E91 Straight Six Bearding

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ferrisbueller said:

Bugger. Good outcome though.

Very - I could have very easily been given a court summons on the spot....

ferrisbueller said:

Has anyone put anything other than the standard Ba9S 10W (Osram 64113) bulb in the angel eyes on a Pre-LCI? LEDs?

Mine came with some LED's when I got them - dunno what they are, they're not silly bright, but they're a bit brighter than stock. Dunno what they are, I've not had to change them yet... had mine over 3 years now and about 30k miles.

twokcc said:

2009 325 d LCI Auto
anyone know how to release tailgate(no keyslot next to rear no plate lights)

Climb in to the boot via the rear doors. Pull back the trim in the boot lid where you'd flip it down to change the lights in the boot lid. There should be a little sliver of foam near the centre/boot catch, slightly to the passenger side of the car, flip that back and there's a small ringpull. Pull that and it releases the catch.

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stevesuk said:

Clearly seeking attention and not being happy with a clean MOT pass... the car has decided to stop unlocking the passenger door via central locking. Only the front passenger door, and only unlocking (it locks fine).

From Googling, it seems likely to be the actuator that will need replacing? Is this an expensive part/job does anyone know? Easy to DIY?

My driver side stopped working and was the actuator. Took me about an hour being careful (probs a 15 minute job once you've done it once). Cost me £25 for S/H actuator off ebay from a BMW F31...

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Thanks for the update bodhi - stuff like this, swervin's dme and the door actuators all help keep our cars in shape! I think I spent more time cross referencing part numbers for what vehicles to work out what items from ebay I needed to purchase to get my actuator working again!

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Re: mpg.

I'm on a life average of just shy of 30mpg, I'll get over 30mpg on a run, and tend to avoid urban driving generally (although it still does some and tip runs etc.). To be fair, it's generally sitting at a fairly healthy "making progress" speed, so no real economy driving. Given the speed involved and healthy use of the right pedal, I'm quite happy with the economy to be honest.

g3org3y said:

. I know the subframe needs to be dropped for that. Would that disturb/affect the engine mounts at all?

Yes, you'd have to undo the engine mounts to lower the subframe from the engine to leave enough room to get the oil pan out. I have a new oil sump gasket and bolts waiting to be fitted, I also have some new engine mounts to pop in at the same time given the extra labour is minimal. I just haven't go round to it yet...! The oil loss is pretty minimal though, and the other day I found out the amount of leaking you can have and till pass an MOT is waaay more than I'd be comfortable with!

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Had my MOT on friday. I was quite proud of my 5 years in a row with a pass with no advisories. This time I had 6 advisories:

Repair as soon as possible (minor defects):

Central Front Upper Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view (3.2 (a) (i))

Monitor and repair if necessary (advisories):

Supplementary restraint system warning lamp does not illuminate (7.1.6 (a))
Nearside Front Brake disc worn, pitted or scored, but not seriously weakened (1.1.14 (a) (ii))
Offside Front Brake disc worn, pitted or scored, but not seriously weakened (1.1.14 (a) (ii))
Nearside Rear Tyre worn close to legal limit/worn on edge (5.2.3 (e))
Offside Rear Tyre worn close to legal limit/worn on edge (5.2.3 (e))

So non issues really apart from the airbag light not showing. Apart from it bl00dy does work - went to double check and airbag light does come on when you put the key in the slot...

So all non issues really (have new discs, pads and calipers ready to go on actually, and the tyres have another few thousand miles to go - and they're not actually that worn on the edge - it's actually quite even)...just annoying having a non issue flagged up. I did get complimented on the car being in good shape for 217k miles though!

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Yeah, I suppose at the end of the day I'm not worried about anything on the car and it's in good shape. I think from now in I'll mention it to the tester when I hand the car over.

Here's a little story about the car from the september.

I had a complete electrical meltdown in the Lake District whilst on holiday, at the campsite. Some fellow campers had a flat battery, and I was about and they asked if they could have a jump start - no problem I said...and er then failed to start my car. Fortunately my girlfriends car was also there, so jumped them with that, and went back to work out why my car was not functioning. I put some jump leads on, and got nothing... then the relays started going mental..so I crawled through the car and disconnected the battery as it was just not responding.


244 (01-09-2019) by Chris Reeves, on Flickr

It seemed like all the symptoms of the B+ cable recall that the E9x's have, but from 2007 onwards. I wasn't convinced, and had some basic tools with me, so between rain showers removed the glove box etc and got the fuse box. I couldn't see anything obvious, and no amount of fiddling got the car working, it was just have an electrical meltdown. I also worked out the reason my car isn't subject to the B+ cable recall to the fuse box is because it's a proper bolt down ring terminal for the power to the fuse board, and not a plug in connector that works loose - so that's good I guess!

