gangzoom

Actually it's a very big deal...I hardly have time to clean my car once a month. If am paying £30k+ on a car I don't expect to put foam/cleaning solution into the engine every 2 weeks just to keep the thing working...in any case I'm not sure any one has actually found a way to elimante carbon build up?

Even a quick search on the web shows plenty of RS4s producing much lower than expected figures on dynos which than 'recover' once the valves are cleaned (propely by scrubbing the valves not using foam/cleaning solution). As said all direct injection engine suffer from this...BMW have recently produced an official document and specific equipment for cleaning the valves (£500 a time I think, and I'll probably get my car done once it hits 50K).

But for some reason the RS4s are really badly affected, I'm actually quite surprised the Americans haven't tried to sue Audi...

I had a DC2 Integra R before my Z.

When really pushed the Type R was more fun than the Z, it had more feedback, better turn in (the Z is 200-300Kg more in weight), and at 9Krpm the 1.8l engine sounded like a touring car (helped by a total lack of sound proofing). Not really sure if it was any faster than the Z, but certainly more fun.

But...I sold the DC2 after 10months, where as the Z lasted me nearly 4 years. Mainly because I realised even though the Teg was an amazing driving machine, as a day to day car for dealing with motorways/speedbumps/traffic (had no air-con) I simply couldn't live with it longterm (I was 22 when I bought the Teg). Similarly a Lotus Elise/VX 220 would be even more fun, but I struggled to get in one with the top down.

For day to day driving (95% on the time) the Z beat the Integra hands down. Better looks, much more comfortable, and a stereo that you could actually use at speeds >50mph, and for the other 5% it was fun enough for me

As long as your sensible the Z is perfectly safe, I used mine daily for 4 years through rain/snow/ice all on summer tyres..and never got stuck once or even come close to losing the back end on public roads..as some one have said, the Z is very predictable.

I also looked at a S2000/DC5 as replacements to the DC2 Teg, but in all honesty they just weren't as "special" to drive as the Teg, and the way the engine delivered the power felt far too similar to the Teg and I just couldn't get away from the feeling the DC2 Teg was the peak of the Type R brand and everything else after wards was just Honda trying to recreate the magic...where as the 350Z has a complete different feel, and actually made me understand what the term "torque" actually meant

So in summary, I think the Z will be more dull to drive compared to the EP3, but on the other hand the Z is actually a car non-petrol heads (girls included ) actually appreciate, and for day to day use theres no comparison, the Z wins every time!!

I initially looked into RS4s, but they seem to suffer very badly with carbon build up on the valves. I think the problem affects all the FSI engines in the VAG group, not sure if that includes the S5.

I think all direct injection engines suffer from this (including the N54 engine in my 335i), but on the RS4s this seem to cause major problems with loss of power/error codes (even on cars with low miles), where as on BMWs I've yet to see anyone report carbon build up causing loss of power/error codes..even on cars thats done >100K.

I was put off buying any VAG group car because of this, the NEW S4 seems to not suffer from carbon build up..when I was looking 18months ago they were still >£30K so out of my price range, but am sure by now they will be well below <£25K.

I was in middle of Leicester when the sky just turned black. All we had was rain..and now a dirty car. Wife called me up to warn me about the hail (was on my push bike) but it never came. Her car is fine (just covered in sand)...cannot believe the GTR could be a write off

I think that frankly your in for a shock.

 

If you think your only going to lose £10k in five years on a brand new BMW, that your going to be doing 20k a year in, your misguided to say the least. The 123d is circa £30k+ ;

 

http://beta.pistonheads.com/classifieds ... 2dr/333878

 

Heres a 2007 120d M sport at £11k that has half the mileage your car will have;

 

http://beta.pistonheads.com/classifieds ... ort/546120

The 123d is a much more desirable car compared the 120d, so you cannot compare the two. The cheapest 123d coupe (2007) on Pistonheads is on for £12.9K. Thats about £3.4K deprecation per year, which isn't actually that bad.

