Mo's automobiles.

[neanderthal]

Long time listener, first time caller.

I did a thing. Even though i've got two cars and a motorcycle here in Texas. I had to do it. 2013 BMW 535i.

I'd gone to see a 528i (2.0 liter 4 cylinder turbo) but they were doing some needed maintenance. I'd driven a Jetta and a Passat earlier and come away ... not whelmed. (Reason why i'm driving cars follows.) Sales man says "I hear you man, you want that same feeling of solidity and invicibility that your Benz has" and i was Yeah, exactly. He says, "I got you dude, try that one there, it's a 535i, but other wise similar to the one you came to see." Gets a copy of my drivers license and insurance, and gives me the keys.

I liked that car way too damn much. That turbo torque hits hard, and it pulls like a locomotove when you step on it. I came back in fucking love, but I wanted the 240hp 4 cylinder, not the 300hp 11 billionty torques turbo monster that is the N55 6 cylinder. I came back to drive the 4 cylinder the next day, loved it, but wasn't sold on the black paint (cars here in Texas are white or black, don't ask me to explain it!) Plus my Bilstein equipped E320 has a firmer (but not hard) suspension that felt better than the 528i. For $1000 more i'd take a fuel economy penalty and have to buy more expensive tires when the time comes. But the 535 had my preferable color and a less worn interior. Plus the venerable BMW straight 6. SOLD!

3872


So, still got the OG BMW 2002 still in LA at my buddy's house.

I've had a 1995 Mercedes E320 sedan since about 2010. Lovely car, but ...
Got myself a Honda Africa Twin in 2016. My brother wrecked it. I liked it enough to get another one, 2017, only difference was the color. Loved it. Some lady decided she didn't want me on that bike and rear ended me while I was on it. Ruined it. I really liked that bike. Did I mention that? Well, I bought a 2018. This time the only change was, you guessed it, the color. Love it. Been riding my motorcycle almost non stop since 2016, which means the E320 has mostly sat. Outside. First in the So Cal sun then in the Dallas Texas sun. Paint got burned. It looks a mess now.
But I chanced upon a 1991 Mercedes 250TD; wagon, diesel, 5 speed. The so called unicorn. Snapped it up in late 2020. Not a turbo, so slow us an understatement.

N E way, my 95 has an inoperable drivers window. It's stuck in the down position and has been for about a year maybe. I took the door card off to see how easy it is to replace, and yeah, I could do it, but it requires drilling out three rivets that hold the bracing for the door mounted mid/ sub woofer. I really don't want to go buy a drill just to drill 3 rivets then never use it again. So I haven't. It's also got a broken left front signal lens, inoperable sunroof, headliner that's started sagging (the hot Texas sun melted the glue holding it on!) needs brakes, and will probably need a new transmission soon ish. The transmission surges between shifts, a tell tale sign according to the Mercedes afficionados online. Meh.

N E way, my brother was driving my wagon while I was in ZImbabwe recently and messaged me "dude, something is wrong with your car, it lost power steering." It's an old diesel, so the only thing it really could be is that it ate the serpentine belt. No biggie. Took it to the mechanics, they replaced it, drove home.
Suddenly it was pissing oil everywhere I parked it. I mean aggressively marking it's territory. Parked it. No biggie. I ride the bike most days anyway. Only really drove it to go do my laundry at my cousins. No biggie.
But, I don't know if you remember this, we got snow last week. Not the best weather to ride a motorcycle, even if you have the gear to do so. Got the old girl still, E320; haven't donated her. She didn't want to start so I took out the battery and charged it over night and throughout my day off. Rode the bike that last day with good weather, then drove. The bike didn't want to start. Took out the battery and charged it. Installed it, but it didn't want to start and ran funny then died. Then didn't start. Check engine light.

Drove the old car that day and the next day in the snow. Window down and errthang. Coming back that second day, ABS light comes on, airbag light comes on, dash lights dim. Fuck, either the belt (still got power steering, so not likely) or the alternator is gone. Car died as I was parking.

