What did you do to your F10, F11 or F07 today?

[Andrew]

Paid my car insurance today!

It has gone up, like everything else, I take a crumb of comfort in the fact that in our Admiral Multicar policy, my BMW is cheaper to insure than my wife's newer Ford Kuga Titanium X AWD with a wheezy 1.5i in it. And that is with me having two no fault claims in the last 5 years.....

[F10-65]

Just got back this evening from my UK road trip for work.

Started from Maidstone in Kent at 3:15 Tuesday morning, straight up to Edinburgh city centre, 7 hours door to door.  Finished there, drove down to the Premier Inn in Berwick upon Tweed for the night.  Had me a Scotch pie and chips for me supper.

Early start next morning from there to Castleford then after lunch across to Wakefield city centre.  Another Premier Inn there for the night.

Early start again across to Liverpool for the day then home again to Maidstone.

Traffic here and there of course but nothing too major

1018 miles for the entire trip not including my little city sight seeing trips on my back seat BMX.

Took it really easy cruising at 75 so on target for 800 miles out of the tank.  Good going.

 

[Andrew]

9 hours ago, F10-65 said:

 

 

 

 

Back the truck up.

You put tomato sauce on chip shop chips?

Are you some form of animal?

Deary me.....

[E39mad]

Good mpg - I find keeping it at around 72mph on the speedo (70 mph on sat nav) pays dividends with the mpg.

Managed 54.8 out of mine doing 240 miles recently - trip computer said had a total of 825 miles to the tank. 

More importantly they are so comfortable especially on long trips

[Munzy]

@F10-65 These F10/11s get such good mpg when you consider the comfort, size and refinement of the car. 
 

My wife’s Qashqui 1.5 Mild Hybrid struggles to get 40mpg on a similar motorway journey and it literally couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding!  

[Munzy]

New rear pads, discs and dust shields to complete my full car brake refresh. 
 

Hilariously, you technically have to remove the rear hub just to fit the shield as it an enclosed piece. I took a pair of tin snips and cut a small section out and got it on easy. Except for the new 10mm bolts (from the dealer) that BMW now sell which seem to be made of something only slightly tougher than cheese. Head snapped off on tightening which I thought wouldn’t be a problem as the other 3 were fine, although tight to fasten up.  However the shield sits very close to the disc so has to be tight at all 4 bolts so as not to foul it. Getting the bolt was very, very awkward and I had to improvise as the hub flange stops direct access for an ‘easy out’ tool. 
 

Would highly recommend greasing the bolts for the shield first - did this on the other side and it went much better. 
 

Anyway, delighted with the look and having nice fresh brakes all round - she is looking great. 
 

Discs and pads are from EBC. Ceramic pads - always wanted to try them as they are supposedly less dusty, which I think they are but it’s difficult to tell with the darker alloys now, however definitely less comes off when washed or wiped. 
Discs have a lovely black anti corrosion coating on the exposed parts, the parts which always let a car down when they rust! Will see how they last over the winter. 
Performance wise the fronts have felt the same during normal driving but when I’ve had to really step on the brakes they do stop quicker and feel stronger than the BMW ones I had.  
 

(Although can’t help feel the rear brakes look like I’ve decapitated Optimus Prime and stuck his head on my car…) 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Munzy

[skyjawa]

5 hours ago, Munzy said:

@F10-65 These F10/11s get such good mpg when you consider the comfort, size and refinement of the car. 
 

My wife’s Qashqui 1.5 Mild Hybrid struggles to get 40mpg on a similar motorway journey and it literally couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding!  

I amazes me compared to my old 2014 335d and 330d, the F10 effortlessly goes above 40 even on shortish journeys and high 40’s very common on medium journeys.

[duncan-uk]

What are these numbers of which you speak!

That said over the 10k ive done in mine OBC says 29.3mpg - pretty tidy for a 300bhp petrol i'd say - i would have gone diesel but the good lady said no, we can't have another diesel, so i bought the fastest petrol touring instead.

[Andrew]

20 hours ago, Munzy said:

 

My wife’s Qashqui 1.5 Mild Hybrid 

I’d say that’s grounds for divorce.

If you drive with a bit of care @duncan-uk, you can see over 40mpg from the N55 from cruising at the motorway speed limits.

By the time I could safely take a picture it had dropped just under 40mpg

 

 

 

 

[duncan-uk]

You must be doing 60mph, at the legal limit ive seen 37mpg at best!

[F10-65]

My August trip is to Perugia in Italia via Padova and Rome.

Journey down through Luxemburg, Germany, Austria into Italy to our first stop in Padova to pick up Mama e Papa then onto Rome for two nights.  The apartment belongs to my cousin and has a garage so park up the Beemer and use his beaten up Panda for the city.  Then over to Perugia where we’ve booked a villa for a week with a pool with all the organic grub and vino grown from the local farm.

Kick off after work on the 17th… Can’t wait.

[RH27]

I didn't do anything special today, but finally bothered to do a brim to brim test on the car after owning it for almost 1.5 years.

All this time the trip computer was saying the car returned around 40-41 mpg. 

Filled up today at the local BP, trip computer was on exactly 599 miles. I filled up exactly 58.2 litres and to my astonishment, that calculates as 46.3 mpg. My mileage is consistent and so is my driving style, so there wasn't any point running down another 10 litres for more accurate results.

I was pretty chuffed to say the least!

N57 pre LCI 530d on 19inch wheels. Had it remapped a few months ago.

 

Edited August 6, 2023 by RH27

[Andrew]

It was out earning its E5 and LL04.