Personally I don't find the ride in my 335 any worse than the Zs. Switching to non-run flats does effect the handling, BMW fitted these cars with soft rear sub frame bushes to complement with stiff side walls of the run-flats. Apparently M cars have much stiffer bushes, hence one of ways to improve handling on a non M car BMW is to ditch the run flats, but swap the rear bushes for M car versions and uprating the antiroll bars (so am told by Birds BWM, who offer to do the work but for lot of £££ )

The 123d is a rapid little car...had one give my 335i a run for its money a few months ago...had to change down a gear to pull away

Just be careful when taking the car to BMW for servicing...they will try every trick in the book to squeeze more money out of you

PCP is probably the best marketing tool ever, the customer loves it because they get to drive new car for £300 a months, the dealers love it because every 3 years they know the customer will be back to "trade up" to another new car with a new PCP contract (because in reality not many people just "hand the keys over" and become carless).

I have a friend who is on his fourth PCP deal with renault...he pays about £200 a months and loves the fact he is driving around in new/nearly new car (Clio/Megane/Clio/ now Megane..no these aren't the RS versions). In 10 years his spent roughly £30,000 on monthly repayments/deposits, just worked out I have spent £41,000 in the last 10 years on buying/px cars which have included a few £500 run arounds (my friend at the time was driving around in a brand new Clio) but also a Mondeo ST24, Integra Type R (DC2), 350Z, and currently BMW 335i.

If my friend was to hand in his Clio now he would be carless and down £30,000, therefore he almost had no choice but to carry out paying £200 a month for as long as he needs a car ....if needed I can traded in my 335i now I'll probably get £13K back, and go and buy a £500 run around and have £12.5K back in my pocket.

Ofcourse the newest car I ever bought was the Z (just over 18months), and if I had bought all my cars brand new than I would have "lost" much more money. So by not buying new, and saving up, I've owned a much more exotic car list than my friend, despite spending a nearly identical amount of money!! (taking the equity in my current car into the calculation)

So my own view on PCP...don't do it, yes your be driving around in a NEW car, but whats the point, surely its much better to save up, let some one else take the hit for buying new (probably someone buying on PCP ) and than get the car you really really wanted Currently I'm saving up for a F10 M5...only another 24months to go

But the clearest guy I know bought a £7K corsa 10 years ago and is still driving around in it....no doubt he has enough in his bank account to buy a 911 but chooses to do better things with his money

Here we see a simple case of BMW drivers attempting to use mirrors and signals...together! Whilst the gent in the 5 series has signalled, he's forgotten to string together the proper procedure and left out the mirrors, it's perfectly understandable he is in a beemer after all.

Actually these aren't just BMW drivers, these are M car drivers

My wife bought me an iPad 3 for my birthday, never had an iPad before and love it.

The screen on the iPad 3 is simply amazing, it's resolution is 2038x1536 vs 1024x768 on the iPad2 (nearly x4 more pixels in the same screen size!!!) . Infact the resolution of the iPad 3 screen is higher than the 20inch Apple Cineman display I got hooked up to my MacPro, and significantly more than what you get on a 50inch 1080P 'high definition' TV. High res photos just look so good, it's not something which you appreciate until you see it for yourself.

Otherwise I don't believe there's much difference between the iPad 2 and 3, but I cannot over emphasis how good the screen is on the iPad 3.

Price wise Apple don't do discounts, so your not going to find anyone selling them below the RRP. If you have a student card you can get an educational discount but that as much as your ever going to get off on the main price.

Spec wise, your simply paying for additional memory and 3G connectivity. I've got alll my music and photos available on 'cloud' storage, a combination of iTunes match and FlickrPro. So actually i find even though my iPad only has 16gig storage is more than enough, even with all my Apps (mainly games ). You can also get a 3G version but unless your going to spend £££ on a dedicated sim card with mobile data plan for it I don't really see the point, accessing movies/music/photos over a 3G network will eat up any data plan pretty quickly!!