So i've had to ... assume some debt. I hate being in debt. I like this car more than I hate debt apparently.

[George]

I like this car more than I hate debt apparently.

Congratulations! :up:

And condolences. :(


cars here in Texas are white or black...

It's so they match the license plates.

[neanderthal]

20/ 30 fuel economy with 24 combined. Ha, you haven't met me have you.

First fill up before they hand me the keys and the estimated fuel range is 407 miles. Not bad.

By the time I got home, 20 miles away, my estimated fuel range was 420. And I wasn't hyper miling, I was in the fast lane driving conservatively, but maintinaing fast lane speeds in that evening commute traffic, which was just north of 70mph. It was still saying 400 miles DTE when I got to 3/4 tank.

I dislike the visibility. Compared to both my W124 Mercedes (the one right next to it,) it's a fucking dungeon. But the W124 Mercedes are a bloody green house compared to anything new. The window sill is a bit high. The steering wheel has a thinner rim than i'm used to. Getting out is a bit of a chore over the seat bolstering. There is a tangible difference between the sport setting and the comfort setting on the suspension. I think sport delays upshifts in the transmission as well, holds revs longer, donwshifts quicker. Also the stop/ start system has a harsh engagement when you take your foot off the brakes and it engages.
But a smooth 2200 rpm at 80mph while getting 40mpg is nice. That ZF 8 speed is super nice! I've raved about it in my rental car rants.
And, it was a smokers car. :| I didn't notice until this morning, 2 days after the fact (do I have covid, is that what happened? Coz I didnt detect a whiff of cigarette smell when I test drove it.) So I have to find a detailer and have them ozone bomb it

[neanderthal]

Congratulations! :up:

And condolences. :(

Word. After about a year of making regular payments for this current motorbike I detested that monthly dip in my pocket, so I started paying ~$1000 month instead of $153. Paid that shit off in seven months. We gon have to do something like that for this too.



It's so they match the license plates.

:lol: You ain't fuckin lying!!!!

[JoshInKC]

(cars here in Texas are white or black, don't ask me to explain it!)
I have noticed this exact same thing - Seems like down there it's about 65% white or black and another 20% silver or flake gray, with the remaining 15% for every other color.

[Yw-slayer]

Nice purchase, mate.

[CudaMan]

Congrats! How many miles on it? The N55 is a great engine. I would have liked to find a 335i in my budget when I got the N51-powered 328i.

The Jettas and Passats I've gotten in rental roulette have been among the worst driving cars. I'm kind of surprised every time because they *seem* nice enough for their price.

[neanderthal]

I have noticed this exact same thing - Seems like down there it's about 65% white or black and another 20% silver or flake gray, with the remaining 15% for every other color.

I get white, for the heat in summer, but I don't get black, for that same heat!!!! And it's that majority of cars that are those two colors.
Now that I think about it, the area that I live in McKinney (and most of north Dallas really,) only has one typical color of home; red brick. And it's so tired. Every bloody neighborhood is the same repetition of slightly different shades of red brick, and all with "traditional" styling. It's so hard to find a nice modern looking house in black and white.


Nice purchase, mate.


Cheers mate.


Congrats! How many miles on it? The N55 is a great engine. I would have liked to find a 335i in my budget when I got the N51-powered 328i.

The Jettas and Passats I've gotten in rental roulette have been among the worst driving cars. I'm kind of surprised every time because they *seem* nice enough for their price.

115XXX miles I think. Really nice car.

The VWs are strange in that they go down the road quite nicely, but they don't feel substantial. I drove a 2020 Jetta with a 1.4 liter turbo and it was nice, nit character less. The 2012 diesel I drove was not remarkable, but had a DSG transmission, and I was leery of buying a car with high milage on a first of it's series transmission.
The Passat was just meh. Spacious, but meh.

