Why is it some people have zero problem with some brands and others always have issues?
I have never had anything ever problematic with Hondas. Just get in and drive. VAG mostly the same - despite others always having issues with them.
For me it's BMWs. Whether hire car or ownership, they always seem to want to try my patience.
Last night I filled up the tank with petrol in expectation of using it today. On getting back the right hand indicator started flashing rapidly. But the front/side/back were all lit?
Well it turns out these have two indicator bulbs in the front headlights. I'm sure there is a BMW indicator joke in there somewhere.
Annoyingly they use a weird bulb that very little else uses. H21W. Ended up picking one up for a fiver in Halfords.
Fitting is through the wheel arch with a flap you can just about remove on full lock. Then a Philips to unlock the bulb holder.
Today I set off and went to the in-laws. As a way to persuade me to go, we took the Z4 and planned to go to Avebury. While taking the scenic route along the A4, I decided to push my luck and detoured at Atwell Wilson Museum instead. It happened to be drive it day today, so they had plenty of visitors. I'll do a separate post of that in a moment with photos I took.
Anyway back to the Zed which got to the in-laws fine.
The way back we went down the A34, along the A303, past larkhill and through Wiltshire/BANES back home. Along the A34 I had the Emissions light ping up.
Also noticed that left corners gave a worbling brake noise. Pull up the handbrake would stop this for a bit. So I'm pretty sure something in the handbrake shoe/cable mechanism is sticking. Tbh the handbrake always has been a bit mushy and doesn't hold the car great.
I hate dealing with shoe handbrakes on the driveway, so probably throw it at a garage to be sorted. Probably needs a clean up, adjustment and maybe a few parts replacing.
We got home fine and covered 187 miles. All in I've probably covered nearly 500 miles since I've owned it. Not bad considering its spent a week on axle stands.
Still, I came back to Engine light, bulb out light and dodgy brakes. BMWs seem to hate me.
In better news, it's indicating 36mpg. Which if true then is stonkingly good for a 6cyl. That's a mix of motorway, fast a-road and some b-roads.
Also the blower fan has been well behaved the whole time. So far it's just had cleaned up contacts and all put back together. I don't expect it to last as is. I plan to remove it again and hard wire it by soldering directly to the contacts on the hedgehog resistor pack. But I know that resistor pack is good and I can do it in confidence that it's very unlikely to need removing again.
What gave that light?
Hmm. Google suggests its often an intake pipe splitting. I pulled it out and it looked fine. 2017 date code.
What this does have is the pipe that goes to the firewall to parse on engine noise. It makes the 6cyl roar louder. While quite nice, it gets bloody painful at 5k+ rpm. This usually is only fitted to the 2.5 and 3.0. Almost certain it's been retrofitted on this. The clamp to the intake hose is Pearl which is definitely not OE BMW!
You can see the box just under the brace bar.
This has a diaphragm in it so it's not a direct connection between the interior and intake. Otherwise unmetered air would get in.
This isn't completely air sealed when sucking. Some air can get in. You do really have to suck though.
I'm wondering if this might be causing the code. I am tempted to remove this as it's a bit too annoying. Probably better on the bigger engines as you'd rev through it much quicker than this.
While I was there, I removed the throttle body and gave it a clean. I've seen much worse but it was dirty enough to make it worthwhile. Bit of a PIA to remove. Not TFSI awkward but still fiddly. Took me a good 20mins to remove and similar to put back in. An annoying bracket is in the way that was a fight to get past.
After
I've cleared the codes for now and I'll have to see if they come back. The front lambda I can see and it doesn't look that old. I need to check the paperwork and see if a decent brand was fitted. If it comes back, I'll do some more investigation. My suspicion is a vac leak somewhere.