There are other tablets around, but given we've got 3 Apple computers in the house, 2 iPhones, the iPad was really the only tablet option for me. With iCloud I can keep all my Apple products in sync without having to do anything, been able to add an event onto my iPhone at work and having the calendar on my laptop/desktop/iPad update automatically is fab, and it's free!! iCloud even backs up my iPhone/iPad directly over wifi, which means I've not had to physically connect my iPad into my computer ever!!

However despite the fab screen and some excellent productively Apps (Pages/iDraw/eSketch/iMovies) because of Apple denies you access to the iPads file system, and refuse to let you use plug in a USB stick to load/save files it really hinders just how much work you can do on a iPad, so if your not heavily invested in Apple products it might be worth looking at Galaxy tabs, in Asia they are selling very well but to be honest I have no experience of them....

Just looked at video, glad the crash barrier did its job, and no one was hurt that's the main thing

Go and make enquires about the garage etc but at the end of the day you've taken the car on to a track to drive it as fast as you can. You didn't ask the garage to prep the car for track work, you didn't check your tyres before going on the track and you have no proof what actually caused you to spin. MOTs re designed for cars on public roads not for cars been blasting around a track, if the accident happened on a publich road and you had support/proof from the police crash investigators than its a different issue. But at the same time unless you drive like a T*** it's unlikely on public roads your push the Z to its limit...

If I was in your position I would count my self lucky, and get on with life....am sure a lawyer would love to get involved because win or loose the case they will stil get paid (and at £100s a hour it wouldn't take long before the legal fees are more than the cost of a replacement Z )

Ive just been looking at 123d`s and a lot of people seem to pitch the 123d and 135i together in "as do which car i buy out of these 2". The reviews of the 135i are very good indeed. Very quick and the engine sound is apparently great. But for me, I figure I may as well keep my zed if im going for another big engined petrol.

 

Im increasingly swaying more and more to the 123d as my next car. 0-60 in 6.7 seconds as standard, 200bhp (can remap to 270bhp) and mega amounts of torque, coupled with 45mpg->50mpg if you take it steady. Sounds great to me... fun when I want fun, and economy when its the daily runner. Only downer is that the coupe ones seem to be expensive. 24k for a nearly new one..... or 18k for a 3 year old one. Thats a lot of money.

Forget the 123d...start saving up for the new F30 328i

1) 245 bhp (4 cylinder turbo so no doubt will be easy to remap)

2) 0-60 < 6 seconds

3) CO2 emissions 149g/km = £135 road tax.

4) 44 mpg

Depends on year. M3/5/6 can all be had for that, as can some Merc AMG's

 

Having been in "bored" mode myself recently, even though I have absolutely no time to drive any weekend car, there are a lot of cars out there that have depreciated a LOT and represent bargains at the moment. 650i was one I had pointed out to me, and they can be had for as little as £12k now, 6 years old with 60k on them.

You can obviously get a lot of cars which are more powerful than a 135/335 for £20K, but most of them come with eye watering running costs if used as your main car. My 335i gets used daily and in 12months have cost me £0 on maintenance (£35 for MOT), has got an oil change coming, but shouldn't be more than £150, and according to the onboard computer nothing else is due for another 12 months.

The appeal of the 335 for me isn't because its the most powerful/best handling car money can buy, but because it combines comfort/economy/practically into a package that can deliver 80-90% the performance of a M3 for not a lot of money. Similar thats why I loved the Z...a Elise/VX220/S2000 are all much more involving to drive, but when I spend 80% of my time doing city/M driving I was happy to sacrifice pinsharp handling for heated leather seats, and Aircon

The 135i has the same engine as my 335i (in fact its the same engine thats in the 1M), but only lighter....Intercooler/Remap/DeCat will see 400bhp no problems, will cost about £1.5-2K depending on cheap you can get the parts fitted. However you do need to spend another £1.5-2K on a LSD to make use of the power, otherwise your just be seeing the Traction Control light come on a lot!!!

Economy is actually better than the Z!!

