cheap M3, whats the worst..

ill have to go back to the drawingboard regarding the diff then. the noise is not a good thing. would be nice if an oil could fix it.

however. i have put 100 miles on the car today. i got back lastnight at 0130 and was up and out again at 0700 to head to rainham.

people talk a lot about good garages and waste of time garages. ive always taken my cars to Elite as ive felt theyre bloody good. well they saved me a lot of hassle at the expense of a little embarrassment today.

the car was put in the air and within minutes the guy spotted a big mistake

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see in the end of the trailing arm there is a holder/bracket that bolts to the car, look at the orientation in that picture. the bracket goes "into" the car. i refitted mine wrong, ie pointing outside.

so we got spanners out and correct that then he went about sorting the geometry.

i had it set to 10 minutes at the front, 20 minutes at the rear, -1.5* rear camber. front is -2.2*

i paid and left and within 100m you could feel the car was totally different, i mean it had no resemblance to how the car drove before. the traffic was naff and i did a lot of town driving but in the couple fast roundabouts i did, it felt amazing.

i will be keeping oe spec for the suspension. the car drives so well, im not uprating or upgrading anything.

so thanks for your advice everyone regarding geometry, the hardware, the oils etc

i now have a e36 that goes and sounds nice when you put your foot down, feels amazing when you change direction.

im still a long way from the end but i will have an ace car at the end of it. the main thing is that its now on the road and drives like it should.

100 miles has netted c.25.5 mpg according to the computer with a real mix of driving

it appears i have a slight coolant leak but that can just go on the "things to do list"
 
Pretty sure it was 75w140 that I used in my diff, seems really good thus far. Never had any noises during slow turns though. It is a bit whiny at speed but you can only hear it if you are driving without the rear bench in.
 
My mates 03 plate m3 went for inspection 2 service last month and they found the rear sub frame was cracked. Had to get replaced at the cost of £5000. Luckily its a known fault and BMW footed the Bill. Awesome car though. I'd love to have one.
 
lol 5k is a ridiculously inflated price for dropping the subframe and welding up the floor. They are just saying that to make themselves look more generous than they actually are.
 
Clarkey said:
lol 5k is a ridiculously inflated price for dropping the subframe and welding up the floor. They are just saying that to make themselves look more generous than they actually are.
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They didn't weld up the crack they renewed the entire back end of the car. I imagine that is indeed a ridiculous price but it was done for free anyway.
 
maccapacca said:
That's ****** awful, is there a recall? shocking I'm actually gob smacked.....
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I believe its something that BMW recognise over here but dont really advertise the fact. I think in the US they were subject to lawsuits regarding it (although Im purely going by what my friend said when he was getting his done).

As far as I can tell if a good garage discovers it, they will push to get it replaced (with BMW footing the bill). Ill talk to my friend when I get to work tomorrow and ask him more about it.
 
Took it to work today, the car geeks swooned. Took it to a friends place after work and realised I'm either completely not used to having a "look at me" car or I'm getting really attached to it as ive not feet as paranoid about leaving a car in a slightly iffey in very long time. With plain looking vag stuff you know your car won't be noticed when its parked

With regard to iffey areas, two dead car batteries were pinched from my front garden today. Downside of living in a very quiet area, people can get up to all sorts and not be noticed :-(

Even when I get the CCTV sorted, what can you do about gyppos?
 
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