Tales of a C3, a Goddess and some BMW's.

vince · Unread post by **vince** » 17 Jul 2010, 23:26

Look forward to seeing you there Richard....
As for which car to take....thats an easy one....and you know the answer

THE DS

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 21 Aug 2010, 00:45

A rather delayed update

I've just returned home after a very hot couple of weeks holidaying in Kos which has been experiencing a heatwave, the lowest temperature overnight was 27°, daytime was high thirties in addition to being unusually humid so I spent quite a lot of time running for cover in air conditioned area's

To assist in keeping me cool I discovered that by wedging a bottle opener and knife into to the electric enabling socket in our room I managed to keep the A/C continually running in our room so that whenever we returned there it felt like a coldstore

especially when I set the temperature to 18°, at times Dawn had goose pimple's showing on her arms!!

Just prior to going away I bought another car, a C5 2.2 Exclusive SE estate, unfortunately the old issue of going into limp home mode due to emission issues raised its ugly head several times so the car went straight back to the dealer a couple of days later who gave me a full refund including the tax I'd put on the car so I couldn't complain about the service at all. What I did discover was that C5's are a rather unusual device in that the driving experience feels very remote and possibly more remote than any other car I've driven (which is quite a few) feedback from the steering is minimal in the extreme. However the sunroof on an estate is massive (andmcit eat your heart out) and possibly essential if you're looking to buy one, unfortunately they were an option on the phase 2 models (which I'm now on the lookout for) so are a rare find.

Whilst I was away I left my Airedale terrier dog Barney with a fellow dog walker I've met up with in the local park for year's and had left him with her last year when we went away on holiday. However when I went to collect him I had the shock of my life, for some bizarre reason she'd taken it upon herself to give him a haircut and strip him of his hair. She claimed it had been done in a grooming parlour but there is no way anyone who had held a pair of clippers in their hand previously could have made such an awful job to the extent that he now has now facial hair at all

I can only conclude she's had a "funny turn" or is a "Bunny Boiler" I'm now left with an Airedale who used to look like the fine pedigree he is but now looks like a complete mongrel, words such as angry and furious don't even come close

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 29 Aug 2010, 22:30

I'm still hunting for an automatic estate car, after finding it impossible to find a decent C5 Exclusive at sensible money I decided to widen my options by looking at BMW 5 Series, I viewed a 3.0i Sport yesterday which appeared to fit the bill and agreed a price with the seller who is buying a new Golf. However he phoned me this evening stating that he's been quoted a delivery date of 20th December and wants to hold onto his BMW until then so I'm back to square one and still on the lookout.

I'm wondering whether I'm being given a message from above as I can't recall ever finding it so difficult to locate a car and twice now when I think I have, the deal has fallen through. In addition just after looking at the BMW my estate threw its toy's out of the pram in disgust by way of the drivers window regulator snapping off the plastic lug causing the glass to fall down into the door, when this happened it was just starting to rain so I had to jam the window in place by wedging a screwdriver against the glass to avoid a soaking.

I thought I'd have a spare regulator at home in my spares stash but I discovered that as my estate is a late 99/2000 model the design changed from earlier models leaving me no option other than to use silver duck tape to hold the glass in place overnight until I could source a replacement making the car look like a right old pikey motor. After trying all the local breakers yards and finding them closed for the bank holiday W/E I phoned a good friend of mine somewhere up the M1 who thankfully had one in stock so I popped up to collect it and have a good natter

vince · Unread post by **vince** » 30 Aug 2010, 11:06

Seems like your having a run of bad luck there Rich,

I cant believe someone had the audacity to cut your dogs hair!! thats just nuts...especially with it being a pedigree

At least it grows back

If your looking further afield for an auto estate...thought about Volvos? plenty are autos and are great cars to own if you but sensibly. I loved mine before running costs forced it on.....850 T5

Is it worth fixing yours up? sometimes its better the devil you know

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 30 Aug 2010, 21:10

vince wrote:I cant believe someone had the audacity to cut your dogs hair!! thats just nuts...especially with it being a pedigree At least it grows back

If your looking further afield for an auto estate...thought about Volvos? plenty are autos and are great cars to own if you but sensibly. I loved mine before running costs forced it on.....850 T5

Is it worth fixing yours up? sometimes its better the devil you know

Tell me about the pooch thing, call me a snob but I'm now embarrassed when I take him out

I wouldn't mind if he was a mongrel but considering his pedigree (his grandfather "Captain Fantastic" is the American, English and Italian champion) and how much I paid for him, its very galling to say the least, when I left him he looked like this

Hmm Volvo, I don't know whether I could own a Volvo, I struggle with their image. My estate is fine, likewise with my V6 but running five car's is rather expensive and with it looking as if I'm likely to be retired relatively soon I'll be losing the parking space in the garage at work where I presently keep my VSX so I need to trim my fleet, Dawn doesn't like driving manual car's so I'm looking for an auto estate to combine the V6 and estate into one car hence the search.

