E46 Things

B C

After installing the front strut tower reinforcement plates and rotating the tires a few weeks ago I wasn’t certain I set the caster back to where it was before and I saw some slight cupping on the inner edge of the front tires. The car has driven and tracked just fine down the road but I figured i’d get the toe and caster checked.

This was my first experience at Big Bear and they were awesome! Jason showed me a few things that could be improved, checked and removed the preload from the front sway bar, and was just a great guy to tolerate all my questions and curiosity. I had the toe set a little less aggressively and camber reduced just a smidgen. The stability and feel is even better than before and the less aggressive toe will help with tire wear since it is not a dedicated track car.

B C

Some updates are not very interesting but I have not been diligent about keeping my usual maintenance log so I plan to go back through the thread and check dates and details once I make the time to update my actual log.

I forgot to mention I had a second CEL for the cats, P0420, which again I think is a fluke.

When I checked the CarFax for this car it shows both a DME reprogram (to decrease the sensitivity of the rear o2 sensors to prevent the CEL from being triggered like mine has twice) and airbag recalls have already been performed. The dealer is saying neither have been performed.

I dropped the car off at International BMW Monday night for the airbag recall, both driver and passenger airbags were replaced including the steering wheel horn pad which doesn't fit as nice as the original for some reason.

They also reprogrammed the DME and they confirmed it was for the premature P0420 CEL.

I pick the car up Tuesday evening. The 19 or so year old valet pulls the car up and stalls it right in front of me. I am quite perturbed and open the driver door to expedite his exit and was kind of a dick to him in stereotypical bmw douchebag fashion.

Me: “First day driving manual???”

Valet: “ uh, well I drove my dads truck before”

Me: *daydreaming of ripping him out of the car GTA style*

Valet: “beautiful car man”

Me: * regretting not playing more GTA as a youth*

Valet:

Me:

Demonstrating manual shifting techniques should be standard protocol as part of a BMW valet/lot boy job interview. He may have actually been the Mercedes valet, so manual transmissions dont really apply much there.

Fortunately the reflash did not disturb the M-Track mode coding. Its on a different module but I had read that if certain coding isnt done on 2 modules that it may be lost during a reflash since the other module acts as a backup/bootloader for a bricked/replaced module.

Idfk

/update

YoungCR

I taught a few other new lot employees on cheaper used cars from the lot haha. Ideally you hire somebody who already knows but since access to manual transmissions are becoming less and less you run into your situation. Thats what independent mechanics/race shops are for

straight6pwr

B C said:

Demonstrating manual shifting techniques should be standard protocol as part of a BMW valet/lot boy job interview. He may have actually been the Mercedes valet, so manual transmissions dont really apply much there.

yeah, par for the course, really. i went to a dealership the other day to look at a car. it was advertised on their website as a manual transmission.

i arrived to find an automatic.

in classic fashion, the dense salesmen said: "So you only want a manual? " instead of "I'm sorry we are idiots"

B C

straight6pwr said:

yeah, par for the course, really. i went to a dealership the other day to look at a car. it was advertised on their website as a manual transmission.

i arrived to find an automatic.

in classic fashion, the dense salesmen said: "So you only want a manual? " instead of "I'm sorry we are idiots"

"But it has tiptronic so its the same thing"

Boris3

straight6pwr said:

yeah, par for the course, really. i went to a dealership the other day to look at a car. it was advertised on their website as a manual transmission.

i arrived to find an automatic.

in classic fashion, the dense salesmen said: "So you only want a manual? " instead of "I'm sorry we are idiots"

Given that SMGs are pretty much always listed as manual transmissions on dealer site until you dig deeper, I've just started asking how many pedals does the car have two or three. Same thing when looking at interior pictures in FS threads.

B C

I gave Big Bear a thumbs up despite a minor goof during Saturday’s alignment.

They tried torquing down the strut brace while the car was in the air and broke the cast strut brace plate on the drivers side. They acknowledged their mistake and made things right. I installed the new one tonight.

Jdesign

Easy fix

Image result for super glue

B C

Busy evening

i_love_cars

straight6pwr said:

yeah, par for the course, really. i went to a dealership the other day to look at a car. it was advertised on their website as a manual transmission.

i arrived to find an automatic.

in classic fashion, the dense salesmen said: "So you only want a manual? " instead of "I'm sorry we are idiots"

I'm sad that the car was misrepresented and thus a complete waste of your time, but I'm laughing out loud at "instead of 'I'm sorry we are idiots'"

GunMetalGrey

i_love_cars said:

I'm sad that the car was misrepresented and thus a complete waste of your time, but I'm laughing out loud at "instead of 'I'm sorry we are idiots'"

I've had the exact opposite.
Car was listed as auto (I know, I know) and I show up to look at it and ask the guy why they haven't sold it yet, as it had been listed for a bit.
He told me they wont change the ad, so people keep showing up to buy it and some went as far as asking what the third pedal was for. It's amazing that some people don't even realize that a manual transmission exists...

B C

Replaced coil packs due to

-OCD

-I have felt a slight isolated random misfire on two occasions during light load cruising

- Random misfire codes stored on the DME despite the engine performing flawlessly 99.9999% of the time

-I had no idea how old they were and wanted to make sure a bum coil didn’t ruin my track day in September

Everything went swimmingly

The date code on the old coils shows 5 years old and matching that date up with the CarFax equates to about 35-40k miles which is newer than anticipated. I can say that startup and idle with the new coils is stronger and smoother than ever and I have some spares for my parts collection.

While everything was apart I found a missing firewall plug that was hiding up in my cabin filter tray. Glad to have removed a potential rodent ingress point