F32

All posts tagged F32

All the Errors

So I was just cruising along when…

Error! Error! Error! Error! Error!

Cruise control fail, ABS fail, stability control fail, pedestrian impact warning fail, rear impact warning fail, tyre pressure warning fail.

Immediate thought was actually something electrical had crapped out and it was shutting down systems but did a code scan and found the real culprit.

ABS sensor, front right.

This was on the wheel that had an advisory for a noisy wheel bearing last MOT, it possibly only needed the wheel bearing replaced to allow a better pick up but not doing the job twice so replaced both.


Front brakes were last changed during the car’s stint away for the EGR cooler recall. 3 years & 27k later, feel the prep of the flange face could have been better. Thats actually quite a lot of corrosion and the discs needed twatted with a hammer to release them.


Discs are serviceable but the back faces are suffering.


Inner hat on the discs got set about with a brass brushwheel on a drill before refitting.

Recess on the hub and bearing mounting face also given some wire brush love before reassembly.

After re-assembly & test drive everything showed fine on bimmerlink and no error messages.

Had a little deep dive in to a couple of menus whilst I was bothered.

DPF supposedly has 68k miles left in it. Hoping to improve that now I’m doing more regular commuting etc to help with natural burn off.

Battery at 57% isn’t a huge surprise, auto stop-start is very seasonally dependent on the car and I’ve long suspected that’s due to a slightly weak battery.

2 steps forward, 1 step back

Got the front tyres swapped over after the MOT advisory. Really annoying that one, should have pulled my finger out and sorted the alignment before given i knew it was out. The tyres both still had an easy 5-6mm of centre tread but the drivers outer shoulder was utterly pumped.

Went like for like with Potenza S001s and got an alignment done at the same time.

Unfortunately, washing the car the next day to get all the tyres fitting compound off, I found both rims had copped some lacquer damage. To be fair to them, they checked out pics taken before work commenced and acknowledged fault, cars booked in next Thursday for the wheels to be refurbed on their account.

Recent arrival of a new niece meant the year started with a chance for a decent run. Straight north up the A9 in freezing cold conditions and mostly in to a headwind to boot. Still good round trip to blow the cobwebs off.

BMW Rear Light Fix

My car has been intermittently playing the brake / indicator failure warning game for the last 6 months, but the bulbs were actually functioning fine. Then in the last 2 weeks, the warnings become permanent and the lights had actually stopped working this time.

Fixed it this weekend. Unfortunately the easy fix, 1 pin swap out, wasn’t viable as the remains of the disintegrated pin from the bulb holder was stuck in the connector, meaning it couldn’t be released from the plastic plug body. Maybe if you catch it when the error is intermittent, you’d get away with just replacing the bulb holder and 1 pin in the plug.

Mine ended up needing the new plug body, re-used the other 3 original female pins with 1 new pin from the repair kit and the new bulb holder.

One new 4 series bulb holder (left rear)
Plug repair / replacement kit; 1 x plug body, 6 x female pins, 7 x green grommets, 4 x blue bungs
Purple plastic slider locks the pins, pushing the little triangle in with a fine screwdriver or pick should release the pins
Unless the remains of the bulb holder male pin is still stuck in the plug’s female pin, in which case it’s a whole plug replacement needed
Stripped that a bit too far, really only needs 4-5mm exposed wire, definitely not the inch or so that half the folk on YouTube seem to prefer! Gave it a slight trim before crimping
One knackered bulb holder, 3rd pin in from the left is gone. Mostly inside the female pin on the loom plug
New bulb holder with correct complement of pins

How to, if you fancy a go yourself.

https://youtu.be/jFLu_xmG90Y

A tale of 2 turbos…

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

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