GTAMADDOG

The E46 finally went in for its MOT on Friday and... it didn't pass. However, it didn't fail on anything I thought it might fail on which was a slight win. It failed on a ball-joint on the front right. So I replaced the entire control arm on Tuesday evening (the hardest part was getting the undertray back on!), took it in for a free re-test Wednesday afternoon and now she's road legal for 12 months. It does need a wheel alignment though, so I won't be driving it much until that is done. Kind of want to replace the other control arm as well now as I can't imagine it is too far behind. Oddly enough, the suspension on the E46 is quieter than the E92 and it feels more solid, so I didn't actually realise there was anything wrong with it. Other than that, and advisory on a "fluctuating" brake disc which I was aware of. A slightly perished front brake hose which is fairly easy to sort. The other two were about it being undersealed and rear arches showing corrosion, both of which I'm very much aware of. If you squint, she's mint!

Thanks, both. I definitely remember your names! There are much better and newer cars out there, but I enjoy the feeling of driving something older than the norm and being able to fix most things myself. Excluding the E46, the E92 is actually one of the oldest cars on my street - I'll never be one for "keeping up with the Jones". The neighbour two doors down has a new-ish A43 AMG, but it doesn't appeal to me - its quick, but it sounds like a wet fart and is yet another overstyled blob in my eyes. I might consider one of BMW's last inline 6 turbo petrols (M140 or M240) when they're about ten years old as the styling is alright and I6 engine noises, then the U.K. will probably be taken over by EVs. I will have owned the E46 for ten years in January, so even if it manages to get condemned I'll just park it outside the house, keep it looking nice and celebrate ten years of ownership anyway.

I haven't posted here in ages... and neither has anyone else apparently. Looks like most people moved on (until Solar Crown, maybe?) as nowhere apart from the TDU section seems to get many posts now. Anywho and way, just dropping in for a car update - possibly a long post once I get going. Finally bought something 'new' in March. The E46 330d made it to 200,000 miles without any real complaint, then back in January (Friday 13th no less!) when it was booked in for its MOT, the rear brake line that runs across the back of the car decided to rupture on the drive while the car sat overnight. Got in the car the morning of the MOT... Hmmm, the brake pedal doesn't feel the same as it did yesterday and why is my foot now sinking to the floor. Poked my head under the rear wheel to be greeted with brake fluid all over the suspension components - great timing! MOT cancelled. Ended up ripping the old brake line out and fitting a new one with new flexi hoses to both rear wheels with the car on axle stands on my dad's drive (he's got more/better tools than me). Cleaned up the rear half of the car and applied rust converter and then Lanoguard to nearly everything. This was done over the course of a month and a half when we both had a tiny bit of spare time here and there. Still haven't got it re-MOTd just yet because... Early to mid-March I bought something I'd been looking out for, for ages. Another old BMW... an E92 335d. The M57 has been such a good engine in the 330d and obviously 46 x 2 = 92, so why not? Plus, quite frankly, I would be paranoid as hell if I bought a 330d with the N57 (timing chain snapping main bearing spinner) which is what you end up with if you buy a 325/330d built after mid-2008. 2009 BMW 335d M Sport Highline. Space grey with coral red leather. CIC Navigation and BMW retrofit kit for the audio system installed by the previous owner so it has an Alpine amplifier and upgraded speakers (and tweeters), oh and the A/C works which is also a bonus over the E46. It had some Triangle tyres put on the rear prior to sale which is a bit disappointing as it did has Pilot Sport 4S tyres all round, but those are now only on the front. The Triangles are getting interesting now because even in the dry I can feel the DSC fighting to put the power down in 3rd - they'll be getting replaced with a pair of 4S's or Eagle Asymmetric 6s before winter, I'm not an advocate of cheap tyres, but the Triangles were brand new and we were getting towards Spring/Summer, so I've ran them for a bit. Apparently, it had £900 of suspension and brakes just before I bought it, but I think all of that £900 went in to a set of Brembo discs and pads because both front shocks are.. not good and will be replaced very shortly. The E46 isn't going anywhere as quite honestly it is worth next to nothing with 207k on the clock and crusty rear aches (common E46 thing), plus my plan has always been to keep it and have something else to take the bulk of the miles. Every time I sit in the E46 I can't help but feel much, much more at home even though I haven't driven it properly for nearly 8 months.