I haven't driven one but have no doubt it'll fun. When buying one make sure you get one with all the Spec you want...BMW charges extra for just about every options and some of the cheaper cars have a very sparse interior.

For of all round practicality/performance/economy I think think there's very few cars that come close to what a 135i/335i can offer, especially now when you can pick up a decent 335i for £12K!!.... Its just a shame they all look boring in comparison to the Z, and there's a 118d/320d around every street corner

It doesn't make any sense. The grit doesn't magically disappear? It must be getting rubbed into something?

It all gets picked up on the cloth...it's really was amazing how much dirt they can soak up!! I was really surprised at how well it works...even on a car that was covered in grit/dirt/bird poo etc. Its hard to fine out exactly how they work, this is the closets I could find...

"Here is the science behind how the whole process works. When sprayed onto a car panel, the soaps, surfactants, and lubrication agents break down dirt particles, the polymers wrap around the particles and bond to the dirt. A microfiber towel is used because of high absorbency and softness, which helps to scoop up these dirt particles. A second microfiber towel is used to help polish any remaining formula."

Looks like a good result there.

Do the micro fibre cloths come out clean after a regular wash in the washing machine?

Washed them after by hand, took about 5 minutes and few rinses, but yeah pretty clean afterwards.

Wow, your car was filthy Looks much better clean though. I like the starry car in the background

The wife sees it as my job to clean the cars...mine isn't too bad, but the Civic gets neglected, it'll be dirty again in a few days...but still has covered 50,000 miles through rain/snow/sun on some pretty awful roads in the last few years without any mechanical hiccups .

Could be a 12hr detail but me thinks that things riddled with spiders webs ?

 

As long as your happy with it and after all it is a commuter...

 

Would not use this myself on my own car...

 

On my mums hell yeah.... :-)))

The inside was much worse, no spider would want to live in there ....I spent about 3 hours hovering and tidying recently...strange thing is if I leave house in the state my wife leaves her car in I'll be getting a big telling off .... still not sure if I'm brave enough to try it on the 335i....will see that happens to the "wax" first in the rain.

Just to say I’m no detailer (as Mitz can testify), but do like trying to keep the car looking clean. However both of the family cars are used daily for commuting and I rarely have time to spend a whole afternoon cleaning/waxing. Have previously used a £5 car wash once due to laziness, and emerged with a damage the rear wiper and lots of new scratches everywhere, never again

This “waterless†system (Greased Lightning) claims you can just spray on the shampoo/wax and than just “clean†and buff. This has always seemed like a bad idea, given all the dirt/bird poo that builds up and than your just rubbing it all over the paint surface with no water to "wash" away all the rubbish .…but was feeling brave today so gave it ago (on the wife’s car of course)!!

The car hasn’t been washed for about 8 months, so was pretty dirty.

So I applied the shampoo/was as directed, straight on to the surface (without any prewash or wipe), and than buff off with microfiber cloth…and that's it

Rear quarter, pre and post.

Front area, pre and post (all the small specs left are stone chips..looks like no paint is a match for the stones/dust of british roads, the car is 4 years old and has done about 50,000 miles community around Lincolnshire/Derby/Leicester ).

Front wheel, pre and post (not really clean but literally just sprayed on the shampoo and than 15 sec wipe, my excuse for not bothering to do a proper clean is that it'll get dirty again in a few days )

Mid “washâ€

End result:

Overall I’m quite impressed, and the product does what it claims. So instead of 2 buckets, lots of water, shampoo, wax, drying/polishing cloth the only things I used was 3 mirco fiber cloth…and no evidence of any new scratches.

Of course its not completely waterless….took quite a while to clean the cloths afterwards!!

