TriggerFish

No no - I thought the wheel shake was due to a weight. The deformation is what caused the shake (which was poor maintenance on my part). I wish I could blame it on a weight though!

It was bad. All because I had to replace my rear tyres, which had got bad. Really bad. I'm not proud of myself (but the bits I can see with a lowered car did look OK in my weak defense...) The massive deformation would explain my extreme wheel shake (I assumed a weight weight had fallen off).

Well, it was yesterday after being parked at work all day, but even so! It dropped to 37 (briefly) on the way home, but stayed at 38 for most of the trip. Who buys a car without aircon, and then specs leather seats? Leather's awful at the best of times, let alone when you can't cool the cabin!

A friend sold a FIAT 126 to a chap from Germany (after buying it from Poland himself). A truck turned up, the driver dropped off the money and all was well. I wouldn't let it put me off at all, I'd just be a bit more cautious. If they're paying cash though and the v5 is signed over, I don't see how it's any worse than selling it to a 'normal' buyer. Just make sure you take a walk around video of the guy getting into the car and driving off so that any damage that he might cause was clearly not on the car when you sold it.

I feel the pain. 330d is off the road having the wheels/tyres sorted out. The E30 has black leather seats and no aircon. It's hateful to drive in this sun/heat! (Seriously, what is the point of leather seats? Save a cow, save money, use fabric.)

That might happen I'm surprised too, and it's running a 3.91:1 diff, which is (I believe) the shortest of the diffs fitted to the 325i models, so others could well be lower. http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/index.php/Gearbox#Gearbox There's some nerdy stats for you! It also pulls from about 25 in 5th without issue - it's remarkably tractable compared to the 330d which works with a rule of roughly one gear per every 10mph. I've only driven a 325i e46, and that was very linear in the power delivery. Much like my rx8 - it never felt like it was gaining speed, but a glance at the speedo told you otherwise!

Wheel bearing replaced, noise still present. D'oh! It needed doing anyway, so no real hardship there, and saved myself a blemish on my MOT record I've also stopped the fuel leak with a full tank too, so I can finally fill it up without getting high of the smell of petrol for the first 20-60 miles! I thought it was to do with the removal of the charcoal canister. This emissions thing (that the PO removed) had a vapour pipe that ran from the engine bay to the petrol tank (via an expansion tank). I removed the pipe that ran the length of the car as it was rusty (MOT advisory), and didn't think it was needed. As it leaked when it was full, I first thought it was overflowing from that tank (given the routing of the pipe work, this seemed impossible to me), so I started looking into replacing the pipe. I filled it up yesterday and started looking properly before spending any money on new parts. Turns out that it was just the fuel level sender for the passenger side of the tank wasn't seated right, so fuel sloshed out as you cornered. Reseating it, and hitting it into place harder than before and it's problem solved.

Interestingly, my E30 with a 5 speed isn't too far off that at 70. I think it's under 3k rpm. That, however, does 23mpg average! At those revs (with my map anyway) the 330d is pretty gutless as there's no turbo. Once that's spooled up (~1.5-17k rpm) it starts to get going.

Replaced the diversity amp. Hello remote locking!

Ah, no. There is Pete's old worktop under the car catching any oil, and some of it propped up against the wall by my bike, but the kitchen cupboards have stayed as they are. Too much effort to change them, and they're not bad condition anyway.

Where you looking? There's some flooring I was laying (hence the saws). 

Intermittent grinding noise from the front right wheel had got worse and worse. Turned out to be the wheel bearing. A surprisingly simple job. I reckon it's about a hour or two's slow paced work. They come as a complete hub unit, so dead easy to change - no need to press fit bearings or grease them or anything. Happily, there's enough space in the garage to comfortably work on the car too. I'm just waiting on some new hub nuts from BMW so I can complete the job. (Another part that's cheaper from BMW direct than eBay!)

Who does? It's not often I agree with the Mail/Sun, but I do on this!

But... door cards... I used to fit 3 pairs of sunglasses into mine (until I had to get prescription glasses, and scaled back to one pair).

Another 50%+ vote for the Tories in Aylesbury. It's great to know I live in a town with a population that wants an MP who's pro-fox hunting, anti-corporation tax, anti-benefits, pro-income tax for lower earners, anti-gay, anti-abortion, doesn't seem to want to stop HS2 (despite there being biiig opposition from his constituents), and generally seems stuck in the dark ages.  I didn't think that we'd be able to go much backwards from where we were on Wednesday. Now we've got (provisionally) the same as before, but now they need to panda to the needs of a party with views dating back to the 1800s. Yippee. *searches for 'teach yourself Swedish' book and passport*