Thursday, 21 June 2007

40k miles / MOT passed / new rear brakes / some classic cars



First two pics are ex police Pord Capri 2.8 and Talbot Sunbeam(Alpine?) recently seen outside the GMEX in Manchester for a police conference , I was just out for my lunch :-)

Second is the 40,000 miles milestone !!!!


And just after that it had to go in to Williams BMW because it was fast approaching the cars 3rd birthday.
Decided it was time to get the rear discs/pads/shoes replaced, lazy? me? yeah probably. I will attempt to replace the fronts later on myself though honest!


Third pic are my new rear discs :-) Yum , only job is to have the wheels back off and paint the bits that will just get rusty.

Just for you folks , the bill is below ......





another 'quick' £500 :-(

Once again top marks to Williams BMW , polite , courteous , effective , this is my second visit and so far I'm very impressed , they even put my plastic sill back on properly :-) that I had recently damaged. Phoned me about replacing the rear shoes for the handbrake , and of course the car came back with no extra marks.

On top of that I went to the bodyshop part of Williams to get a quote for chips/damage etc, and they were top notch too. Car will probably get put back to 'perfection' in the next month which would leave only the wheels as not up to 'john' spec :-)

On a personal note its a good week, my lovely nieces birthday this weekend , and a former work colleague gave birth to a lovely baby girl this week :-)


o and my car passed its MOT lol

take care
J

Tuesday, 5 June 2007

39k miles / stupid mistake .....



There you go , 39500 miles on the beast......

Oh and the small matter of 'stupid' here managing to hit a large boulder on the drive!!!! At first I didnt think much of it ....... until I got out........
Oh well these things happen and it just means i will be getting the door fixed quicker than I realised.
[perhaps even get stonechips on bonnet/wings blown over if it isnt too costly]

Sill panel itself looks easy enough to respray.

TODO =

1. Extend BMW Warranty for this year
2. MOT for car
3. Replace rear discs and pads (I hope to leave fronts for time being)
4. Get door dent and sill repaired
5. Get wheels refinished by Pristine Wheels

Tuesday, 8 May 2007

bm3w day / bsb / mr2 pics

Finally got around to putting the pictures up.....

MR2 just some clean car pics



BM3W day , the pics



and yesterday the awesome BSB @ Oulton park



Enjoy
car @ 39100 miles , indicator reckons 15000 to next service which is the Inpsection II biggie! which will be @ around 54000 miles.

Saturday, 28 April 2007

M3 Oil Service / BM3W day @ Thorney Motorsport

ok time for an update

Oil service @ 38500 miles

Car went into Williams BMW Manchester for the first time ever.
Car has 38k on it , and its an oil service only.
My first experience of Williams BMW is very encouraging.
They phoned me to discuss my rear brakes (which to be fair are awful but something I will get done later). Car was washed (to a high standard) and no more dings/scratches appeared :-) (which is always a worry when the car goes into a dealer)
So for an oil service + fuel filter change (requested by me) the total was £305
Rear springs were checked and OK
I requested the filter change to hopefully reduce the really bad stutter the car had just before I took it in. Transition from light to full throttle was poor.
It was a long shot that Ive seen work on the BM3W forums , and it fact it has made it 75% better ! woohoo , still there but reduced greatly.

For the future its an MOT in June(£50) and new brakes all round (at least £750).....
Oh and the renewal of the warranty (£1000)


BM3W forum day @ Thorney Motorsport

Attended this today , a superb day with a whole host of fab machinery

Lots of E46 M3's , CSL's ,Z4M, M5's new and old , Porsche GT3 + RS and an Aston Martin :-)

Plenty of dyno runs (sadly not me :-( ) and some great hospitality.
Lots of pics to follow........
Car ran like clockwork there and back and returned 29MPG (even allowing for some high speed fun on the M6 toll , is it really £4 these days !)


enjoy the good weather
JohnO

Friday, 6 April 2007

new BMW M3 official final pics

BMW site is up and running for some of new M3 stuff :-)
new M3 configurator



lovely , just wait till its 'lightly' modified , only real downsides are
a) price :-(
b) the super dull 3 series interior (even on this M car) , not a patch on the E46

Tuesday, 3 April 2007

Site Feeds / RSS and the like...

Been wondering for a while about 'site feeds' and rss etc.
Well yesterday KennyM a previous work colleague mentioned it and i thought it was time to go look..

Basically rather than trawling websites for new stuff , you wait for them to sent you the new stuff as and when :-) brill...

You can use a few readers but I have tried
Google Feed Reader
which is soooo easy to use and setup.
I already have a blog account , so hey presto I have also subscribed to other blogs for content feeds.

So far I have...

The Dilbert Blog

Martin Fowler's Bliki
Raible Designs
springSpringframework.org

James Gosling
TheServerSide.com

JohnO's Blog
the blue dolphin - Allans Blog

lots more to follow...

njoy