I paid £25 for 2 x 1 Liter bottles, I used about 200ml on the car today, and applied the shampoo quite liberally because how dirty it was, so at a squeeze I recon I could get 6-7 “washes†out of a 1 Liter bottle, so about £2 per wash. It’s not cheap, but given I only get time to clean my own car maye be 6 times a year its not all that bad, especially if it means I don’t have to bother getting out the buckets/hosepipe/wax etc…still not sure if I’m ready/brave enough to try it on my car!!! The shampoo is suppose to “wax†the car as well, so I’ll see what happens when it rains

Dont own a 335 but have driven one hard on a fair few occasions, and personally thought it was a little soft for my taste, certainly more so than my Zed is/was. Lovely car, very fast in a straight line (when it got traction ) but less involving than a 350 for me in the coreners - the one I used to drive was bone stock though.

The 335 is probably less sharp when really pushed, but Birds BMW who have developed their own suspension package (EVO gave their 335 demonstrator 5 stars) actually uses softer spring than the stock M sport setup, instead they uprated the Antiroll bars and changed the dampers to dial out some the inherent understeer BMW built into the stock car..currently I'm saving up for their kit, but it comes in at £2.5k installed

Its hard to compare the two cars directly, one is a dedicated sports car the other a 4 door family saloon which is built on the same platform as a 316i. For anyone wanting to move on from the Z into something more practical the 335i is a fab choice, and i guaranteed you wouldn't regret buying one

Mine is going on a rolling road soon, just waiting for some aftermarket air intakes to turn up...will post the results when its done

I think its all to do with what car your trading in against...

I got over £8k for mine (05, 57K) 12 months ago against a 335i from a BMW dealer because they just wanted the 335i shifted. At the same time the VW dealer offered £4.7k against a brand new Golf R that had a list price of £32k, he told me they had no incentive to sell Rs so wouldnt budge on the sticker price or px value. Than I had Renault/Ford dealers offering me £6-7k against Megane/Focus RS.

Enjoy the 6 series, they do look very comfy!!

How does the Beemer handle compared with the Zed. Is it better or worse at going round corners than the Zed?

Hard to answer in a straight forwards way. Stock without a LSD the 335 really struggles for traction, in 2nd gear unless the road is slickly smooth the traction control would kick in. On your average poorly surfaced B road its almost impossible to really enjoy the car because of the lack of traction. Hence I got a LSD fitted to mine almost as soon as I bought it, and now the car behaves the way it's suppose to.

In terms of pure grip I think the 2 are very similar. The 335s damping isn't as good as the Z's, but that might be down to the runflat tyres. Overall I'm very impressed by the 335, and cannot really fault it's handling.

But in terms of driving "fun", I find my self actually taking the 335i for longer drives than I did with the Z!! Only difference been the 335 can carry 4 adults and all their luggage Take one for a test drive you wouldn't be disappointed.

I loved my Z but have to say I love the 335i even more, despite there been a 320D around every street corner Theres also a ridiculous amount of tunning options for the 335 most of which is not that expensive, mainly thanks to the Americans who seem to love trying to push the N54 engine as much as possible (there's a video of one on YouTube out dragging a Lambo ). Have to say its going to be very hard for me not to buy another BMW as my next car!!

I would say anything other than a manufactures warranty is pretty worthless.

Even on my BMW with its "BMW approved used car warranty", when i asked about a stuck bonnet catch and squeak seat (all both needed was a bit of oil) I had a list of excuses the length of arm as to why the items weren't covered and that it would cost £56 just for someone to look at it. I also overheard one of the service managers giving a mechanic some "advice" about another customers car which had developed a oil leak it went something along the lines of "do anything you can to get the thing back on the road, and make it quick/cheap". Needless to say my car is never going near that dealership again (Sytner BMW in Leicester in case anyones thinking of using them for any mechanical work)

You smash a pedal on a high powered 4wd mid corner and steering wheel turned it will oversteer.

 

Then you let off the pedal and you don't have the 4wd grip. You only have that grip if there is power going through the wheels.

As long as the wheels are in contact with the ground you will have grip. Grip is simply the friction generate by the tyre and the ground. This is determined by things like tyre compunction, temperature, road surface. You loss grip is the rotational force of the tyre is more than the friction been generated (wheel spin). You get liftoff oversteer in FWD cars because when you take the power off the front wheels all of a sudden gain MORE grip because they no longer have to accelerate. If the grip available to the front tyres is now more than that of rear tyres the car will oversteer.