[neanderthal]

"Right rear lamp failure." Dafuq?!?!?! This came up on my dash a few days ago. On Thursday I drove to Houston to a BMW dismantler and sourced myself a jack, lug wrench, spare wheel, and had a RR lamp too.

The dealer called me to come in to get it inspected; prior to the sale, they'd installed a part and the car needed to be driven 100 miles before the OBD could enable testing (or something like that) so I took it in. Now, I hadn't replaced the RR taillamp. Coz it's been cold, and i'm a fucking wimp when it comes to cold weather. The tail lamp is a two piece thing, theres a light cluster on the rear fender and one on the trunk lid. The trunk lid had half the cluster out, as in not lit (and of course the fender mounted part was also not lit!) and the second the replacement taillamp was installed, the half of the inner lamp cluster that was out, was lit!!!!

Took it to a car wash afterwards (even though it was raining today) because they offer detailing, and my car needed a ozone bombing to get rid of the mild, but noticeable smoke smell from the previous owner. I didn't notice it afterwards (we'll see when it has been closed up all night, like in the morning.) Hope to get good weather soon, have it detailed, and maybe get it ceramic coated too.


I fucking love this car. Modern cars are a whole new world for me. They are so quiet, barely perceptable when idling. Heated seats are a m a z i n g in cold weather. DON'T have to wait for the coolant to be warm to get heat in the cabin. I prefer the heated seats to the heater now. The steering wheel is heated too. BONUS for those really cold days.

Needs tires. It's got 4 different ones. Had no spare but that was recently rectified. 245/45R18. Expensive ass tires. I'm partial to Michelins, but i'm balking at the $1100+ price tag for Cross Climates. Kumhos can be had for ~$600. Highly rated ones all season touring tires at that. Michelins have NEVER disappointed me. If it wasn't for the monthly pickpocketing payment coming soon i'd probably just go with the Michelins.
It may also need lower control arm bushings; no vibration from the brakes when I gently brake (to slow down rather than stop, for instance) but i get vibration when i have to stop vigorously.

Been watching the walnut blasting videos. :eek: Probably will install a catch can to avoid the worst of it going forward.

[neanderthal]

Local breakers didn't have the same wheels in stock. So yes, I drove there and back. I also like the solitude of a long drive/ ride.

[JoshInKC]

Yeah, the combination of heated seats, wheel, and remote start that I've had for the past several years makes me really wonder how I survived winters back in the old days.

[Yw-slayer]

I mean, we were all younger back then.

[Godson]

We survived by complaining about how cold it was.


Some of us bundled up, some of us ran out and started the cars prior to leaving.

[neanderthal]

No remote start (:erm:) on this but some youtubers have done it to theirs. That'll be one of my first mods. Usually i do tint followed by stereo. It's not summer yet so no hurry on the tint. Stereo's fine, may need new speakers though. I have sometimes got a buzzing noise in the speakers when playing certain songs.

[neanderthal]

Yeah, the combination of heated seats, wheel, and remote start that I've had for the past several years makes me really wonder how I survived winters back in the old days.

I'ts bloody glorious is what it is.

[neanderthal]

I mean, we were all younger back then.

Younger, stupider, more broke.

[neanderthal]

We survived by complaining about how cold it was.


Some of us bundled up, some of us ran out and started the cars prior to leaving.

My 2002 needed you to stay in the car and sorta feather the throttle to keep it running on cold mornings. So I never went out there to start it/ warm it up, I just bundled up. Once that was fixed, it was nice to go start the car, go back in, shower, eat some cereal, and then leave, and the car was idling nicely and gave immediate heat.

[CudaMan]

For a long time the Cuda didn't have a choke on the carb, so I had to hold it at like 2k RPM for what seemed like 5-10 minutes on winter mornings before it would idle. Winter being about 35F at its coldest once the sun was up; I have no idea how that would have gone in a real winter!