I called it a day, and eventually managed to get it recovered, but it took all day despite phoning the day before, It took about 15 hours to get back home eventually, and the recovery truck got stuck. They were adamant they wanted to fix it there and then, but nobdoy in the area wanted to touch it, and they came out with a diagnostics machine and nothing else - so I have no idea how they'd get that to work given there's no power to any of the computers. The recovery truck had to get recovered too!


245 (02-09-2019) by Chris Reeves, on Flickr

I found it later that the recovery truck was probably overweight, and the strap rubbed through my paintwork which I wasn't happy about (had a 7.5T flatbed for the other half of the journey and they could strap a car up properly....) - fortunately it's small enough a touch up pen will sort it.

Anyway, when I got home, had a think, and started off with the simple stuff with a multimeter. I had 6V at the fuse box...so I went back to the battery, and got 6V there...which I thought strange given the battery hasn't had any issues before, no battery light and everything else seemed fine. So I took the battery out, put the multimeter on the terminals directly and got 12.6V!!! So I hooked the battery up to my CTEK anyway, cleaned up the connectors, and everything works!
Easiest fix ever, and if I had a multimeter with me, I'd have done that in the campsite! I hypothesis that I had the battery out ages back, and it was hot and humid, the sudden change of climate in the lakes and the car sitting for a few days meant some condensation crept in, just enough to cause issues at the battery...

So yeah, the car's in rude health, it's been given a clean and a protective layer of wax before winter (and sprayed all the arches etc. to protect them from the salt).


320 (16-11-2019) by Chris Reeves, on Flickr

Only thing now is to get some new tyres in the next couple of months to replace the Vredstein ultrac Sessanta's on the rear - they don't appear to make them or the Ultrac Vorti's in 255/40/R17 anymore, so I'm currently tossing up between some Eagle F1's or PS4's...

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Just bought 2 brand new Michelin PS4's in 255/40/17 for £240 delivered (still need to get them fitted, but chatting to my local garage in my village I've just moved to, they charge by time, so if I bring a couple of loose wheels with the weights removed and the valve core undone, it shouldn't cost much - also using my girlfriends hyundai as a guinea pg to see how what they're like!)

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JakeT said:

What wheels do you have, Zippy?

Those are style 188s which are 17" staggered. It came with some MV3's, but I'm gradually getting rid of them as I'm not really a fan..I have 3 left!

The plan had been to then use the 17's for winter wheels, and get some nicer 18s for summer (BBS CH-R, or the motorsport wheels that came on the 320si)..but I never got round to it and been rocking those 17s ever since I got them (which was mostly coz they were a good deal and came with decent rubber!).

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stevemcs said:

I don't see an issue with any of those advisories, they all seem perfectly reasonable. Tyres usually become an advisory at 3mm, brakes crop up all the time, its always the inside face of the disc that you don't normally see.

I don't have an issue with any of the advisories apart from the airbag one. The airbag one I took exception to because it's all working as it should and is an MOT operator error, not an error with the srs system! The others I was expecting - they're all standard day to day wear components that are being changed over the next few months anyway.

I always tend to give the car a quick once over before I present the car for MOT, so it's rare I get a surprise.


321 (17-11-2019) by Chris Reeves, on Flickr

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All this talk is making me look at the price of wheel balancers on ebay!

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Swervin - you seem like you're in for a penny, in for a pound at the moment! Top work.

Given I'm on 217k miles, and I'm pretty sure the bumper is original (had to replace a fair few of the fastenings on the underside!) - it's absolutely peppered, scuffed underneath, and has a very slightly misshapen bit from possibly anything.

It scrubs up well enough, and whilst the bodywork is fairly good and it's original paint all over, it's got plenty of stonechips and a few door dinks. For 14 years and 217k miles, it's petina - it shows battle scars, but still looks well kept, I'll live with it!

It looks a bit dated compared to a new M4...


200 (19-07-2019) by Chris Reeves, on Flickr

But holds it's own in your average eurobox car park...


235 (23-08-2019) by Chris Reeves, on Flickr

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Swervin_Mervin said:

Zips, yours looks bloody brilliant for almost 100k more than mine!

Cheers – I do think they hide their age well. I do prefer the front end of the pre-lci!

rallycross said:

This has just come up for sale rarer than a rare thing a 335i sport manual with an lsd already fitted - manual E91 335i are rare enough without also having the lsd,

Sounds like a nice car.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2...

That was up not too long ago…maybe it didn’t sell because the photos seem familiar.

stevesuk said:

Does the rear screen have a separate fuse or relay to the heated mirrors - or am I looking at a possible wiring fault?

Top candidate is a poor earth to the tailgate. (I don’t know much else beyond that).

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JakeT said:

Mine (and Zippys I think) have the Birds B3 suspension kit. I agree with your thoughts. It just seems to smear the tyres into the road surface.