Than there's obviously wait transfer, which changes alot especially when you have 500bhp. Taking the foot off the accelerator can shift the weight off rear tyres which in turn can REDUCE grip. But they will still generate grip just relatively less.

Am sure some one doing physics can correct me in much geared detail...I took one look at a mechanical engineering degree, saw the words Fluid dynamics and decided it sounded too hard so did something easier instead

Tell your brother to get a JB4/JB+ tuning box fitted..these are WHP reading

This apparently what the engine unit makes with down pipes (£600), cold air intake (£100), and JB4 box (£320). So about £1K you can get close to M3 power levels!!

Going to stick my 355i on a RR soon to see what the JB+ and intercooler have done to BHP but my butt dyno tells me its a lot quicker than my old Z .... must resist fitting downpipes...

Calling all camera/tripod guru's! Anyone using a Tripod for a Sony NEX-5N or can recommend a good one, planning on getting one but just doing a bit of research first.

Steve.

If your getting a tripod don't be cheap, go for a good make Manfrotto or similar. Costs from £120 > but its definatly worth it.

A £30 tripod managed to dig a 0.5mm groove and rub off the serial number on my 450D due to poor construction and design of the mounting plate. Thankfully I only use that tripod may be twice, anymore than more it might have actually damaged the tripod mount on the camera

I've now got a Manfrotto one with a pistol grip head which is fab, but have to say though, have only really used the tripod a few times, and mainly for group photos. Though the tripod only weight a few kilos I'm always too lazy to actually take it out of the house Instead I've upgraded to a 550D body to get better night shots, got to love been able to get decent shots at ISO3200 hand held exposures

The value provided by the NHS is 2nd to none, I have seen my patients get emergency open heart surgery within 24hrs of presentations (including echo/angiogram+plasty/intra aortic ballon pump). At the same time I'm also embarrassed to tell my patient some times simple/routine procedures are delayed because of the system is simply run over capacity 99% of the time. The bed occupancy in the NHS is roughly 82% in the Netherlands the number is 62% for the same population density.

Put it simply the reason NHS hospitals seem over filled is because they are!! However the fact any one can walk in off the street and receive world class care (yes world class, my local hospital streams live procedures world wide to teach other centres how to perform procedures, including those in America.) is simply amazing. And if you've been lucky enough to live in the UK all you life you will never appreciate how amazing that is.

The American simply is widely recognised by all those i the health care profession as the most inefficient. Hence why in NewYork people are dying from untreated TB, a disease which is usually reserved for the 3rd world (WHO data estimates US health care costs at person at $6700 compared to $3300 in the UK including all private costs).

The NHS isn't perfect, but nor is BUPA. As far as am aware no BUPA hospital in the UK can deal with any form of critical/intensive care (essentially means they cannot manage unstable/the most ill patients), and the doctors/nurses working in BUPA are the same ones your finding working in the NHS hospital. So the health care been delivered isn't different at all.

For us who can afford it a privatised system is great (especially for health care professionals because our pay will go up), but ultimately it means those people who cannot health care will be left to die on the street. But I suppose the same goes for housing/benefits in general...

One thing that does stand out in the Civic is just how cheap the interior feels compared to the Z and my 335i. If u stand the thought of driving a 320D than that might be worth a look, nearly 200bhp and 60+mpg on motorway runs, plus it's RWD and with so many about/new model just relasesd am sure they can be had for very little money these days

There's loads of Civics around, I really don't think ur have a hard time finding one. Honda have issue a recall recently regarding getting changing the fusebox to correct a problem with the battery been drained whilst the the engine is off (this happened to my wife's car and caused the battery to die completely after 18months).

Otherwise I really don't think much goes wrong with them, the wife's car has SatNav, Bluetooth, Crusiecontrol etc....it's done 50K from new and apart from the battery issue nothing else has needed attention.