Mo, Bavsound may have a plug and play upgrade for your car. I recall something about modern BMW speakers having unique impedance or wiring harnesses or something. I would have done it to my 3-series but it has the base base audio which is a much harder upgrade path for some reason. Luckily the sound quality is actually pretty reasonable and I'm happy enough with it as is. I'm not as finicky as I used to be with car audio (a blessing!). Home audio quest still curses me. :lol:

Edit - oh yeah, the modern touches have their perks. I get in any other car now on the highway and I'm thinking: how do you even have a conversation right now? Still, no replacing the earlier more connected driving experience when that's what you want. (90s and earlier).

[neanderthal]

For a long time the Cuda didn't have a choke on the carb, so I had to hold it at like 2k RPM for what seemed like 5-10 minutes on winter mornings before it would idle. Winter being about 35F at its coldest once the sun was up; I have no idea how that would have gone in a real winter!

Mo, Bavsound may have a plug and play upgrade for your car. I recall something about modern BMW speakers having unique impedance or wiring harnesses or something. I would have done it to my 3-series but it has the base base audio which is a much harder upgrade path for some reason. Luckily the sound quality is actually pretty reasonable and I'm happy enough with it as is. I'm not as finicky as I used to be with car audio (a blessing!). Home audio quest still curses me. :lol:

Edit - oh yeah, the modern touches have their perks. I get in any other car now on the highway and I'm thinking: how do you even have a conversation right now? Still, no replacing the earlier more connected driving experience when that's what you want. (90s and earlier).

Yup $695 plus installation. But that is 5 speakers, and 5 tweeters, I think. So it's not a terrible price. I may just change the door speakers and see what effect that has on the sound.

[neanderthal]

Anybody have a good recommendation for a dash cam. Didn't want to start a whole thread.

I don't think I need one, but cute lil baby jesus, drivers are stupid out there!!!!

[Godson]

I run with a Garmin 66w and it has been more than sufficient for it's purchased purpose.

It has also saved me a lot of time, hassle, and money.

[George]

I've been wanting one (or two) also. I dropped by a local car accessory store a while back but all their dashcams were more expensive than I thought they'd be and had to be hard-wired into the car, according to the man behind the counter. I want a no-frills version that just plugs into the lighter power outlet on the dashboard so I could move it between cars, remove it from sight when leaving the vehicle, take it on a trip to use in a rental car, etc. My current car is the first I've had with a power outlet for the rear seat passengers and I thought that would make adding a second camera for the rear window very easy.

There's a list of Best Cam Recommendations at https://www.reddit.com/r/Dashcam/, but I haven't really educated myself on what's available.

Since I started writing this post, I remembered my favorite electronics store, www.microcenter.com, and just checked their site. They sell dashcams, which I did not know, and they have a store in my area. I'll have to drop by sometime soon and take a look. They have a store in Dallas, also.

[George]

I run with a Garmin 66w

Here's a Garmin 67w at microcenter: https://www.microcenter.com/product/640617/garmin-1440p-dash-cam-67w-w-voice-control,-eyewitness-incident-detection-and-extra-wide-180-degree-viewing-angle-w-16gb-memory-card

The viewing screen on the back seems like a good idea. I've read anecdotes online in which people claim to have shown police officers their dashcam video at the scene of an accident. Apparently you can do that with a smart-phone and a camera that uploads to "the cloud", but it seems simpler to have a screen on the camera itself.

I've also read comments such as "never volunteer that you have a dashcam until the other party is done lying to the police." :lol:

[Yw-slayer]

I'll write more about this later as my post got lost. But in the meantime feast your eyes on the idiocy of drivers here. Updated pretty much daily.

https://youtu.be/-fLmhxhH4fU

In fairness to the dude above, it's pretty boring here nowadays.

