New Daily Driver - E90 328xi
-
What carpet extractor do you have?
I just rent the rug doctor from Home Depot. It comes with a handheld attachment. I'm sure there are automotive focused ones that would be nice to have, but it's like $40 to rent for 4 hours or something.
-
Bumper repair.
Could I have left this alone? Yes. Does it look better than before? Yes. Does it still bother me? Yes.
Just a temporary fix until I get an M Tech bumper next year and don't have a roached out bumper.
What it started as:
Disassembly:
As this being a temporary fix, I did what I could to make it look presentable, but not have this take multiple days. Used 220, 400, and 600 grit sand paper.
I chose not to use body filler with how flimsy these bumpers are and didn't want it to crack. And once again, temporary fix.
Needs wet sand and polish, but looks decent.
Polished up the side markers using the headlight restore kit.
M3 style trunk lip added.
Replaced the angel eye bulbs with LUX V4 ones. Tried my best to polish up the headlights, but they are still kind of pitted. Passenger side is cracked in the top, top corner. So it needs to be replaced anyway. Lenses look much worse in this picture than in person.
-
Got some new wheels. Style 193's from a coworker who was moving and no longer needed them, got them for a good price. They came on Michelin Pilot Aplin winter tires. I am planning on keeping these off until winter, running them with the winter tires, and then next spring, swap the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S's I just got onto them to be my spring summer tires.
-
Hadn’t seen the wheels on the car yet, didn’t have much to do today, so I did a test fit on one side.
Between these and the style 225’s, I think the E9X had some of the best M sport wheels. Looking forward to these being on the car full time. Just waiting till winter(currently on snows as stated in previous post).
Think I am going to do some ST coil overs next year to get rid of just a little bit of the wheel gap.
-
Those look great.
-
Our company made a deal to employees on house brand wheels too good to pass up on so, so I bought a set for winter. But after seeing how it looks, maybe I should have done them for summer.
I really like the black on silver more than I thought. Anovia Titans, 18x8.5 x 18x9.5 +35mm. Michelin Pilot Sport Aplin’s, 225/40 and 255/35.
How the currently sits. Style 193’s on Michelin PS4S’s, 225/40R18 and 255/35R18.
ST coil overs this coming spring more than likely, factory suspension is starting to feel a little loose.
-
Nice job on the bumper, looks much better
-
This car got a lot of love recently.
Full suspension refresh featuring Bilstein B8's with H&R Sport springs, strut and shock mounts, hardware, etc. Pretty much everything involved with the suspension was replaced. New wheel bearings at all 4 corners as they were getting loud for the past 2-3 months. New differential fluid, transfer case fluid, transmission fluid and filter(gasket and other hardware as well). New driver rear brake caliper as it was beginning to seize and drag. All of this was completed by @MPW3RLee, so thank you to him again.
In an event to entertain that I also can still swing a wrench, I replaced the serpentine belt, idler pulley, and tensioner. Not that there was any sign of failure, but I didn't know if or when it had ever been replaced, so wanted to do it for peace of mind. Belt ended up being dated 2011 so it was probably original to the car, but was in good condition. Same with the pulleys, neither of the bearings were bad, the idler did spin pretty freely though.
Nothing is easy though. While pulling the electric fan out, it snagged the coolant line that runs from the upper radiator hose to the expansion tank and ripped the nipple off the upper hose. Decent amount of coolant on the ground, sweet. By the grace of god, Auto Zone had a Rein one in stock in town and was able to replace it within the hour. If you have pulled a fan from one of these cars, you'll know what I'm talking about when it's almost impossible to not hook the hose when pulling this out with how much you have to twist the fan. Filled it up with just tap water as I did not have the correct coolant on hand, it wasn't a lot of coolant so I am not super concerned about it. I planned to do a coolant flush soon anyway. Bled the system 3 times. Bleeding with the electric water pump is super nice, just press the gas pedal and let it do its thing.
Car looks good with the slight lowering. I was throwing around the idea of a G30 540 next year when I was without the car for a couple weeks, but as soon as I drove and cleaned it after the suspension, bearings, fluid, etc. that I think I'll drive this for the foreseeable future. It looks good, drives good, does everything I need.
M sport bumper and Xenon's soon?
-
Glad you could get the part locally. I recently discovered O’Reilly’s and Fleet Farm aren’t stocking the Pentofrost NF anymore but O’Reillys does have this instead.
https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/zerex/zerex-1-gallon-blue-50-50-antifreeze-coolant/
-
Car looks classy, I really dig the 193s! Agreed don’t replace the E90, it’s the perfect daily. Relatively easy to work on, cheap to maintain, reliable, and the hydraulic steering feels great!
