What have you done to your car today?

Front wiper blades suddenly stopped working yesterday.

So I googled likely causes and a common fault came up for my model, the water drain holes block up and the area where the wiper blade motor is floods and causes the failure.

Low and behold I removed everything to gain access to that area and it was indeed flooded and had blocked drainage holes.

Unblocked the holes and cleaned the area, tested it was draining correctly.

Ordered a new motor so await its arrival next week.

I hope its a simple swap over of the motors and not other more serious electrical problems related to the wiper system.
 
Not just today but over the last two days I’ve driven it for 425 miles at an average of 29.1 mpg going to Bristol and back. It would have been better mpg but I was crawling at pretty much walking pace on the M25 yesterday for 45 minutes.

The M4 was nice and empty first thing this morning though.
 
Couldn't believe I got 48mpg driving from South London to Bedford last night, in zero degrees and reduced speed for snow. That's summer mileage!

Dodgy replacement car finally scores a point for itself.
 
Booked it in for a new tyre tomorrow due to hitting the mammoth of all potholes Christmas eve and it's been sat still since!
 
I went to start it up for its weekly run to keep the already failing battery from dying, I should really buy a trickle charger, and I had no fuel pumps, so that’s fun.. no idea why, I haven’t used it or done anything since it last started
 
Akagi said:
I hate Bosch blades, I think they're rubbish. They don't last 5 minutes before they're juddering and smearing all over the show.

I genuinely prefer the cheap knockoffs you can get on eBay.
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Lol.

My car came with Bosch blades when bought used. 1.5 years later and they needed replacing... That's assuming they were new when I bought the car which they probably weren't.
 
Never had a problem with Bosch here although I did go with the cheapest of the cheap on ECP this time just to see what they were like. Under £12 for the front pair.
 
Ordered 6x new (Bosch) fuel injectors for the BMW, worked out at £34.50 per injector incl. postage using the AutoDoc app and a code (SAM) for another 5% off. Cheers @mrk for pointing out that things are cheaper on the app, I almost forgot! :D
The cheapest I could find otherwise was £44 each on the website, or £46 each elsewhere but they are out of stock, leaving the next cheapest at something like £65 each. :eek:

So thats another £207 spent on it, but injector refurb places will pay £10 each per original injector, and I have 12 (1 random old spare set in addition to the ones in the engine), so in theory, thats £120 recouped! We'll see if that actually works out. :p
 
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How one thing lead to another.
Had a puncture last week and it took a few hundred yards to find a stopping place. Pumped it up and got home - Took car to tyre place and when they had tyre off he said it's knackered -Lots of bit's of rubber in there so ordered a new tyre -(£100) - They fitted wheel on next day -Fine . Went shopping next day and tyre pressure light came on so when got to car park got battery pump out and pumped them all to same pressure.
Got to off side rear wheel and it was hot -very hot.
So at 8.30 this morning my job today is take it to garage to have wheel off and check rear brake for sticking on.
A few years ago I would have done it myself but those days are now beyond me.

PS Just had a call from garage -New caliper- old one was stuck solid (so they say) Wish they had rung me as would have said do both. £185 lighter -just got to amble round and pick it up. :rolleyes:
 
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The day following the garage trip I had to go to Doc for a blood test - Got in the car to go and it wouldn't start -Could hear it turning over very slow - so jumped out and walked to Doc - Got back and put charger on and it registered 11.7v so put it on charge till 12.5v and it started first time.
Battery is about 5-6 yrs old so been testing it - Went out today and when got back connected charger up and it showed 12.2v - Will check again in the morning to see if there is a big voltage drop.
When I got it started I put multimeter on it when running and got 14.3v alternator charging.
To be honest the car get's very little use during these cold winter days so hoping it's just that after seeing other thread how much a new battery is these days.
 
This is definitely battery killing, or battery depleting, weather. I had an AGM battery in a Smart which I'd not used much over Christmas. Failed to start in January in ~0° weather. It made a good recovery on a reconditioner on the kitchen table. But I didn't fancy seeing if it survived the following winter so replaced it in summer when my fingers weren't numb.
 
Sold car.

Not much interest on FB/gumtree so paid £25 to advertise on AT and it sold. Got £1800 for it which is a bit lower than I'd hoped for but acceptable. (WBAC was offering £1100).
 
Hit a massive pot hole turning into a restaurant car park. Steering is now light and vague, hoping the alignment has been knocked out and it’s not something more sinister :(
 
Gave the E92 a wash after a week of dealing with flooded roads followed by frosty salt covered roads. I was surprised at how much it cleaned up by letting some citrus prewash sit on it for 10 minutes followed by a thorough rinse off with a garden hose with gun attachment. I don't have any proper ceramic coatings, but I think I used Gyeon Ceramic Detailer on it last week. Naturally, I didn't leave it at that, the car got a proper wash and a top up of protection.

Put the E46 battery on the Ctek while I was washing the other car. Like the posters above, I haven't been using the E46 a lot as I don't want to use it on salt covered roads, so apart from the occasional 10-15 mile run to get it up to temperature I haven't really used it since November.

Next week I think I'm going to approach the garage close to where I work to see how much a replacement crankshaft pulley and belts will be on the E92 as it has reached the mileage where a lot of the pulleys seem to break up. As much as I'd like to do the job myself to save some money, I don't plan on doing anything other than basic maintenance (if necessary) in the current weather, and I could do with the car being useable the same day which probably wouldn't be the case if I attempted the job myself.
 
Got it muddy!!! Stock Discovery 3 on road tyres. What a fantastic day of going slowly!

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Eventually jet washed the car clean:

After going to the BP garage jetwash friday (which was cordoned off), then another garage yesterday (same)
The local Shell was still open, however they had changed the unit for a karcher one. So my coins/card would not work had to go in and buy a voucher.
The main issue is the unit is about 3x the width of the old one, so it was actually pretty tricky to get around the car and clean it. Oh and the cables are not high enough, so they hit against the car as you go round if you don't try and carry them.
 
Rroff said:
Probably wouldn't have gone so well on summer touring or UHP tyres - those are probably M+S rated.

I need to give the Navara on CC2s a whirl on mud see how well they cope actually.
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I’d like to say yes but they’ve only got about 2-3mm of tread left. Got some AT’s on order they just didn’t turn up in time
 
shifty_uk said:
Hit a massive pot hole turning into a restaurant car park. Steering is now light and vague, hoping the alignment has been knocked out and it’s not something more sinister :(
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Wheels aligned, front toe was out on the wheel that hit the pothole.

I'm still of the opinion that the steering feels a bit lighter than usual but no apparent issues, might all be in my head. I'll get them to check it over when it's in for a service next month.
 
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