Hopefully should be getting the keys to my first house (one on the left) in the next week or two. Nothing special, but I'm forever single and with my income it's the best I can do for now. Two parking spaces for the car to leak differential oil on to though, so that's nice.

Haven't posted on here in ages. Almost bought a late 2008 BMW 330D LCI back in May this year, but there was a problem with its history which I found through doing a car check even though the dealer said it was all clear when I was looking around the car - always do your own checks no matter what. To be fair I don't think he had done as indepth a check as I did so he was unaware and refunded my deposit no questions. Normally I'd do a vehicle check before even setting off to see the car, but experience showed that these E90 330Ds don't hang around when they're a decent specification. I also expressed interest in a house around the same time (my first home), so after the car ended up being a bit of a flop I just gave up with looking for another car for the foreseeable and as such I'm still rolling around in the E46 after almost six years. 166,000 miles now...

Nice. I keep getting tempted to buy one of those myself, but other things keep getting in the way at the moment, maybe around Christmas if there are some decent deals on one. Only interesting thing I've 'bought' recently is a Samsung Galaxy S9. After what must be seven or eight years I decided enough was enough with overpriced Apple phones with (in my opinion) tech that's behind the times or at best matches phones with a much cheaper price tag. I stayed with them until now because I liked the familiarity of iOS, but I decided it'll be interesting to get to grips with Android all of the customisation so apart from an iPod Classic 80GB which I will never replace (I genuinely love the thing, had it 10 years now and it still works faultlessly), I'm slowly ridding myself of Apple products. I have an iPad 2 as well, but that's become dog slow so it'll be getting replaced by an Amazon Fire HD10 or something in the future because I only need something with a decent size screen that I can watch YouTube/Twitch in bed with that doesn't take five years to load everything.

I was going to suggest something like a BMW 330e until you mentioned no hybrid, so I won't talk about it any more than that :p Don't shoot me down in flames, because I have no idea of about 90% of American cars, but have you considered something along the lines of a Infiniti Q50 or Cadillac ATS? I'm looking at the ATS at the moment on the Cadillac website after reading about some UK-based people renting them for a few weeks in the USA and them being impressed with it on the whole (coming from BMW owners, this is). Looking at the Cadillac website at the moment you can get an ATS Premium Luxury from $46K and they come as standard with Lane Keep Assist, Collision Detection, Blind Zone Alert, AppleCarPlay/Android Auto, rear camera, 10-speaker Bose sound system plus a load of other stuff. For $48K it includes the Driver Awareness Package which gets you the Adaptive Cruise amongst other things. However, I appreciate these aren't an EV (3.6 V6). I personally really like the look of the Q50s, but they apparently use drive-by-wire steering which can take some getting used to. Americans (and probably everyone on the forum) will no doubt laugh at me for mentioning everything above :p For something reasonably cheap and fully electric you also have the e-Golf, although I appreciate the Volkswagen name may well still be mud in the USA at the moment.

I enjoyed seeing so many Teslas when I was in Norway back at the beginning of March, certainly something different to look at. It must have been getting on for one (sometimes more) on every street when I was there, but reading about it the Norwegian government offer some decent incentives to get people to buy them over the standard petrol/diesel choices. In the four months I've been back in England I've seen a grand total of two of the things. Hoovies Garage on YouTube bought a Model S with 106,000 miles on it a couple of months ago. I'd say its a good job most of the work has been done under warranty on the thing previous to him buying it. Apparently no issues with the battery, but the touch screen and three of the door handles ($1K each) and the drive motor (twice) had to be replaced before 100K, but I think that was all to do with it being an early production car. I think I'd still like to have one one day, but I'll have to offset it with a V8 that I'll just leave idling while I'm out in the Tesla.

