2019

A tale of 2 turbos…

Posted by Malc on April 24, 2019
Posted in: 2019, Misc, Tests & Reviews. Tagged: , .

Been an interesting month and a half, 430d was awaiting EGR recall parts, so Eastern BMW loaned me an LCI 435d for the first month of the wait. Very similar spec on both cars, but a surprisingly different driving experience.

So what difference does 1 extra turbo and 2 extra diffs/driveshafts make? Well, the engine and torque delivery really is quite remarkable, the internet folklore isn’t without justification. My god it likes to rev! Same core 6 cylinder lump but the 35d’s extra low down torque is very noticeable, it also revs way quicker and carries a very different engine note.

Never actually got round to sticking my vbox in to see what the acceleration figures were like to compare against my 30d. Equally, I can’t comment off the line, I’m not in to traffic light grand-prix and have never really believed in roasting the nuts off a car someone has been kind enough to loan you. From on the roll to legal speeds on motorways & dual carriageways however, the buttdyno confirms it’s definitely quicker, despite some internet theories of the 30d having nearly the same power to weight ratio.

Ride is not such a favourable review, however. The extra couple of diffs, well actually the transfer case, require additional ride height for ground clearance and that’s why I didn’t consider a 35d when shopping for my 4 series. From an aesthetics point of view as much as dynamics. You don’t have to push the car down a twisty road to feel the suspension is a bit more ponderous, the higher ride and more roll just don’t give the same feel even through fairly mundane corners. Also, on the motorway in cross winds, it’s amazing how much more it wanders with the additional airflow getting under the car.

An interesting comparison was pre-LCI vs LCI. Most interesting, to me, was the different feel of the gearbox. It’s the same ZF 8hp unit, but the LCI version seemed to engage “coast” mode far more readily. Now that I have my car back, I’ve noticed it operates very differently. In both the 435d and subsequent 420i I was loaned [more about that at some other point], at anything over 30mph in EcoPro, lifting would have the car go in to coast mode. The revs would drop to idle and the car was coasting with clutches presumably disengaged to enable this. When asking for some engine braking via the paddles, say slowing slightly for traffic on the motorway, the first pull on the paddle would actually bring the car back in to 8th gear, then you would start going down the box. On my 430d, the first downshift pull on the paddle, immediately pulls the box down a gear. I like this feature quite a lot and may well see if there’s a gearbox software flash update available for my car to put the LCI map on it.

Other notable differences and my feelings on them:

  • rear light clusters, LCI ones look great, another potential purchase…
  • indicator/wiper stalks, dislike, rather a lot actually. They have reverted to latching style indicator stalks and that feels like a backwards step, also think the pre-LCI buttons on the end felt nicer to touch. Wiper stalk, you now have to move up one latch for auto, vastly prefer just pushing the button on the end per the pre-LCI. Also is it not a bit pointless leaving the adjuster for intermittent speed on the stalk when auto over-rides it…?
  • iDrive, the more tablet style layout definitely has cool points, the info displayed is better, satnav route display is seriously cool. But at the same time, it’s added faff in some areas. Resetting the trip computer (when you haven’t left the car sitting long enough for autoreset to kick in) on my pre-LCI car is a push and a click. On the LCI you are click, scroll, click, push, push half back, click
  • Digital instrument cluster, wow, love it. Don’t entirely like the lack of rev counter on eco-pro mode but that’s about all I can say that’s negative. The amount of data on display without it being cluttered is excellent

Few things I missed about mine that were purely spec:

  • I know keyless entry is supposedly the devil and any kid with a scanner and game boy can steal your car, but my god it’s convenient!
  • Extended storage pack for seat back nets and luggage net in the boot, you don’t realise just how useful they are until you no longer have them

Caramics

Posted by Malc on March 11, 2019
Posted in: 2019, Car Care, Detailing, Tests & Reviews, Videos. Tagged: , , .

Car ceramics, Caramics, oh I get it.

Was meant to be fitting my summer wheels to the car this weekend but:

  • It was snowing
  • The roads are still being regularly salted
  • My cars going in for EGR check at the end of the week so could be gone anywhere from 1 day to 3 months and that’s a long time of someone else being in charge of not kerbing my wheels

So instead, I jumped in to Halfords and grabbed one of Auto Finesse’s Caramics kits to have a play with.

