fan control module £25
Heater fan £150
Diff oil change, Radiator, top and bottom hose and sensor, oil leak £unknown

Once most cars get past their third owner it’s a surprise if they get anything more than the bare minimum maintenance.

Oi, my Alpina was a very solid buy. I got a full refund after 6 weeks when I returned it!

My E39 540i Touring was more akin to Harry's X5; bought for £5,500 and spent £5k in the first year on it.

Jobbo wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:47 am Oi, my Alpina was a very solid buy. I got a full refund after 6 weeks when I returned it!

My E39 540i Touring was more akin to Harry's X5; bought for £5,500 and spent £5k in the first year on it.

I just remembered it for that return, can't remember what it did to justify such an ignominious and quick end to it's ownership.

I think the first gen X5 was just very unreliable. After all it was BMW’s first attempt at a SUV and they bought Land Rover to learn from it Somehow they nailed the unreliability bit and managed to make it shit off road too.
My dad bought a facelift 3.0D new and it was always broken. I remember him receiving many different courtesy cars, sometimes for months at a time.

drcarlos wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:42 pm

Jobbo wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:47 am Oi, my Alpina was a very solid buy. I got a full refund after 6 weeks when I returned it!

My E39 540i Touring was more akin to Harry's X5; bought for £5,500 and spent £5k in the first year on it.

I just remembered it for that return, can't remember what it did to justify such an ignominious and quick end to it's ownership.

It had numerous small faults, and one major one: it would throw an error code and go into limp mode if you did a full-bore 3rd-4th gear shift (it was an auto, as they all were I think). Since I bought it from a main BMW dealer in Dorset it went to my local BMW dealer in the Midlands to be sorted and they found it hard to replicate the fault, though acknowledged it was present. I had it back once, it still did it so it went back again. I think they identified how to fix it properly but by that point the supplying dealer called and said that it was costing them money because the Approved Used Warranty didn't cover things wrong at the point of sale; that was out of their pocket. They offered to send a man on the train to collect it next day and refund me everything, including the road tax IIRC. I owned it for 6 weeks and it was in my possession for 3 of them.

Noticed as I was on my way to work yesterday that I'd done just over 40k miles since buying my Allroad. Not really planning to change it yet; we'll get my wife a new car in 2023. But I did discover last night that the Audi seemed not to be producing quite full power; there was a bit of a stumble under full load at speed. I suspect it's probably just that the injectors need a clean, so will run some injector cleaner in the next tank.

My mileage is going to drop a bit in the new year because I'm opening a second office nearer to home. Which has got me looking at things like the Merc GLC63 AMG; I fancy a V8 again and I'm not convinced I'd get any more fun out of an Audi SQ8 diesel than the 3.0TDI version of the same thing, so it'd have to be petrol. There's something about the GLC63 which appeals. Bet they struggle to average 25mpg even on the motorway though.

I discovered a surprising amount of water in the spare wheel well of the Clubman yesterday. Immediate suspect is sunroof drains, followed by barn door seal(s). Despite being very different cars, Harry & I seem to be following similar trajectories here

The winter wheels I bought have ovation tyres on.

I’m sure there’s some weird planetary alignment going on

Hope they don't leave you standing, Harry. B'dum tish.

Range Rover has passed one year in my ownership. Covered 5265 miles in total but a whopping 222.4 hours spent driving it (data helpful collected by the tracker). That's just under a month of driving it 8 hours a day, so fair to say we've used it - just mostly in slow moving traffic, at which it excels.

It hasn't been a cheap thing to own... well, disastrously expensive when you consider depreciation. I think it has lost something like 1,000 a month - pretty horrifying really (coming from something which was worth the same after 5 years), but I think part of that is probably the second hand car market now starting to weaken.

Fuel economy of the V8 is substantially worse than the V6 but given the miles I do in it I'd certainly have the V8. If I was doing 10-15,000 a year in it then maybe not... Annual service was stupidly expensive (about 700 for a major IIRC), plus subs for JLR tracker and a third party one which does proper immobilization and it also had a warranty on it which I think was about £1,000 p.a.

All in cost has probably been near £15,000 which is erm... sobering. Has been a very nice thing to own though and no mechanical issues (touches wood) whatsover. Only thing that needs attention of any sort is the spoiler (yes technically it has one) needs to be adjusted as it lower on one side and touching the C pillar.

Oh and I can confirm it does have auto heated rear and front windscreens and will defrost solid ice in -5 in 3 minutes without you lifting a finger whilst your neighbours spend 15 minutes getting chilblains (<smug face>). Good at getting rid of 6 foot fridge freezers at the local tip too (and christmas trees)