Yup,

and combined with me replacing every single bushing possible on the rear end, it works very well! You'd have no idea of the mileage apart from via the odometer...! The way it let's go is outrageously progressive and communicative too - although given how good it is, it means I can't really push it to the edge of it's limits on the road as that's just a bit irresponsible and the fallout would be a bit much if it did go wrong (that's the only thing I miss about driving an under powered car - you really can go flat out!)

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So there’s a few rubber bits at the rear, mostly driveline and suspension related. Three main reasons I can think of for rubber smell at back of the car. Spinning up tyres (or overbraking I guess). Some rubber mounting bit of some kind on hot exhaust. Some rubber bit on driveline burning through friction of being caught up in spinning bits…

Don't think there's any hoses or pipes round there that could do that...

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Rubber doughnuts each end of the prop and the centre bearing has a good amount of rubber on it. Plus CV boots on the driveshafts.
I guess a rubber exhaust hanger mounting could have gone and flopped over onto the exhaust..?

Or you just picked up some road debris.

If alignment is way out on the back, that can cause issues that would generate a bit of heat on the tyres – but you’d feel that the handling was off.

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head right now.


I agree - I doubt it's the tyres - you can rule that out by feeling them for heat.

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JakeT said:

There's a rubber Prop Donut (Giubo) that connects the output of the gearbox to the prop. Else, not massively. There is things like CV gaiters and the like on the axles too. They're made of rubber. I'd be looking if an exhaust rubber has failed and is being cooked.

Great minds think alike

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chunkytfg said:

Finally a question for those of you who've DIY'ed a water pump change. How Grubby was the old one? I have no record of the pump being changed in mine and with it now being on 112k it's more than likely on borrowed time. However the one thats fitted at the moment is surprisingly clean! I would expect it to be a bit grubbier after 112k and 12 years!!

zippyonline said:

It wasn't showing any fault codes, and the car didn't hint of overheating - but there was an electrical humming when I locked the car up. I found it to be the waterpump using a stethoscope, and decided it was time for a change. When I took the existing one out, it had an '05 stamp on the manufacturing bit! I could also shake the shaft about.... New one in, no more electrical whining.
I also think the old stat was also stuck open - so it took a bit longer to warm up beforehand (although not as bad as you'd think because I mostly do longer journeys anyway, and the electric water pump helps with the warm up process).


140 (20-05-2017) by Chris Reeves, on Flickr

It wasn't too bad a job either - certainly compared to a few others.

Only thing of note really was that one of the connectors (the main stat one iirc) was quite a tight fit and took a bit of grunt to be homed in and clipped on 100%.

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Yes the LCI runs a wider track. This is done via the drive flange I believe when I was nerding around part numbers. So you could put a pre LCI drive flange in there to drop the offset (although this would ruin your wheel bearings at the same time, so you'd need new ones of them too... )

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The leaking fuel breather, I did change mine on a sloped driveway with just a couple of jacks and axle stands. It is a bit of effort going through removing exhaust, prop, handbrake cables, and finally the fuel tank (people say you can just lower the tank a bit, but I couldn't manage that. Someone else drilled a hole inside their car to get at the breather pipe connector - I completely understand why.

A new pipe is about £45 iirc, when I bought mine I got given a new fuel breather pipe, but it probably took me a year to get around to actually changing it!

Stupid thing is, its one of the easiest bit of preventative maintenance ever to stop it happening, jack up your car, take off wheel, pull out arch liner, put protective sleeving/conduit (there's a proper bmw part number for it) over breather pipe. Job jobbed.

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On the subject of oil, I tended to use Castrol edge 0W-30 which was BMW LL04 approved. I’ve since found out the following from Opie Oils.

“BMW have made a slight change to the BMW LL04 spec, and are also using a new test engine. The current BMW LL04 spec was due to run out at the end of 2018 but as Shell would have been the only ones to have the new BMW LL04 spec approval BMW decided to extend it till the end of June 2019 to allow other manufacturers to catch up. Most oil brands you will notice no difference, they will just be updating their existing oil LL04 approved oil to meet the new requirements and submit for approval. Castrol, for some reason decided to take the LL04 approval of their oils early, despite them still being approved till the end of June 2019 and came out with a new oil the Castrol Edge M that carries the new LL04 approval.”

Which in my case is the Castrol Edge 5W-30 M FST for the BMW N52 engine. That said, as far as I understand it, it’s only cars from July 2019 or so that will need the revised spec LL04 oil, so carrying on using the edge 0w-30 which no longer has the LL04 stamp on it will still lubricate my engine effectively (last time I did an oil change it turns out I had one bottle which says LL04 approved and the other wasn’t, but it was the same oil I’d bought, just revised packaging!).

There’s a nice list of LL04 approved oils here: https://www.opieoils.co.uk/c-686-bmw-longlife-04-e...