Today I popped over to a car show at Littlewick Green, other than my DS there were two other Citroën's a 2CV van and this real size version of "Brum" to say it has patina would be an understatement! The floorboards were, well floorboards

interestingly enough loads of people were taking a close look at the car which I thought was wonderful as needless to say there quite a few "Pot hunters" polishing away, some even erected a canopy over their car even though the weather was fine

Unread post by **CitroJim** » 30 Aug 2010, 21:42

Is that the little Citroen 5CV Richard?

Made especially for lady drivers according to the history...

It's cute

Mostly they were yellow although a tad brighter than that one when new.

Citroen only made them for a few years and discontinued them in favour of the larger vehicles they were making at the time even though the little 5CV was a big seller.

It was, history recalls, cheaper to make the bigger cars using the new Budd pressed steel system than it was to make the 5CV. Bigger cars, more profit for Andre...

Citroen then didn't make a true small car again until the 2CV came along...

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 30 Aug 2010, 22:14

CitroJim wrote:Is that the little Citroen 5CV Richard?

I'm not sure without looking it up, it was certainly a basic car, no speedo just an ammeter, the tyres were heavy duty motorcycle tyres

the photo flatters its condition by some distance.

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 02 Sep 2010, 23:13

My search for an automatic estate car is finally over after doing a deal on a mint condition E39 BMW 530i Sport touring in black with cream interior loaded with toys and a service history to die for. I'll have to wait a week or so before I can pick it up as the seller needs to arrange a cherished number plate transfer. Needless to say the ride is a bit firmer than my HDi but its a hell of a lot quieter especially with regard to road noise, the rear suspension is self levelling via air bags, hopefully they'll be reliable as I know they can pop leaving the car looking like a Auistin 1100 with one side of its suspension collapsed

Oh and that smooooth straight six lump with loads of grunt, unfortunately I'll be visiting the petrol stations twice as often as the Xantia but at least on cold winter mornings they'll be no waiting for the heater to warm up as it has a storage heater.

vince · Unread post by **vince** » 02 Sep 2010, 23:19

Nice one Richard, my brother in law has an E39 estate with self levellers on the back. His did fail and he ended up at BMW....horrific bill

Im sure yours will be fine though

Unread post by **CitroJim** » 03 Sep 2010, 07:33

Great stuff Richard

I hope the cherished transfer goes as smoothly as mine did. Are you attempting a double/simultaneous transfer of numbers?

Storage heater? What's that all about then? Sounds like a very sensible idea

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 03 Sep 2010, 19:40

CitroJim wrote:I hope the cherished transfer goes as smoothly as mine did. Are you attempting a double/simultaneous transfer of numbers?

No I'll do it after I've bought the car as it would be a little complicated as the donor/recipient car needs to be registered in the same name when the transfer is done and as the chap I'm buying the car from lives the opposite side of London I can't be bothered running back and forth with the paperwork as it'll delay when I can pick up the car, personal plates are a bit of a PITA when you change car's.

Citrojim wrote:Storage heater? What's that all about then? Sounds like a very sensible idea

I'm not sure exactly but along the lines of residual heat being preserved in some way or form, when I get my hands on the beast I'll let you know how

Unread post by **myglaren** » 03 Sep 2010, 20:47

DickieG wrote:
Citrojim wrote:Storage heater? What's that all about then? Sounds like a very sensible idea
I'm not sure exactly but along the lines of residual heat being preserved in some way or form, when I get my hands on the beast I'll let you know how

SAAB had a system a few years ago that used a ceramic exhaust that retained much of the heat generated while driving and released it slowly to keep the engine warm for the next mornings start. This was for slightly sub-arctic conditions of course.

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 19 Sep 2010, 20:59

I picked up the BMW 530i on Tuesday evening, the drive home was uneventful and a recorded MPG of 34+ put a smile on my face although I can't believe the consumption will remain at that level in normal day to day driving. With the dark evenings starting to close in combined with feeling knackered I didn't get round to giving the car a thorough examination until yesterday when I changed the anti-roll bar droplinks and both front wheel bearings to overcome a slight rumble from the front end. Changing the front bearings on a BMW E39 is really easy in that the bearing comes complete with the hub attached which is then held in place on the hub carrier by way of four bolts, clever people these German's. Initially I bought one bearing from GSF but immediately returned it as the quality felt really poor, feeling very coarse and noisy even when being turned by hand, it felt worse than the ones I'd removed.