Piece of cake to use, pleased with the results. Now just need to wait ??? weeks to get them on the car and see how the coating stands up to real world use.

Video of how to apply if anyone is interested, mostly because I didn’t find out that was any real use on YouTube when I went looking

Snowfoam Sunday

Posted by Malc on February 24, 2019
Posted in: 2019, Car Care, Detailing.

Gave the cars some love today seeing as I had that rarest of things in my life, a Sunday off.

BMW was probably clean after just the Snowfoam but I gave it a hand wash as well, followed by some tyre shine. It got a proper wheel wash this time as well which it was crying out for. Polar Seal is still beading nicely after a couple of weeks use in the winter grime.

Then there was the Celica…

First up was a full (diluted) G101 bath from a trigger spray bottle. Not sure why I didn’t use one of my new pump spray bottles there tbh.

Then I broke out my new Farecla clay mitt to have another go at removing the bonded on paint primer and other junk.

The before, all manner of nastiness.

During:

The mitt was an absolute revelation. 15 mins solid on half the rear wing with clay didn’t even get it half way ready for polishing. 5 mins total with the mitt took care of the whole bonnet.

Then I gave it a go with Meguiars Ultimate Compound and my new DAS-6, my first time properly using the machine polisher beyond half the rear wing.

Bonnet was a good choice to start with, barely a flat section on it! Made a few rookie errors despite all the YouTube videos I’ve watched over the last week telling me not to; too much product, too much pressure stalling the polisher, lifting it off the panel before it’s done spinning etc.

Anyways, absolutely made up with the results:

The best illustration of how much improvement there is in the finish, is this comparison of the reflection on the untreated roof vs the polished bonnet:

Polar Seal of Approval

Posted by Malc on February 10, 2019
Posted in: 2019, Car Care, Detailing.

Bought some AutoGlym Polar Seal after seeing it on YouTube.

Car was filthy so gave it a wash then used the Polar Seal as directed. Spray on, rinse off.

Results were impressive, now just need to see if it holds up.

Bonnet immediately after washing

Bonnet after rinsing the Polar Seal off

Lnk cr b82rez 2g4

Posted by Malc on February 10, 2019
Posted in: 2019, Car Care, Detailing.

I guess you have to be a certain age to get what that title is all about, but anyways…

The Celica was looking a bit unloved, so with the MINI at the workshop, I had some garage space (turns out I didn’t but I’m done getting annoyed about the amount of stuff in there) and some weekend time.

Dead as a dodo. It got a new battery in February last year, before being used to conquer the Beast from the East’s snow, but not a hint of power. Tried sticking it on charge, my fancy digital charger just said “error” it was that flat. Gave it a jump off the BMW, soon as I disconnected the jump leads it died. Tried again and left both running for ten minutes this time, still died as soon as the lead was taken off. New battery added to the shopping list.

Now the lack of garage space didn’t matter as I couldn’t reverse it in. So I got out the claybar kit.

The paint on the car is dire. The mist of overspray means the paint feels like sandpaper and there’s also crazy markings that look almost like Damascus steel, where I used G101 to dissolve some bird muck and didn’t rinse it off properly.

These run off lines don’t come off with normal washing.

The outline of a box that was sitting on the sunroof when the overspray mist landed.

That’s a close up of just how bad the rear wing looks with all the overspray and bonded surface contaminants from the storage in the underground car park.

Turns out I already had a claybar kit, despite buying one on Saturday to use on the car. So now with more clay than an average pottery, I set about a section of the rear wing.

The results were extremely underwhelming. Despite 4 separate sessions with the clay, the paint is still awful. This was just 1 session and on an area less than a square foot.

There is a difference in feel, but it’s like 1200 grit vs 800 grit, visually there’s no real difference.

You can just about see where I haven’t clayed in the top of this photo

After a sulk, I decided to try something else. Cracked out a bottle of Meguiars Ultimate Compound and had a go at a section of the bootlid (the upwards facing surfaces are by far the worst). Now this was a different story, but bloody hard work!

So now I know the solution, just need to mentally come to terms with just how much elbow grease it’s going to take to do the whole car!