Drum and bass isn't my go-to genre of music really, but I really enjoy listening to this song as it progresses. Standard drum and bass beat, but nice varied switch-ups to the rest of the music. Quite easy to fall asleep to (for me) and gives the speakers in the car a decent workout as well :p

I'm not superstitious at all, but today has been a complete and utter nightmare at work. Started off OK, but 1PM until about 4:30PM was just rediculously busy and I was pretty much on my own. I don't think I could breathe for 20 seconds before I had another phone call coming in giving me another problem before I got chance to resolve the other 20 I already had. I don't normally do it, but in the end I just decided I had to let the phone ring and get on with stuff at around 3:30PM. Quite honestly if there are any complaints on Monday I don't care. The place is incorrectly staffed at the best of times and the manager's way of dealing with it is just to take the day off. If I'm called up on it I'll be giving the managers what-for and to be honest I'm prepared to walk out and not go back, I've been looking for a chance to leave anyway.

I've bought most of the parts already, it's just getting the time and inclination to fit them in the current temperatures. I've lived without the auto-lights/wipers (still work as if they were just standard lights/wipers) and lack of air conditioning for a couple of years now so I'm not fussed about those. I was pretty close to trading it in for an E90 330i (N53) a week ago, but those things aren't without their own problems either, so it's a case of better the devil you know for now I think.

To be fair she'll be 14 this year and I haven't had to spend too much on it up to this point in the scheme of things. I guess doing 300 miles a week is starting to take its toll a bit, but generally the engine is solid, it's just every sensor around it that wants to play up currently. Got the sidelight bulb done already so one less light on the dash for now, I've just got the DSC, brake and ABS lights to get rid of now :p I pretty much only take it to BMW to get an oil service done each year as it does have fully stamped service book with only one stamp not being a BMW stamp. Everything else I do myself including all filters, brakes, other engine stuff and suspension. I can do an oil service quite easily myself, but as it has a decent record already I'll keep it going while I've got the car. Regarding the mileage - I have no idea. I've read about a tamper-dot appearing on the odometer display when a BMW detects a mileage discrepancy which could be a pain if it does appear on mine, but I'll have to see when I hopefully get it all back to normal this weekend. As far as the ECU is concerned it probably thinks I've sat in the car revving it up and down for hours on end because the sensors aren't telling it anything, haha. It's probably bad to say, but all being well it will have 'only' done 300 miles more than the odometer shows so it isn't like I've shaved 50,000 miles off it like a lot of them will have had by now. Other problems include a leaky differential, auto-lights and auto-wipers don't work, the other front wing is starting to rust now so I'll have to get the replacement on at some point soon, the rear wheel arch is going rusty (common) and the air conditioning doesn't work (leak). Probably reads like a complete shed now after the photos I sometimes post of it :p

BMW keeps giving me problems at the moment, today I've had a sidelight bulb go out which is nothing really. In addition to that over the last two weeks I've had two ABS sensors fail, brake pressure sensor fail, EGR thermostat fail, rear top suspension mounts started giving grief and it has decided it likes sipping on oil as well when I've never had to top it up in over four years. Best part is the one ABS sensor that has failed is the one on the rear left which controls the speedometer, fuel gauge, MPG readout, trip computer and overall mileage reading. So I've spent the week driving around with no idea about what is going on apart from what revs the engine is at, the odometer doesn't even work and it has been sat on 146,356 miles all week despite doing about 300 miles. Ah well, next month its due two new rear tyres and a service as well so more money to spend on it.

Congrats on the wedding. I'm off to Norway (Bergen) in March for a short break, always wanted to go to Norway as I'm not particularly fussed about warm weather and sun and the place is just so picturesque pretty much everywhere you go. Plan to look at Bergen itself, some WW2 artillery placements that the Germans put up and naturally a fjord or two. First holiday I've had outside of the U.K. since 2010, so it's long overdue. I also potentially have a job interview on Thursday to do something completely different to the office work I've been doing the last eight years (kind of bored of it so GG to two years in college studying pretty much everything to do with computers). Flexible hours so I can commute outside of rush hour, half days on a Friday, no telephones and most importantly for me now that I really want to move out there's a fairly decent pay increase. Only downside is it's a few extra miles each way on my already 25 mile (each way) commute, but I may be able to car share one or two days a week, we'll have to see. If the above all pans out nicely then I may finally be getting my own home which is something I've wanted for a few years now. No actual new year's resolutions though :)