Mine has BC coil overs and I’m really itching to replace them with s bilstein kit. How’s the ride quality feel?
-
Glad you could get the part locally. I recently discovered O’Reilly’s and Fleet Farm aren’t stocking the Pentofrost NF anymore but O’Reillys does have this instead.
https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/zerex/zerex-1-gallon-blue-50-50-antifreeze-coolant/
Is this the "BMW approved" blue stuff? Pre mixed is also nice.
Car looks classy, I really dig the 193s! Agreed don’t replace the E90, it’s the perfect daily. Relatively easy to work on, cheap to maintain, reliable, and the hydraulic steering feels great!
Mine has BC coil overs and I’m really itching to replace them with s bilstein kit. How’s the ride quality feel?
Ride is great. A little firm on the big bumps and imperfections, but you would think it's OE suspension otherwise. Correctly sized/valved shocks and struts also make a big difference over just the standard ones or B6's. Great for daily duty.
-
Is this the "BMW approved" blue stuff? Pre mixed is also nice.
Yup! Same spec as OE, I guess G48 is the BMW name. Didn’t realize they switched specs in 2018 so maybe that’s the reason for availability changes too.
“This is the familiar blue-colored coolant that has been in use since the 1990s but is only approved for cars up to the 2018 model year. It's known internally as the G48 formula and is specific to BMW/MINI cars”
https://www.bimmerworld.com/Fluids/BMW-Coolant-Antifreeze/Genuine-BMW-Blue-Antifreeze.html
-
That coolant hose is a bitch. Blew out on me when test driving my wagon, and I recently bumped it while doing the angel eyes of all things and it bent enough to burp past the o ring in the line a little. It’s been fine since so it seems to have not damaged anything, but man is it fragile. It made a hell of a cloud when it cracked, that’s for sure
-
That coolant hose is a bitch. Blew out on me when test driving my wagon, and I recently bumped it while doing the angel eyes of all things and it bent enough to burp past the o ring in the line a little. It’s been fine since so it seems to have not damaged anything, but man is it fragile. It made a hell of a cloud when it cracked, that’s for sure
Pulling the old one off the radiator is also a major pain. It must have taken me 20 minutes of gently prying on the connector portion of it with a screw driver and just rocking it back and for in each direction by hand. I cut it in half to get a better grasp on it as the part that connects by the oil filter housing came off without issue.
-
Been there, broken that haha.
Fragile lil guy...Looking good on the new wheels!
-
Pulling the old one off the radiator is also a major pain. It must have taken me 20 minutes of gently prying on the connector portion of it with a screw driver and just rocking it back and for in each direction by hand. I cut it in half to get a better grasp on it as the part that connects by the oil filter housing came off without issue.
I’m liking the ease of working on this car so far except for the cooling system, which seems to be complicated and fragile for no reason. I’d very much like to go back to rubber hose and hose clamps, but I suppose that’s the way of the world.
-
I’m liking the ease of working on this car so far except for the cooling system, which seems to be complicated and fragile for no reason. I’d very much like to go back to rubber hose and hose clamps, but I suppose that’s the way of the world.
I did the E46 cooling system, which was not terrible, but is also made of out of tooth picks and gum. I am dreading having to do the water pump whenever that gives up the ghost. But all my hoses are still in good condition, still soft and pliable, so not of an immediate concern.
-
It was this cars time for the cup holder to be replaced. Last year I discovered the tab on the back of the assembly had broken, but wasn't an issue. I'm guessing with the now firmer suspension, things are a little more evident. Has been rattling a lot more recently, so it was time to be replaced. This is the $25 one from amazon. OE non BMW ones are $80 so figured I would give this a go first.
This is where you can see the difference of the tab and the broken off tab.
Finish is good, has the same soft touch rubber as the OE ones do.
Fit was a little wonky. The bracket on the left was a little too big, so I had to grind it down a little to fit. Even still, kind of had to push it in, where as the OE one just slides in nicely. First drive I didn't notice anything, but we will see how it goes. The cup holder does slide out much faster though, kind of shoots out as opposed to the OE one that gently slides out.
Also flushed the power steering fluid. I had the reservoir replaced when I had the valve cover done a year ago, but guessing it was just topped up with fluid and not completely flushed.
I'm not super familiar with power steering fluid wear rates, but I am guessing that this was probably ready for a change. There was really no indication that anything needed to be done, it was just something that was any easy fluid to replace and I had no record of when it had been previously done.
Brake fluid flush and coolant flush soon and then every fluid in the car should be replaced.
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login