Straight six, rear wheel drive, take two - 2001 BMW 320i touring

A true gearhead... first thing he does when out of the hospital is caring for the car :)
 
Two laps on the N?rburgring Nordschleife completed, sticker acquired and applied. :)

Eye-Q_01.jpg
 
About 10:45 min each.
 
I changed the wheels today, I had winter wheels from my old 320i in the basement. I tried to do it myself, but the previous mechanic torqued the bolts down so much that with normal tools I wasn't able to move even one bolt...
So I went to a garage which had a slot free and they changed the wheels. This will be the last winter those tires are seeing, they are 7 years old and have 4.5 to 5 mm of tread left. Other than that, they are much more silent than the summer wheels. The summer wheels are 225/45 R17 in the front and 245/40 R17 in the back while the winter wheels are 205/55 R16 all round. They are much more comfortable, too.

 
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Well, my car developed a typical E46-fault: a defective window winder in the driver's door. When I opened the window last time there was a huge crack (fortunately not the glass) and I could hear a small part fall down inside the door. The mechanism which holds the wire for driving the winder to the sliding mechanism for the window itself has cracked. Winding down the window is no problem, when you try winding it up again it struggles but gets there eventually.

Since it's bleak at the moment I couldn't capture the broken mechanism so I shamelessly stole pictures from someone else.

Intact:


Defective:


BMW apparently only sells the whole mechanism although there is only that small part broken, it costs 120 Euros. I could get a used mechanism or reproduced spare parts, but they are prone to fail again so I searched for a solution and found one: someone had the exact same problem and developed a spare part made out of aluminium which is CNC milled. It costs 40 Euros so it's even less than a used mechanism, and it will last the whole car life.

I'll make pictures when I change the part.
 
The producer of the spare part apparently doesn't have the parts available so I have to wait a week or so - pretty annoying since I have to wind down the window every time I want to drive into the underground parking lot to put the key into the lock...

Well, to keep me busy (for 5 minutes) I bought new number plate holders which only clip around the top and bottom edges so from some distance it looks as if there is no number plate holder. It seems operation blacking out continues - at first the kidneys, now the white letters of the advertisement on the number plate holder...

Before:


After:


Yes, I know my car is filthy, but it's the rainy time of the year and I don't want to wash the car every 3 days...
 
In the last 1 1/2 months I didn't have to open the window so I didn't fix the window winder. Now that the second garage door where I usually drive into the garage is closed permanently (maybe just for the turn of the year) I have to open the window every time I want to drive into the garage. The weather is good today so I fixed it outside rather than in the dark garage...
 
I changed the wheels today, I had winter wheels from my old 320i in the basement. I tried to do it myself, but the previous mechanic torqued the bolts down so much that with normal tools I wasn't able to move even one bolt...
So I went to a garage which had a slot free and they changed the wheels. This will be the last winter those tires are seeing, they are 7 years old and have 4.5 to 5 mm of tread left. Other than that, they are much more silent than the summer wheels. The summer wheels are 225/45 R17 in the front and 245/40 R17 in the back while the winter wheels are 205/55 R16 all round. They are much more comfortable, too.
Today I went to a rim repair shop to assess the cost of refurbishing the Style 68-rims with the summer tires on them since they all have marks from contacts with the curbs. They said it would be impossible to just smoothen the rim flange and feed in the clear coat since the edge is rounded so it would be best to paint and clear coat the whole wheel. It would cost 570 Euros (about 780$) including VAT. I'll go to some other local shops which offer rim refurbishing to see if there is any which does it for less since that's a bit too rich for my taste... :-|

Additionally, now I know why the summer tires were so loud: they are hard as rock so I can already see the next investment in the car, namely a new set of tires. Front tires cost about 90-100 Euros per piece, rear ones about 120-130 Euros since I don't want some chinese no-name tire...
 
The day before yesterday the car received an oil change and a new cabin filter.

Today was the first time I changed the sparkplugs myself. :) While I was at it I changed the airfilter as well...

Before, the familiar engine bay:


Disassembled. You may notice there is more disassembled at the inlet manifold, I was trying to get to the last rubber gaiter before the inlet manifold since the garage noted it should be changed since it's porous, but failed since the screw of the last hose clamp is completely unreachable with normal tools:

To get to the sparplugs you have to unscrew the box for the cabin filter since the second screw of the two covers lies beneath it and the backmost two cylinders as well. The box is attached with four screws so that's no big deal, but you have to know it. ;)

Comparison of the old and the new sparkplugs (yes, the new ones are three Bosch and three NGK, the dealer said that's no problem):


Comparison of the old and the new airfilter:


I'm still undecided what to do with the rims. As I have two sets of M68-rims (bought one set shortly after the old car got rear-ended) which are both damaged by curb contact and I can't afford refurbishing a set and get new tires at the same time I'll get new tires for one set now and let the other set refurbish later in the year. When they are done the new tires will be transferred to them and I sell the damaged set. I don't think I'd get the investment of refurbishing back when I refurbish a set and sell it afterwards.
 
Because moneyz. Travem?nde - Helsinki return package for a car including 1-4 people is 750 Euros while I paid just 180 for the return flight. Driving to Stockholm was no option, too, since I was on my own, driving 1100 km one-way on mostly restricted motorways would have been tiring and fuel costs alone would have been more than 300 Euros.

Maybe next year when I can convince some other people from around here so the ferry Travem?nde - Helsinki won't be so expensive per person.
 
Because moneyz. Travem?nde - Helsinki return package for a car including 1-4 people is 750 Euros while I paid just 180 for the return flight. Driving to Stockholm was no option, too, since I was on my own, driving 1100 km one-way on mostly restricted motorways would have been tiring and fuel costs alone would have been more than 300 Euros.

Maybe next year when I can convince some other people from around here so the ferry Travem?nde - Helsinki won't be so expensive per person.

This is true, well I might be keen next year - we shall see! :D
 
In general, one should always bring a car from Germany to sell here... :p
 
This should be a start of a new annual event for FG :) Winter version of the ringmeet, so to speak.

Everyone brings a good car to Finland and flies back.
 
Yeah, no, not gonna happen in my case, except if I had a ridiculous offer beforehand... :p
 
And then standoff the seller when a better deal comes along..
 
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