I'd noticed that the radiator had a slight weep on the body plastic side-tank about 1" away from the top hose, the strange thing about the leak was that it didn't leave a trace of dry/white coolant and when not leaking there is no trace of the split, I've never seen a radiator leaking in such an area but having done some research on a number of BMW forums it appears that leaks in that area are not unusual, common thinking puts the cause of the leak as being down to the length of the top hose being too short causing a stress fracture to the radiator body. ECP up the road from me had a replacement in stock so today I spent a couple of hours fitting it only to find that the design of the radiators top hose connector was incorrect by being 1mm too short causing a leak even when just filling with coolant. The coolant hoses are attached via a spring clip along the lines of those on some Xantia's but the design is much better in that each connector was made of strong plastic so they are easily removed without causing damage to the hose, the spring clip is also of a better design, easily lifted off and then locked in place on the hose end during fitment/removal. Tomorrow I'm off to ECP to do battle for a refund then source a replacement made by a different manufacturer, oh and buy some more coolant, I love it when these things happen (not) I've wasted several hours of my time and seen the majority of my fresh coolant fall onto the floor yet the best I can hope for is a straight refund for the radiator

At the moment I've still not had a chance to get to know the car as I never like driving a new car until I've given it a thorough going over so its just as well I still have my HDi to run around in, funnily enough I'm enjoying it so much I occasionally wonder why I'm bothering changing car's as apart from the drivers heated seat everything works exactly as it left the factory, yesterday morning it was rather chilly so I turned on the additional diesel burning heater which burst into life with a cloud of smoke and the roar of a blowtorch, proper boys toys

Citroenmad · Unread post by **Citroenmad** » 02 Oct 2010, 21:30

The BMW sounds very nice Richard, hopefully it will be hassle free for you. Its a bit of a change from a C5 HDI estate, though probably a better choice!

Are you planning on selling your HDI?

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 02 Oct 2010, 23:39

Citroenmad wrote:The BMW sounds very nice Richard, hopefully it will be hassle free for you. Its a bit of a change from a C5 HDI estate, though probably a better choice!

Funny you mention the BMW Chris as I've now had it for almost two weeks and driven it just three times which includes the journey home

the reason behind that is that with me being a fussy bugger I refuse to drive a car that's not running 100% in any way shape or form and in this instance it has been down to a wheel bearing rumble. I changed both front bearings which quietened things down at low speeds but I discovered that there was still a rumble above 60 mph so I've now changed the N/S/R one too which I'm pleased to say has done the job

changing it took a little longer as the driveshaft had siezed to the hub causing me to invest in a hydraulic hub puller and then a bearing splitter as I couldn't remove the inner part of the bearing and with the demise of decent engineering tool shops (such as Tunes Engineering in Slough) it meant that I had to wait for postal deliveries.

Full marks to ECP on the radiator return, I attended their Wembley branch and was given a pain free (no punch-ups) refund, then best of all managed to obtain an original BMW replacement from my local motor factors for just £130.

People moan about the lack of equipment on BMW's but there are many useful "unknown features" as most people do not read handbooks, how about being able to vary the time delay of the rear wiper, remote keys that are charged when the key is in the ignition, being able to open or close all windows via the key remote, having a indexed/dipping N/S mirror when reversing which is activated/deactivated by one flick of the mirror switch, memory position seats, mirrors and steering column which moves upwards/out of the way when turning off the ignition, the list goes on and (if you're really sad like me) the pleasure gained from understanding why there's a delay in the wipers when washing to allow for screenwash to hit the windscreen before the wipers move to avoid scratching the screen, or why there are two screenwash bottles (one contains concentrated screenwash), yes I do like BMW's as I've owned a number of them prior to discovering Citroën's as I'm fascinated by the attention to small details.

The only downside to my 530i is that its a Sport model which comes with firmer suspension but as I wanted lots of toys such as built in TV/Sat Nav which doesn't seem to be fitted to other models I've had to compromise.

I really did try to stay with Citroen but to avoid driving a snail, for an auto C5 it meant going for a 2.2 and having carried out extensive research on them it appears that no-one really knows the answer as to why the anti-pollution fault appears and cannot be cancelled. Whilst I could use my Lexia to re-programme the ECU/BSI to say that a FAP isn't fitted that really isn't my style and it would annoy the hell out of me, which goes some way to explain why I went to so much trouble to research and get the Ebersbacher heater working on my Xantia HDi.

Citroenmad wrote:Are you planning on selling your HDI?

In a word yes, once I'm certain my BMW is sorted out and I've changed the number plate over, the challenge for me will be to avoid shedding a tear as its been a great car for me over the three years I've owned it and I regard it as a good, trusted friend, yes I know I'm an idiot but I must reduce my fleet and this is part of the master plan

please don't ask what part two of it may be