[Yw-slayer]

OK, as you have probably guessed, many people here have dashcams. This is not because of insurance fraud (which is rare, although it does happen, and remains hilarious when caught on dashcam). But rather because if you own a car here, it means you need it and hence drive a lot hence need to ensure that if it's someone's fault you have proof, and/or you can afford one and hence have enough money to spend on a dashcam (given that our petrol is also amongst the most expensive in the world). Also, in-car installs are the majority since (unlike in parts of Europe or the US) people won't bother smashing your window to steal your dashcam, or even your phone (unless perhaps it's clearly a latest-model iphone or similar). Our criminals generally spend their time and effort doing lower-risk and more profitable stuff, like organised crime.

The main high-end wired-in brands (especially for are Blackvue, Thinkware, and iRoad. They produce good stuff, especially the higher-end models. They don't have a screen but are more discreet. The older model Blackvue I had, the sensor went bust after 3-4 years of exposure to the blazing sun while parked outside on Sundays. But the later models of these brands seem better able to deal with heat. The video quality is good. No internal screen but usually you can connect via Wifi and download the video onto your phone, and/or pull out the SD card and play it on something. Obviously one arguable disadvantage of the wired-in brands is that they are exposed to heat on the dash etc. unlike the plug-in models.

If I'm going to drive abroad, I always take a burner plug-in camera with me. The first was a random Transcend which I picked with a screen and dual-camera - front and inside of car. I chose it because I was more concerned about insurance fraud/robbery while abroad (here, only 2 of our cars have front/rear latter being external). I also thought it would be fun to do timelapses of internal journeys. It lasted me a good 3-4 years of trips before it conked out, which was fine for something like USD100. I bought a cheap-ass no-name model from a shop with similar stuff and it conked out within 2 hours of my first using it in Ibiza, so I got a friend to bring a random-ass (forward-facing only) HP model to her when she joined us, which was fine. I have never tried the Garmin models as they just can't compete with the huge number of options here, but with the Garmin branding at least there's going to be some level of quality.

So, in summary, with dashcams I think you do get what you pay for in terms of sensors, longevity, etc.

I'd add that if you're going to get one installed, make sure the installer knows what he/she is doing. A poor installation could cause friction with other wires that could lead to minor, or even major, problems. I wouldn't skimp for the sake of saving a bit of dosh as I suspect it'll eventually come back to bite you in terms of time or hassle.

[neanderthal]

For a long time the Cuda didn't have a choke on the carb, so I had to hold it at like 2k RPM for what seemed like 5-10 minutes on winter mornings before it would idle. Winter being about 35F at its coldest once the sun was up; I have no idea how that would have gone in a real winter!

Mo, Bavsound may have a plug and play upgrade for your car. I recall something about modern BMW speakers having unique impedance or wiring harnesses or something. I would have done it to my 3-series but it has the base base audio which is a much harder upgrade path for some reason. Luckily the sound quality is actually pretty reasonable and I'm happy enough with it as is. I'm not as finicky as I used to be with car audio (a blessing!). Home audio quest still curses me. :lol:

Edit - oh yeah, the modern touches have their perks. I get in any other car now on the highway and I'm thinking: how do you even have a conversation right now? Still, no replacing the earlier more connected driving experience when that's what you want. (90s and earlier).

I've been watching youtube videos about upgrading BMW sound systems and ran across a guy who got them from aliexpress. (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001653044980.html?aff_fcid=ee527a3b7b7d40ce851 869380d431194-1647754851213-00281-_ArOKiX&tt=CPS_NORMAL&aff_fsk=_ArOKiX&aff_platform=shareComponent-detail&sk=_ArOKiX&aff_trace_key=ee527a3b7b7d40ce851869380d431194-1647754851213-00281-_ArOKiX&terminal_id=00a10cea9be445bcbbfe573ea7cb806c&afSmartRedirect=y) Worth a shot to see if you can upgrade yours as the price is much less dear.

The cut outs might already be there, possibly even the wiring. Some of the kits come with factory grilles too.Take a look.