What have you done to your car today?

Soldato
Joined
29 Jul 2011
Posts
15,603
Location
Near Northants / MK
Most summer tyres are woeful in snow to be fair.

Yes, and most snow/winter tyres are woeful in the dry in comparison, and not incredibly great in the wet.

I think the PS4S's are a good tyre, seem to be highly rated in the dry and wet and will be an improvement in the snow. I don't intend to drive in the snow if I'm honest I'll just work from home.

There are a few different types of PZeros, the ones you walk into a tyre shop and purchase are generally the god awful dangerous-in-the-wet ones.

To be fair the ones I had weren't. They're "track" tyres, well, that's how they're sold whilst being road legal. They're in the boot of my car now :p
 
Soldato
Joined
6 May 2004
Posts
5,991
Location
Fareham
Changed the screen in from the basic 6.5" crappy screen to a new 10.25" Android head unit. I like this because you can still use the standard BMW iDrive functionality and just by pressing and holding the Menu button for a few seconds you can toggle between the BMW UI and Android.

I also coded the car to support the larger display and allow split screen because you can't do that with the basic display.

I haven't played around with the Android side much yet, but everything seems to be good so far.


Before (top radio station):

iphone326.jpg


After:

iphone342.jpg
 
Soldato
Joined
6 May 2004
Posts
5,991
Location
Fareham
It's the Avin one, Android 7.1 version. Typically the 8.1 version with an upgraded CPU was announced while this one was on its way to me but I figured it wasn't worth the hassle of sending it back.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 May 2004
Posts
5,991
Location
Fareham
Dead simple to install, probably took about half an hour if that. Coding for the larger resolution wasn't strictly necessary as iDrive did still work properly before, it just had a stretched screen but there was no way I was going to leave it at that so it was another 5 minutes or so for coding.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 May 2004
Posts
5,991
Location
Fareham
No, I did want to give that a try but I didn't have a compatible dongle and an ENET cable was only about a tenner so I did it using that and E-Sys software.

Can't really see there being any problem with the warranty if you're just swapping the screen out and coding wide display. I suppose it might stop them from providing warranty on anything head unit and screen related but I'm not sure how that'd pan out to be honest.
 
Permabanned
Joined
13 Aug 2011
Posts
1,398
Location
Leeds
Had a lot of issues in the Giulietta (past week just after a service) regarding low oil pressure during idle and cold starts, also had a very heavy oil smell kinda like standing on a train platform!

Phoned the garage and they couldn't tell me the exact oil used, not good! Suspect it was random stuff from a large commercial barrel!

Drained the whole lot, very thick stuff.

Purchased some Shell Helix Ultra 5-30 with the correct fiat spec, new filter and engine cleaner.

Car is perfect now! Just shows the importance of using correct oil. I would have never of though it would make the car dog rough.

Company car owner for 10 years so privileged using main dealers. Will stay away from back street garages ha!!!
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Mar 2009
Posts
3,050
Location
North
I'm the exact opposite, dealers are the last place I would take any car to, they are staffed by spotty teenagers mainly where as my go to back street garage is staffed by a mechanic with 50 years experience.
 
Associate
Joined
9 Nov 2018
Posts
161
Location
Poole
Today----
Scraped frost.
Drive to Lidl, Tesco, home. 1.4 miles.
Wife drove to Sainsbury, home. 1.4 miles.
Still shows 42 mpg.
It's a Panda. That's what they do:D
Oh, she left the carpark ticket in the car. Drat. More work!
 
Soldato
Joined
26 Mar 2006
Posts
11,581
Location
United Kingdom
Advertised my focus st for sale. Old owner who I bought it off decided he wanted to buy it back. Left a deposit so it should be going next week.

Really liked the car and spent a small fortune on it but there was something about it I just couldn’t gel with and I still haven’t figured out what it is.
 
Caporegime
Joined
29 Jul 2011
Posts
36,342
Location
In acme's chair.
Advertised my focus st for sale. Old owner who I bought it off decided he wanted to buy it back. Left a deposit so it should be going next week.

Really liked the car and spent a small fortune on it but there was something about it I just couldn’t gel with and I still haven’t figured out what it is.

Huh... Didn't see that one coming!

Whats next?
 
Soldato
Joined
6 May 2004
Posts
5,991
Location
Fareham
I had my front tyres and TPMS valve service done a little while ago and the tyre fitter managed to break one of my TPMS sensors. He said that the previous fitter must have done the securing nut up too tightly over the valve stem or that it had corroded so it broke when he tried to undo it. He had to put a normal valve on that wheel temporarily. He attempted the other wheel and couldn't get that sensor done either, but he stopped before he broke that TPMS sensor.

Got a pair of used sensors for a half reasonable price though from the pic that one obviously needs a new stem and securing nut. Got the other one popped on earlier so no more annoying tyre warnings at last. You can see how good a job was done on my old sensor. The bit that the stem hooks in to has just completely broken off so it's useless.

tpms.jpg


Do you guys get TPMS sensor seals/valve stems replaced with every tyre change or just every so often? Just wondering if I should get the other sensor changed out since I assume it will break off if they try to change the seal and stem, or if I should just leave it until I next need the tyre done. It's holding air fine of course so I guess there's no need to worry about it yet.
 
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