Getting rid of the old trampoline and the front shocks, which made a nice clang in the skip.

On 05/08/2023 at 13:45, duncan-uk said:

You must be doing 60mph, at the legal limit ive seen 37mpg at best!

Varied, 50, 60 and 70mph on the M8, M9, M73 and M74. But mostly at 70mph. 
 

I don’t speed, license is as clean as the day I got it, nearly 28 years ago…

[duncan-uk]

Neither do I. Suspect the touring is heavier. 

[duncan-uk]

Started to paint a side skirt. Caught mine on a particularly high kerb accessing a car park in Edinburgh last year. It’s bugged me for ages. Been waiting for a good used one in carbon black. Got one but not as good as I would like. Spent the afternoon filling a gouge and flatting back ready for some primer and another flatting before a top coat. Pictures to follow. 

[Andrew]

14 hours ago, duncan-uk said:

Neither do I. Suspect the touring is heavier. 

I suspect its the driver of the tourer is heavier......😆

[duncan-uk]

Keyboard warriors 🙄

[F10-65]

Tempted the weather this evening by giving her a scrub after work.  Hasn't seen a sponge since a month I reckon.  It just started to spit as i was running round with the chamois but held off.

 

Then I got my other transport out and popped to the gym

I would have cut the grass but we've put down new seeds.  wink wink

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by F10-65

[Andrew]

10 hours ago, F10-65 said:

 

I would have cut the grass but we've put down new seeds.  wink wink

 

Tut tut no rear red reflector.  I hope you only cycled to the gym on cycle routes and not the pavements or roads. 🫢
 

I gave up my BMX at aged 10 I think, gave up riding bikes at 17 for obvious reasons….😆

[Steve84N]

Changed my engine mounts yesterday evening. One poured out a dirty liquid, I think it was the oil from the mount but it was quite watery. The new ones have raised the engine a bit and got rid of the drivetrain shunt. 

I've been chasing a rattle in a can type sound hoping it was various things. Nothing I've done has fixed it but I finally noticed the belt tensioner is bouncing and sometimes rattling off the lock stops. This could be my noise. I've already replaced the tensioner, idler pulley and belt. From what I've read the likely culprit could be the alternator clutch pulley. 

My pulley is a different design to some of the more recent ones that have a multi-spline and a torx for for holding the shaft. It looks like it's just a 17mm allen with no way of holding the shaft through the middle. It's also very rusty but I assume what I can see in the middle is the end of the shaft thread? 

Could someone take a picture of their pulley if you've got the allen socket? 

 

[Andrew]

Mine being an auto N55 has no OAP/OAD clutch on the alternator, just a simple pulley

But you can easily see on mine that the alternator shaft is a hex, with a standard nut over it.

You need one of these kits, with a large hex bit that is hollow to allow a smaller sized socket to pass thru to hold the alternator shaft.

You'll want the adapter out of one of these type of kits.

https://ffx.co.uk/product/Get/Draper-31921-5010559319213-Expert-18-Piece-Alternator-Pulley-Tool-Kit

 

[Steve84N]

Thanks @Andrew, that makes more sense seeing yours. I can just about make out a hex shape on the shape of the shaft but it's in very bad shape. I can't even get a 17mm hex socket in the hole at the moment with all the corrosion.

This is my exact pulley but it's out of stock worldwide and at a guess may not be restocked... https://as-pl.com/en/p/AFP6067(KOYO)

The newer style pulleys have the 33 spline socket and torx in the middle. Whether I could get a hex socket inside a spline one I don't know, probably not. 

I'm now wondering if I have to just get a new alternator but even that is tricky because it says up to 2012 and afterwards. I haven't worked out the difference yet as mostly the ones for sale at a sensible price are for post 2012. 

I've got a T60 bit coming later so I can get the belt off and feel each part, just in case it is actually the tensioner pulley despite being new.

Getting fed up with the amount of problems now... I wanted to get the car back up to standard and to then be largely trouble free for years but it's proving difficult to get there. 

[Munzy]

7 hours ago, Steve84N said:

Getting fed up with the amount of problems now... I wanted to get the car back up to standard and to then be largely trouble free for years but it's proving difficult to get there.

Almost getting the same feeling here. Last summer I did a front suspension refresh and hoped (other than routine maintenance) that would do me for a while, at least a couple of years. But this summer I had the leaky coolant problem and hassle with the brake shield making me question how much patience/cash I have knowing that, at 152k, at any minute or as preventative I need to at least be thinking of:

- drive shaft guibo(?) rubber thing

- diff mounts

- engine mounts

- cylinder head and various oil gaskets

- track rod ends

- coolant pipes

- turbo

- shocks (VDCs are £500 per corner!)

- (whisper..) timing chain

and countless other things age related.

However I've learned to just enjoy things when they are going well with an older car - if I'm worried what's going to happen when she  is running fine and then worried when things do go wrong (as they DO with all cars) then I'm never enjoying my gorgeous F11 530D. And I'm now to old to worry all the time - just going to enjoy when skies are blue 🙂 

[Steve84N]

@MunzyI've already done quite a bit on your list and mine still has things on it...

I've got all the parts for a full brake refresh/upgrade. Next year I ought to do rear subframe bushes, rear control arms, conrod bearings, walnut blasting. 

Think I might need two new tyres. I swapped the rears to the front but the inside edge was already heavily worn. It now seems to have a grumble/hum at speed which I believe could be the odd tyre shape. 

[Andrew]

14 hours ago, Steve84N said:

conrod bearings,

As in part of a full engine re-build?